"You would be amazed at the questions you can get wrong and still score 100 [on an IQ test.] Half of the people in this country are not even that smart."
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Who should choose the president? Maybe not voters.
We aren't that smart???
Readers should not feel insulted. The nation's founders felt the same way,
Fear of voters is why the original Constitution provided that only the House of Representatives would be chosen by direct popular vote, and there was no provision for initiatives or referenda. Meanwhile, state legislatures chose senators, electors chose presidents, and presidents and the senate chose judges. It was a republic, with democratic power diffused through representatives.
The founders did not trust democracy. Neither do many Americans.
The current focus is on Republican efforts to disregard an election but a slice of the Democratic electorate has shown skepticism of its own. The DNC preferred Hillary to Sanders in 2016 and in 2020 Buttigieg, Klobuchar, O'Rourke, and Bloomburg all dropped out and endorsed Biden. Many Sanders supporters considered these acts "ganging up" on Sanders. They called the process rigged. But in the end, Democrats unified under a candidate whose legitimacy was based on a foundation of having won the most votes.
Republicans are positing much different ideas, ideas closer to the position of the founders: The popular vote cannot be trusted.
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| Gohmert: VP can decide on his own |
Vice President and House of Representives choose. Louis Gohmert's lawsuit advanced the premise that the Vice President, as presiding officer of the Senate, can use his authority to recognize some state electoral certifications and not others. He says Vice President Pence has an obligation not to recognize ballots from six states that voted for Biden, thus causing neither Biden nor Trump to have a majority of electoral votes. That would throw the election to the House of Representatives. The premise is that the Vice President, through the power of selective recognition, has discretion and can use his own judgement about which electors are legitimate.
Congress Chooses. The lawsuit by Senators Cruz, and about a dozen others makes the claim that the House and Senate have authority to investigate, deliberate, and decide the merits of competing slates of electors on whatever basis each member finds persuasive. Elections in the states are not dispositive, Congress' decisions are. The House and Senate independently decide which electors are legitimate, decided by majority vote of their members. If the two chambers agree, their choice becomes president. If they split and do not agree, the Speaker of the House becomes president.
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| Cruz: Congress can decide on its own |
This would be a quasi-parliamentary system, except that a president once elected has a set term of office unless impeached and removed. This system would make Congressional districting even more fraught and consequential, and incentives to partisan gerrymandering would increase. One would be choosing both a legislator and presidential selector.
State Legislatures choose. Trump and multiple Republicans have asserted, and the Hawley lawsuit asserts now, that state legislatures have constitutionally-given unalienable plenary power to decide their state's electors. Legislatures in every state arranged for a vote of the people, but legislatures are not bound by that vote. They can change their mind at any time on any basis. In the current instance, there is a Republican majority legislature in key states that ended up voting for Biden. But so what? Legislatures can exercise their own judgement. Trump is urging them to do so.
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| Giuliani: Legislatures can decide on their own |
The elections were close. State legislative districts are partisan and gerrymandered. Their own district's voters may well be delighted their legislator exercised "common sense" and voted for the right candidate. The net result would be that general election campaigns for president would take place primarily in the selection of state legislatures. This would dramatically increase the incentives to gerrymander state legislative districts.
Martial Law. Former National Security Advisor Flynn openly suggested it. Trump has repeatedly tweeted that people should show up in mass on January 6 and "Be wild." In the face of major disruptions, general strikes, shootings, bombs, and arson, the Insurrection Act could give legal basis for a general takeover of democratic institutions.
The US military signaled that they are not interested in participating in this, so it is unlikely to happen in 2020, but Trump placed it on the political table of possibilities. It is no longer "unthinkable." A Secretary of Defense and top generals who voiced "grave concern" regarding domestic disorder could move this from thinkable-but-no into a necessity-for-public-safety-yes. It would not take many people to trigger panic. A few hundred committed people in DC and other cities who placed bombs of the Oklahoma City variety, perhaps in subways, tunnels, airplanes, and major buildings, might spook public opinion enough that people would choose order over democratic process, especially if millions of armed partisans were parading in the streets.
Trump showed America that we are open to anti-democratic government.
A significant majority of Republicans support Trump's assertion that the election was stolen and that he is right to ignore the vote. It did not require judicial validation, only an adamant claim of fraud by the losing candidate. Voters want the partisan result, not the democratic process.
