Where Do Agendas Come From?

Brendan Nyhan counters Matt Bai:

What Bai doesn't seem to realize is that elections do not ever indicatethe will of the people in some well-defined sense (there is a vasttechnical literature on this point). The best political scienceresearch to date convincingly arguesthat mandates should be viewed as a social construction. Moreover, it'snot clear that presidents enact legislation intended to make them morepopular. Contemporary presidents tend to pursue the agenda of their party, not the...