Every campaign season, candidates promise to “fix Washington.”
Then they get there… and realize the system has other plans.
In this week’s Crash Discourse, I’m joined by Dr. Maya Kornberg—author of the new book Stuck: How Money, Media, and Violence Prevent Change in Congress.
Among the book’s many important points, Maya makes a simple but uncomfortable observation: Congress doesn’t just resist change—it absorbs it. Reformers arrive with energy and ideas, but the institution is very good at turning disruption into business as usual.
Still, history shows change does happen—just not the way we expect.
Main takeaways from the conversation:
Big change comes in waves
1974, 1994, 2018—large freshman classes can shake the system, especially when they act together.You have to play the game to change the game
The most effective reformers build coalitions, work with leadership, and wait for the right moment—not viral moments.The incentives are the real problem
Money, media, and even threats of violence push members toward attention—not institution-building.Change isn’t instant—it’s opportunistic
It takes years of groundwork before a window opens.
The hopeful part? Congress isn’t permanently broken. It’s shaped by the people inside it—and it has been changed before.
The hard part? The people best positioned to fix it are the ones most constrained by it.
That’s the paradox.
And maybe the assignment.