What about Democrats? Could Speaker Pelosi use a Democratic majority to refuse to seat any Republican Members? Would Democrats approve of that as payback and fair play political hardball? No one has proposed that, and no Democrat has Trump's charisma or authoritarian inclination. At this moment, using power not to seat opponents is a Republican effort, not a Democratic one.
The actions of officeholders are not as salient for the future as is the fact that a majority of the GOP voters accept ignoring the election. That makes everything possible, if not this cycle, the next one. If it is possible, and on the table, it may become politically necessary. Otherwise, one is a RINO, a Republican in Name Only.
8 comments:
We received a letter from the Writers’ War Board the other day asking for a statement on “The Meaning of Democracy.” It presumably is our duty to comply with such a request, and it is certainly our pleasure.
Surely the Board knows what democracy is. It is the line that forms on the right. It is the don’t in don’t shove. It is the hole in the stuffed shirt through which the sawdust slowly trickles; it is the dent in the high hat. Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time. It is the feeling of privacy in the voting booths, the feeling of communion in the libraries, the feeling of vitality everywhere. Democracy is a letter to the editor. Democracy is the score at the beginning of the ninth. It is an idea which hasn’t been disproved yet, a song the words of which have not gone bad. It’s the mustard on the hot dog and the cream in the rationed coffee. Democracy is a request from a War Board, in the middle of a morning in the middle of a war, wanting to know what democracy is.
—E. B. White, July 3, 1943
The Founders were right in wanting to put limits on direct democracy.
Various surveys have demonstrated appalling levels of ignorance among the populace about basic principles of our government. Important components of The Bill of Rights might well fail to withstand a popular vote.
Are we unambiguously happy with the various referenda that have passed into law in this state?
Be careful what you wish for…
The founders had no idea what the nation would look like 250 years later, so I would take issue with the notion that they didn't trust the electorate. Rather, I believe they had a belief in the rightness of Democracy as a principle and constructed the Constitution from that perspective. The concept of checks and balances depends on the good faith of those in the system and that is what is vulnerable and currently under assault from corrupt Regressives.
Today's news has a recording of Trump threatening the Georgia Secretary of State. It's the latest of many such actions that have debased the Presidency.
The Founders definitely did not trust the electorate.
Federalist Paper No. 10 clearly states that the masses are subject to destructive factionalism and are not to be trusted with direct voting on the law. Instead, FP10 advocates that the people elect delegates instead. It is those delegates (e.g. senators, representatives, electors) who will have that power, effectively placing what was hoped to be a more responsible management layer between the people and absolute power.
The founders had the horrible example of the French Revolution in mind, and wanted to avoid anything like that for America. I wonder what it tells us that a prominent left-wing journal of ideas has chosen to name itself “Jacobin.”
What is I believe the overriding problem in American democracy, is the fact that one of the political party’s economic policies are so antithetical to the needs of the majority of the electorate, that the only way it can win is by brainwashing them with truthy propaganda about Antifa coming to take over Klamath Falls, Cory Booker opening up low income housing projects full of brown people in Lake Oswego, Hillary Clinton and George Soros running brothels with underage girls in Pizzarias, the left wing Jewish media’s “war on Christmas, and “Bad things happening in Philadelphia.”
Watching the 11 Republican Senators and VP Pence kowtow to Trump’s baseless and dangerous nonsense only confirms to me how morally and intellectually bankrupt the party of Lincoln has become.
Not only did Thomas Jefferson not believe in public education; he didn't believe in an educated public! Now, I'm beginning to see his point: Why bother, if Republicans are what it's capable of producing?
Trump and his cronies are providing a needed service, stress testing our articles of governance and political practices. It might not feel that way though. Let's see what happens. Pop some popcorn and turn on C-SPAN. Watch and learn. Leave it to a reality TV star to make us all pay attention to these dusty documents and like a Ken Burns series giving these old words life. Yes 2021 is a new year and a great time to resolve, or at least, begin to to fulfill the promises made and resolve some of the originalists intent. I'm sure no one wants to see ever again slavery enshrined in the Constitution to name just one of the compromises the want into writing and approving the formation of our republic. Hey! By the way how did that one work out?
You are right, Michael, representative government is better. Mitch McConnell and Nancy Pelosi - how could we ever do better than that?
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