"Democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."
Winston Churchill, Nov. 11, 1947
The United States is not supposed to be a democracy. By intention we have a republican form of government. Most citizens' capacity to practice good self-government extends to choosing representatives who give governance the attention it requires. Presumably they can make wise, informed decisions.
Democracy and theories of government overlap with theories of finance. For 50 years economists and students of markets have argued that markets are approximately "efficient." The stock price presumably embodies the "wisdom of crowds." In theory, all the knowledge about the fair value of a company is subsumed in the total buying and selling activity of the marketplace. The Efficient Market Hypothesis coincides with an overarching idea in biology, social science, and game theory that every organism is in a struggle to survive and reproduce. All life is a descendent of survivors. Therefore, what is, is what is meant to be, the sum of competitive interests. This is not the best of all imaginable worlds but it is the best of all possible ones in the netted-out balance of self-seekers.
My observation is that financial markets are not efficient. They are the sum of ignorance and emotions. Humans are not rational, nor are they always self-seeking, nor do they understand their self-interest. Humans are not individual actors. We are a semi-herding species; we herd less than sheep, but more than orangutans. Humans take leadership from authorities. Humans look for cues from others. We believe confidant liars. We join crowds. There is money to be made in investments when prices become irrationally fearful. I lived it. There were giant opportunities in 1974, 1982, 1987, 2002, 2009 and 2020. Fear was in the air, breathed deeply and spread, even by the least engaged people.
Both markets and elections have low-information, low-engagement participants. I am one myself when I am cajoled on behalf of office morale to enter a March Madness NCAA tournament bracket. I go along to be part of the office team. When representative government works as intended there is a healthy division of labor between the broad electorate and the decision makers. Even uninformed voters are subject to the laws of the polity, so fairness requires they be able to vote. Presumably, uninformed voters can do little long-term harm because they are electing knowledgeable people of discernment.
This is where we have a breakdown. The independent judgement function of republican government still persists, more or less, among Democrats. This is an artifact of their weakness and division, not high principle. No one has persuasive sway among Democrats--most certainly not Biden. Leaderless Democrats have room for independent thought. Trump, however, has been extraordinarily persuasive and effective in leading Republican voters. He has been ruthless in culling disloyal members of his Party. GOP officeholders are terrified of him and should be.
The officeholders are afraid of their voters, so they silently enable Trump. We are observing democracy.
6 comments:
Once again, I woke up happy and delighted with the beautiful snow, read your cogent post, and sunk again into a fact based funk.
What we are observing is chaos and confusion, not democracy. 2021 started with Republicans attempting a coup and ends with Republican House Judiciary Committee members tweeting that COVID booster shots don’t work (a lie).
Poll workers, school administrators, public health officials and journalists have received death threats. Right wing disinformation, conspiracy theories and outright lies have undermined our democracy, prolonged the pandemic and devastated our healthcare system. Thanks mainly to the GOP, it’s been a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad year.
Here’s hoping that 2022 brings us out of the dark ages.
The analogy from voting to often-indifferent, peer-pressured participation in office March Madness pools is pretty good except to the extent that such pools have zero impact on tournament results.
Nonetheless, there is no valid excuse for the long lines we see at election time. Nor is there any rational excuse in 2022 for not requiring voter ID. If the former can be malicious, the latter is not.
Politics is like a ouija board with hundreds of millions of hands on hundreds (if not thousands) of sliders. Factor in human nature and distorted algorithmic information flows and you have a political climate arguably more complex than the planet’s climate, and we can’t even reliably predict that.
And then there’s Trump, emitting political greenhouse gases, raising the political temperature.
The best we can do is hang on tight as the roller coaster hits the top of the hill. Yee haw!
Yes, very astute. Republicans are afraid of their voters, but also are utterly contemptuous of them.
From NGS:
"The first known democracy in the world was in Athens. Athenian democracy developed around the fifth century B.C.E. The Greek idea of democracy was different from present-day democracy because, in Athens, all adult citizens were required to take an active part in the government. If they did not fulfill their duty they would be fined and sometimes marked with red paint. The Athenian definition of “citizens” was also different from modern-day citizens: only free men were considered citizens in Athens. Women, children, and slaves were not considered citizens and therefore could not vote."
Pretty much the same thing the founders put in place, sans the red paint. Athenian democracy lasted less than 200 years, so we are doing a bit better. It took a century to free slaves, another to free women, and tolerance is a work in progress.
The reason democracy is better is that it is more peaceful for the rulers than the uprisings that accompany tyranny. Things like medical care, social security and fair taxation are a result of the democratic process. Republicans represent the wealthy, who wish to keep as much of their wealth as possible, regardless of how this impacts the larger society, whom they see as beneath them and disposable.
So yes, a Trump was the inevitable result of the Republican worldview.
Politics is really not much different from business. Both want to get as much attention (votes and dollars) from their potential customers.
Trump is a used car salesman/con artist who is telling people what they want to hear: it's ok to hate and ignore laws you don't like.
His supporters are too dumb to recognize what he is doing.
If you don't see the con then you are the mark.
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