Trust in the Body Politic

photo via Giphy

One of the more obnoxious phrases that gets tossed around by thoughtless people in conversations about politics is that "America isn't a democracy... it's a republic."  Setting aside the revoltingly pedantic tone of comments in this vain (the top dictionary entries for "democracy" and "republic" are functionally identical), the implication thrust proudly forward by this phrase is that although the American people have some influence over its governmental processes, there are many elements of the political system designed to prevent the exercise of the will of the majority.

Is this the case?  Undeniably yes (see: electoral college, two-party system, gerrymandering, et cetera).   I really hope this doesn't seem controversial to anyone out there - even the structure of the Senate is anti-democratic, because Senate representation isn't proportionalized to population (if you live in Wyoming, your vote for your local senator wields sixty-six times more influence than a Californian's vote for their senator; each senator from Wyoming represents about 300,000 people, and each California senator represents 29 million people... that's fair, right?)

Asking Hard Questions

Should this be the case?  I think each and every person, certainly each and every American citizen at least, should take a long, hard moment to ask themselves this question and interrogate the answer, because if you don't, then the honest truth is you don't really believe in democracy.

As mentioned in Monday's post Complacent Victims, the rich, wise old white men that crafted the skeleton of the American state didn't really believe in democracy either; they feared the "tyranny of the majority", the power the mob might wield against vulnerable minority populations.

It's a fair concern - it's a concern that's been realized countless times throughout human history.

But maybe we should at least consider the other side of this question, right?  I mean, let's just think this through logically.  The argument for incorporating anti-democratic elements into our system of governance goes something like this:

1. People can't be trusted.
2. We need people to regulate our political decision-making.

Alright, that's basically incoherent, because if people can't be trusted, how can we trust people to regulate the political process.  I must be over-simplifying... let's try this again:

1. Some people can't be trusted
2. We need other people to regulate our political decision-making.

Feels a little bit more like a cogent thought, so I must be on the right track, but this line of reasoning still doesn't make sense unless we can somehow differentiate between some people and other people.  Here's one more stab at fleshing out the argument for why America shouldn't really be a democracy:

1. Some people can't be trusted (because they'll act selfishly, at the expense of people that are different than them)
2. We need other people to regulate our political decision-making (people who will be totally selfless and only think about the greater good).

Those other people mentioned in Premise (2) are supposed to be our political leaders and the institutions they've built - does Premise (2) describe most people that you know?

We're all tacitly endorsing a system that divides the American polis into groups and explicitly incorporates the idea that we'll be vicious towards each other, so we need the smart, responsible political leaders to keep us in line.  I don't know about you, but to me, this whole arrangement feels very, very broken.

For now we end on a cliffhanger, but come back for a deeper dive into two important aspects of this debate: how the safeguards designed to protect minorities are used to protect the interests of ruling elites (Friday), and how we need to change the discourse of American politics if we ever want things to be different (Monday).

Happy Hump Day America.

Complacent Victims

photo from Sandbox News

An extremely contentious and unusually competitive presidential primary season has opened up discussions about quite a few aspects of the American political process that many find frustrating.  Before he emerged as unquestionable Republican nominee, many of Trump's supporters were outraged at the prospect that he might walk into the convention with the most delegates and be denied the Republican candidacy by the party leadership through a contested convention.  Similarly, Sanders fans have lobbed numerous accusations at various pieces of the Democrats' primary process that they believe are being leveraged to put their man at a disadvantage (for instance, that for technical reasons he may be left off the ballot in Washington D.C.).

Full disclosure: Bernie Sanders is my candidate of choice.   Now that the cat's out of the bag, I'll add that I think such frustrations are totally reasonable.  Many (particularly those who'd rather see Hillary or one of the "establishment" Republicans that have since fallen by the wayside sitting in the Oval Office) dismiss such concerns as tantrums thrown by people playing a game to which we all know the rules.  We should accept, they say, the real world as it is, and not waste our energy on complaining about things we can't change.

I just can't get on border with that kind of lifeless fatalism, largely because I think its a tool deployed by people vested in the Status Quo.  The powers that be have the most to lose from a conversation about changing the world, and the more we allow ourselves to be convinced that things will always be the way they are right now, the more sure that prospect becomes.  With that in mind, I'd like to point out a few obvious truths for the Internet's humble consideration.

1. Being a Democrat or a Republican is not a constitutional requirement for being the President

All of the angst, all of the controversy, all of the gamesmanship and politicking around the nominating processes for the country's two major political parties exists only because it is accepted as an unassailable truth that President will be a candidate nominated by one of these two parties.  Political reality that may be, but only because we, the voters, have surrendered this power to the Dems and the GOP.  For whatever mind-boggling reason (probably because we assume that only a Democrat or Republican can win, and therefore those are the candidates that we must vote for... thus the self-fulfilling prophecy continues), the overwhelming numbers of voters will only cast their ballots for members of one of these two parties.  This is our fault.  Think that the way the party elites design the rules isn't fair?  You're probably right, but no one's making you vote for members of their party.  We, as an electorate, have essentially ceded the power to determine our leaders to these two gangs whose members life experiences have a lot more in common with each other than with most of us that will be casting ballots.

Don't like super-delegates? Don't like party affiliation rules?  Don't like arcane procedures for assigning delegates based on percentage thresholds and geographical vote distribution?  These things, each of them designed to restrict the ability of the general public to freely elect their leaders, they exist only because we all freely choose to keep voting for the same goons that put these structures in place.

2. All the people that DON'T VOTE every year could have decided every presidential election. Ever.

A resounding victory in an American presidential election means between your opponent 60%-40%.  Most presidential elections are decided by a difference of less than ten percentage points.  That fact is astounding when one considers that strong voter turnout for a presidential election in American is sixty percent.  That's not of the general population - that's a fraction of eligible voters.  Barely more than half of people that have the opportunity to officially voice their opinions about our country's leadership bother to do so.  No wonder they think they can get away with nearly anything - because no matter how frustrated we are with the state of American politics, many of us will do absolutely nothing about it.

Some of you may be grumbling about various barriers to voting that exist.  Some of you may be recalling stories about the Arizona democratic primaries, where people were waiting in line until Midnight to vote.  Once again, you're right.  Our leaders have put roadblocks in the way to try to discourage people from participating in governance, because frankly they'd rather you didn't bother.  And the problem is that we're not outraged.  We should be prepared to pull down any leader that tries to take power away from the people, but most of us are too excited to try to earn marginal advantages for our own political factions instead of having any respect for the democratic process.

3. Seriously, your leaders are afraid of you, and they will do things to try to pacify and disenfranchise you.

It's not a dark secret - it's been part of the discussion of American political process since its inception.  That was the primary motivation for the inclusion of the Electoral College in presidential elections.  The problem was so openly discussed by Founding Fathers like Madison and Hamilton that observer of early American politics Alexis de Tocqueville gave it it's own snazzy name: "The Tyranny of the Majority".  The rich, educated guys that made the rules (and still do) didn't trust the average person's judgement.  They built mechanisms into our elections that allowed them to present the elegant facade of democracy while still preserving the safety of oligarchic dominance.

America (and the rest of the world) will only ever be as free as we demand it be.  If these simple facts make you angry, my recommendation is straightforward - start giving a shit about democracy and elections.  Not just the candidates.  Care about the process, even if it means your team might be more likely to lose.