Would the Voters Please Grow Up?
Hey, everybody! Wilson Reynolds, who I've featured here, has been kind enough to feature me on his blog, Political Pensées. It's a great blog where he discusses politics, particularly as they relate to the 2016 Election. So check it out! You can find my guest post here or read on below.
Modern American politics are in a shambles. There's widespread corruption and bureaucracy, not to mention those elected into office refusing to actually represent their constituents. And I honestly blame a significant portion of this on the 17th Amendment of the Constitution and the mentality that it propagated.
For those of you who don't know or get mixed up, the 17th Amendment provides for the direct election of Senators. On the surface most people would think "what could be wrong with that? It's more democracy!" but, once again, we need to perform our due diligence as citizens and examine the issue further.
We first have to recognize that the Founding Fathers were immensely intelligent. They read volumes of philosophy and history and theology and law, so they knew what they were doing. Why, then did they decide to have Senators elected by the state legislators rather than the people? In fact, why did they even mandate representative elections at all? The simplest explanation: they didn't trust the people. At least not entirely.
Don't get me wrong, the Founding Fathers wanted to protect the best interests of the people. But they recognized that the people did not always know how to best take care of themselves. They knew the convoluted history of Athens, how prominent politicians won elections or swayed decisions not by the validity of their arguments, but by the quality of their rhetoric and their ability to emotionally manipulate people. Athens' purely popular (read democratic) voting system was ultimately its downfall.
Having known this history, the Fathers were wary of purely democratic systems for elections. This is why both Senators and the President were elected by representatives, rather than by the people directly. See, when poor circumstances strike or the nation has to make an emotionally charged decision, it cannot necessarily trust the public to make the wisest decision. Crowd dynamics demonstrate this. People, as social beings, tend to move with the crowd, regardless of the logic. This is especially true when majorly emotional topics are involved (like deciding to go to war, or how to deal with a terrorist attack, or responding to Police shootings, etc.). This is why we have the President and also why we elect him with representatives in the Electoral College rather than a poll.
Elected officials are meant to make the tough decisions. They are called to take the wisest path, regardless of public outcry. But who is going to make the tough decision about who is most fit to run our country? The people? I'd say the state of politics this year proves that the populace is not equipped to make the wisest decision on who should run the country. They've forced us to pick between the lesser of two evils. So what if elections were handled representatively?
In the good old days, (and I'm no History scholar, so correct me in the comments if I'm wrong) there was no popular election of the President. There was no party convention (there weren't even parties at all), no primary race, no debates about foreign policy and what to do about the rumblings of war between France and Britain. It was just a group of statesmen (literally, each state's chosen representatives) in a room trying to figure out who was the best person to lead the country. There was no lobbying, no political intrigue, just straight up wise discussion.
That was how Washington was elected. One of (if not the) most influential people in the history of our nation, and the very world, was elected representatively. And then, against his very own warning, America develops the party system and slowly adopts more direct elections.
See, this is the beauty of representative election. We don't know Donald Trump's, Hillary Clinton's, or Bernie Sanders's character that well. We can guess and infer from history, but we don't know them like we know our neighbor, or that guy down the street who always helps Mrs. So-and-so carry her groceries. Government was meant to be communal; it was meant to be a social endeavor, not something we chose to participate in on our own. Imagine if we sent the best people we know to our state legislature, and then of those people, some get sent to Washington to decide, without outside influence or motives, who was most fit to run our country.
Yes, this is impractical to a certain extent because of the monumental population in the US, but perhaps each state could send a shortlist of candidates. This would be compiled with those who have shown, like Washington did, their heart for their country and a passion for the Good and the True and from this pool of the greatest Americans, one would be chosen to lead our nation through the increasingly precarious situations the U.S. encounters. That is my dream for our country. Not a massive and impulsive 'popular' vote between a liar and a sensationalist, but an election that gave this nation the leader it truly needs.
Image credit: Wix stock photos
