After listening to the president's press conference today, I am (almost) speechless. George W. Bush, in a partial response to a question, essentially said that the opinion of the American people did not matter. When asked how he could pursue a war without the support of a large majority of the people, he said that his decisions wouldn't be swayed by "politics" or by the "polls." At first glance, his position could be seen as reasonable, even noble. Unless, of course, you believe in democracy.
In a democracy, the leaders govern with the consent of the people. But in this country, when the president has lost that consent, what is our recourse? Amazingly, as the Constitution currently stands, it is very limited. We can change that, and I have some solutions to offer, but first we need to acknowledge the sad truth that our government never really was a democracy and our Constitution, in the most fundamental way, is anti-democratic. Let me explain.
Our founders decided we should have a representative democracy. In other words, our involvement in the government was confined to electing people by a majority vote (unless it was the president, where the bizarre workings of the electoral college come into play) and giving them the freedom to make decisions on our behalf. It was a wise system and certainly preferable to any form of so-called "direct" democracy similar to that in Athens, where virtually all the citizens gathered in one place and made the decisions themselves: Such a direct democracy was impossible in this sprawling nation of ours, so representative democracy made sense. In both houses of Congress, except on rare occasions clearly set forth in the Constitution, a majority of the legislators could pass laws. They also were given fixed terms of office, so that we could periodically "throw the bums out" if their actions weren't reflecting the popular will. Of course, no document could predict every situation that might arise centuries into the future, so we also gave ourselves a way to amend the Constitution, albeit an incredibly cumbersome one -- one more bit of proof that the founders didn't have great confidence in the people. Nevertheless, the system has worked pretty damn well ... until now.
Two things have happened almost simultaneously that are without precedent. And the war in Iraq has brought both of them into the harsh glare of the public eye. First, our president has announced his intention to ignore the will of the people. Perhaps, ironically, if he wasn't subject to the two-term limit imposed by Republicans after the successful presidency of FDR, which lasted for over twelve years, he would be more responsive to public opinion. Remember how Lyndon Johnson pulled out of his re-election race when he nearly lost to anti-war candidate Eugene McCarthy in the New Hampshire primary? The knowledge that the people will have a chance to judge your actions can be pretty sobering. In the current case, however, there is no political check on King George.
Even Nixon showed more respect for the will of the people than this president in two instances. Despite his abuses of power, he recognized the growing unpopularity of the Vietnam War, acknowledged that fact, and tried to wind it down. And in the face of impeachment, he resigned and spared the country a protracted trial. I don't believe he ever said that public opinion simply didn't matter.
Second, as I've mentioned here several times before, we no longer have a system in which the majority of both houses of Congress can pass legislation, as envisioned by our founders. Instead, we have what has been dubbed "the McConnell standard," in which sixty votes is required for virtually every piece of legislation that does not have at least nine or ten Republican votes. This is due to a new and again unprecedented use of an old tradition -- the filibuster and the rules of cloture to end debate. The Senate is no longer the "saucer" into which the coffee is poured to cool it (and who the hell wants to drink lukewarm coffee anyway?). It has become more like a cryogenic chamber in which legislation is frozen, left in a suspended state, perhaps for eternity -- kind of like those frozen, discarded, microscopic embryos Bush won't let us use for stem cell research.
Of course, even if we could pass the legislation, there are nowhere near enough votes to override Bush's certain veto. Just like there are not enough votes to convict and remove the president, even if the House were to pass articles of impeachment. So, in many ways, we have to face the fact that the Constitution has given extraordinary powers to the president and there's little we can do if he or she, once elected, chooses to spit in the collective eye of the American people.
I guess we can just say, "Oh, well, we can live through it." Except maybe we can't. What if the President decided to use nuclear weapons against Iran tomorrow? Perhaps in response to a terrorist attack here at home. We are already hearing noises about an Iran-Al Qaeda link, just as we heard (falsely) about an Iraq-Al Qaeda connection. Or less dramatically, what if we just find ourselves with a lousy president who no longer has the support or respect of nearly three-quarters of the people? What can we do about it? According to the Constitution, nothing. And in an era in which events can be measured in microseconds, four years can be more than enough time to run the country into the ground.
I suggest that we need a remedy. Other nations have the ability to call for a no-confidence vote that has real consequences for their leaders. It keeps them accountable to the people, which is a fundamental requirement for any government calling itself a democracy. States are able to recall their governors for malfeasance, misfeasance, or any reason at all. Since people tend to stick with the devil they know, those recalls haven't become a regular course of business and are generally not entertained lightly. We can make a presidential recall or no-confidence referendum as stringent as we'd like. Two-thirds of the people sounds like a fair number. An alternative to a national vote would be a truncated impeachment process that was less like a trial and more like a parliamentary no-confidence vote. Short of change of this magnitude, evidence of extreme negligence, such as Bush exhibited during Hurricane Katrina, incompetence, lying to the people about momentous issues of war and peace, or an unwillingness to be held accountable to the people's representatives might be added to the very short list of "high crimes and misdemeanors" that currently constitute grounds for impeachment.
Don't get me wrong. I don't believe that any public official should sway to the fickle winds of public opinion all the time. They must use their independent judgment. But when the popular will is clear, sustained, and growing, and when the president's greatest powers of persuasion are unable to change it, there must be a way to "throw the bum out." Especially if the very survival of our fragile democracy is at stake.