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One thing most folks in the US are familiar with is the high rate of repeat Adult Offenders that return to jail (67% rearrested and 52% re-incarcerated according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics). Recidivism being a "fall from grace" is how the term got linked to repeat offenders. I find a more appropriate way to use the term now is in politics.
Current polls put the approval rate of congress at 11%, and from what I've been able to find that's a new low during my lifetime, which has been often filled with some pretty low approval rates for congress. Yet using the re-election rates for congress we see an 87% re-election rate; that means the odds are slightly worse than one in six that someone new will take your seat! (You can view those numbers at Politico's site discussing the 2010 elections, but the rate never changes all that much).
At this point to be re-elected should certainly amount to a fall from grace because your approval will be so low virtually no matter what you do. Therefore I propose we replace the term Re-election with Recidivism. It seems only fair, as with an 11% approval rating it's hard to argue that they haven't earned it.
If you're starting to wonder how it is that anyone with an 11% approval rating can have their cushy job so consistently extended its simple. Voters like their own Congressional Representatives. They do NOT like the Congressional Representatives of other states and districts. This is how Congress manages both such a high Recidivism rate and a low Approval rate. When Congress is at 11% approval nationwide... what does that say about us?
/rant
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