The Knicks’ victory offers interesting insight into US democracy

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As New York celebrates the end of a long and historic NBA championship drought, and America readies itself for its 250th birthday celebration, there’s an intriguing insight into the working of our nation we can learn from its most iconic franchise.

The Knicks’ victory highlights a profound distinction: There is a significant difference between popularity and success. Success in basketball is clearly defined and visible for all to see: the score. And although popularity has its benefits and is certainly nice to have, it does little to ensure success.

In the structure of our government, popularity is success, because the only score we keep is who won the election.

The Knicks and their legendary fans understand this distinction. If popularity determined the score, the Knicks would have won the championship many times instead of enduring one of the longest title droughts in professional sports history.

The mission of a basketball team is to make baskets.

Success in many aspects of life is defined by a number or numbers. Measures. All competitive sports, from golf to swimming to pickleball, keep score. Every team, every player is driven by it. Businesses focus on profits, sales growth and customer satisfaction to drive total return to shareholders.

Measures define success in every field imaginable except one: government.

In the U.S., success is defined by who gets elected. While the government measures lots of things — it has more than 350,000 publicly available data sets — there are no widely recognized measures of success.

Like the Knicks, a candidate or elected official can be popular, even charismatic. But the connection between popularity and accomplishment is vague at best. So although citizens may be concerned about school performance, safe neighborhoods, economic opportunity, affordable healthcare, fuel and groceries, homelessness and addiction, those we elect are most concerned with getting reelected. They have to be.

This might have worked 250 years ago, but now we have somewhere close to 24 million people employed in federal, state and local government, overseeing a total of over $12 trillion in annual spending. And the obvious question is, what do we get for that money?

Sure, some of us know the answers to these questions. We know where the scoreboards are, but they are not what drives our political system.

There has been progress. Cancer mortality has declined significantly, violent crime is well below historic peaks, high school graduation rates reached historic highs and child poverty has declined.

That said, the absence of any form of true accountability for societal outcomes — except reelection — explains much of the division in our nation. Our two parties’ strategy has been to cull citizens into ideological camps to win elections; after all, that’s the only outcome that counts.

What would it be like if the parties’ strategy was to drive more improved outcomes than the opposing party? Crazy idea. Or is it?

The consequence of this structure today is that nearly half of Americans no longer identify with either party in our two-party system. According to Gallup, 27 percent of Americans identify as Republicans and 27 percent as Democrats, and 45 percent as independents. Being an independent in our two-party system is the equivalent of being politically homeless.

Just look at all the effort and the money that goes into winning in a system where getting elected is the only thing that matters. How much energy is spent in this nation on political hockey, hitting the puck back and forth at each other rather than at the net?

Our system lives on rhetoric, not results.

We need to modernize our democracy. We need to put societal outcomes — better jobs, better schools, better transportation, better crime reduction, better healthcare — as the basis for winning elections. Popularity should follow outcomes, and our votes should be based on who gets problems solved.

When you look deeply at what we Americans want, there is far more that unites us than divides us.

The Knicks were popular, but that has all changed. They are now champions, and their ability to win games has built a new foundation for their popularity, one that will take them to new levels of respect by fans, not to mention the self-respect and pride. They now enjoy popularity backed by the pride of accomplishment. They are truly champions.

Imagine elected leaders whose reelection is earned not by denigrating opponents, but by doing the people’s work. It would be a different nation, a better nation, a united nation.

Martin O’Malley, a Democrat, served as governor of Maryland from 2007 to 2015. Doug Ducey, a Republican, served as governor of Arizona from 2015 to 2023. The two governors are co-chairs of America’s Pulse, a nonpartisan nonprofit with a mission to make accountability a part of America’s democratic process.

The Knicks’ victory offers interesting insight into US democracy

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