If As Ralph Nader Says Analysis

In articles “If, As Ralph Nader Says...We Love Our Congressmen So Much?” by Richard F. Fenno, Jr. and “The Case for Congress” by Lee H. Hamilton, readers are introduced to arguments related to Congress. Upon completion of the texts, one may conclude that Congress is an institution that is often disliked by the American public due to common misconceptions about how Congress functions. The first article, “The Case for Congress,” Hamilton attempted to educate the American public as to how Congress works for America as a whole. In the beginning, he states that Americans often take Congress for granted, however they should not do so because Congress is an example of “health of representative democracy amid...distrust of its central institution.”

explores the Congress’s image in American society. Fenno points out the interesting phenomenon of Americans disliking Congress as an institution, but describing their district’s Congressman as “the best congressman in the United States.” Certainly, if every Congress member truly was fantastic at their job, the American public would not be so disapproving of Congress as an institution. He offers several explanations for why Congress is viewed so negatively in the public eye. His hypotheses include that Americans have lower standards for Congress members as individuals than they do for the institution as a whole and that Congress is the “most familiar and most human of our national institutions,” so the members are easy targets for criticism. Also, Fenno states that Congress members are easily individualized because they are focused on the personal goal of re-election, not the betterment of the institution. In doing so, he says, they often claim that they are going to try to fix Congress if they are related, claiming that “members run for Congress by running against Congress.” He also explains the roles of committees in Congress, and how Congress’s overall performance heavily relies in its committees. As a reader, I find Dr. Fenno to be a more credible resource on the inner workings of Congress because he is a political scientist who has completed years of observations and studies concerning