The Tyranny of the 51% and Other Political Nonsense
For years, I have been wandering the plain of political rhetoric that blankets these United States. My main radio used to have a select button for Air America Radio on KQKE (long since replaced by a more Moderate format) on the right, and Rush Limbaugh & cronies on KSFO on the left. (I would have thought those dial locations would be reversed.) My intent in juggling between those extremes was to keep myself politically aware and balanced. Instead, what I am is despondent. Why? Because America – the “Great Experiment” for political freedom -- is in fact a farce, a fraud, and a fake. Instead of being the model that people the world wide should hope to someday emulate, America has become a shining example of What NOT To Be.
First and foremost, understand that despite what you have been told all your life ever since elementary school, the United States is NOT a democracy. In a democracy, everyone has a say in what shall be done. Every member of the community casts his vote on every issue, and majority rules, actions are decided. A democracy does not guarantee to everyone that their wishes will be what shall be done; it just merely means that you get to say your piece and then hope that the majority agrees with you. After the community gets to a certain size, democracy quickly becomes impractical. A thousand people having to vote on every issue means that every issue has an overwhelming amount of debate, to the point that the result is that nothing actually gets accomplished. Accordingly, we have adopted a political system that starts with democracy, and then moves to a system that is considerably more workable: a Republic.
In a Republic, the greater mass of the population votes for a body of representatives that theoretically will speak on behalf of ALL of the voters. It should come as no surprise that theory quickly gives way to reality in that the elected representatives tend to vote primarily for the interests of those voters that put the representative into office. This demonstrates the “tyranny of the 51%”: no matter how slight the disparity of the portions, when “majority rules” is the rule, there is nothing to prevent that slight majority from becoming dictators.
Despite the theory that our elected representatives work for us and are obligated to protect our rights, daily events prove that theories are for dreamers and reality is for those that use their vested powers to enrich themselves.
Consider: A politician campaigns by laying out a platform of political beliefs, plans, ambitions, aspirations, and promises that he “will do his best” to improve your life. His hope is that the majority of voters will see enough of their own interests and attitudes in the character of that politician that they can hope that when he votes on any given issue, he most likely will vote as the constituent would vote if he were in the politician’s place. The election takes place and the politician wins: what happens now? Does he keep his promises? Surprise: he is under no obligation to do so. Does his voting record reflect the will of those voters that put him in office? Once again, he is under no obligation to do so. Yes, if he consistently ignores the desires of his constituents, there may be cries that he should be recalled – but how likely is that to occur? The most likely adverse reaction is that the voters will simply wait until the next election and then choose to not reelect that particular politician. In the meantime, there is absolutely NOTHING to prevent an elected Democrat from voting on every issue as if he were a Republican, or vice versa.
Now, multiply that theoretical politician by about 500. Take a long hard look at the Congress of the United States and reflect on how much of what it does actually and accurately reflects “the will of the people”.
Forty years ago in college, I was an avid anarchist. My chant was, “Nuke Washington during the State of the Union address! Whatever replaces the government must be an improvement!” In particular I was disenchanted by the way that Ford let Nixon off the hook: There we had a dishonest president, caught dead to rights, with the opportunity to roast him good, thereby sending a message to all other politicians that “This could happen to you if you step out of line!” Then Ford deprived all of us of that golden opportunity. It’s almost as if, since Nixon had the chance to choose Ford as his successor, that the main question during the interview process was, “What can you do to keep me out of prison after I resign?”
The other thing I was fond of saying way back then was, “A crooked government does NOT have to control its voters; it only needs to control the vote counters.” Thirty years later and Florida (twice) and Ohio have proven my point.
So, now we have “a democratically elected government”. What does that mean for John Q. Public? Does it mean that his wants and desires will be represented? Well, who is John Q. Public? Is he a Democrat? Is he a Republican? Is he an Independent? A Green? A Liberal? A Progressive?
Just who does our government actually represent anyway?
Let’s just play with numbers for a bit. We have a voting population of a given size. That population is broken up into segments that represent different political philosophies. During the last Presidential election, approximately 80% of all eligible voters cast ballots. (I’m probably wrong on that figure, but bear with me.) Of those that voted, slightly more than half voted Democrat (supposedly). Does that mean that the majority of the voters picked a Republican president (assuming that the ballot counters gave us accurate numbers)? No, it doesn’t. It means that half of those that did vote chose who would be president over all of us. That means only 40% of the population is in a position to call the shots for 100% of the population.
Whatever the actual numbers might have been, the reality is that the U.S. now has a Democrat in the White House, but the GOP has a clear majority in the Senate, and a clear majority in the House of Representatives, and (I’m guessing here) a majority of sitting judges across the country. Executive, Legislative, and Judicial: where is checks-and-balances supposed to come into play? The ONLY things that get to the President for signature are things that the GOP allow to get that far. For all intents and purposes, we have a Republican government. As long as all those Republicans stand together, provided they don’t care about any public outrage, those Republican politicians can pretty much do whatever they damn well please. (How many votes to repeal Obamacare? That should tell you what the GOP wants.)
They, what the politicians want, not necessarily what their Republican constituents want. Remember: an elected official is under no obligation to vote any other way than whichever way he wants to vote. I understand that most of us standing on the sidelines still retain our ideals – and because of the fact that we still are somewhat idealistic, we find it hard to believe that so many starry-eyed idealists that campaigned for office have, in fact, willingly surrendered their ideals when wheelin’-‘n’-dealin’ in the political arena. We still hear them frequently giving lip service to the ideals that got them into office, and because of that, we tend to give them the benefit of the doubt. But if you scrutinize the entire voting record (and non-votes for measures where the politician doesn’t want his name on the record) of practically every elected official, if you scrutinize their income sources (including perks and gifts), you most likely will find that the current politician is NOT the same person that was elected to office. Or at least not the person that you thought they were in the first place.
Just who do all those politicians represent? It seems that nearly every politician in office has next to nothing in common with the average voter that put him in office. How many of them have children serving in the military? How many of them have to contribute towards their medical benefits? How many of them have “an average income”? How many of them have to rely on Social Security when they retire? Even if a politician was an “Average Joe” before getting elected, once he’s in Congress he will soon have little or nothing in common with the overwhelming majority of his constituents. How long does it take for the most sincere of candidates to wander from his ideals enough to start compromising them away in order to get this by sacrificing that? How much of your soul can you sell before it’s not yours anymore? It should come as no surprise that as of 2015, of the 535 elected representatives in Congress, 261 were millionaires. After they leave office, an even greater percentage are millionaires because so many of them take jobs as lobbyists with astronomical salaries. How can millionaires seriously represent the interests of the poorest of the poor or even the interests of the rapidly vanishing Middle Class? How can it be humanly possible for a politician to keep the interests of his constituents foremost when Big Money is coming from Special Interest groups and all he now gets from his voter base is his salary (which he gets to keep regardless of whether or not he honestly represents their interests)? These days, it seems that a “man of principle” in office will remain the champion of his constituents by being willing to accept money only from those Special Interest groups that most closely resembles the interests of the voters. (The fact that there are a few differences that just happen to make the Special Interest richer and the voters slightly poorer does not detract from the fact that, overall, the voters have gotten most of what they wanted. Right?)
Undoubtedly, there are “honest” politicians that do in fact attempt to do their best to represent the interests and desires of their constituents, but the voting records of our senators and congressmen clearly demonstrates that that number is vanishingly small. In 2000, not a single senator was willing to co-sponsor a complaint about the improprieties of the then recent election. In 2004, despite the widely advertised dereliction of duty of 2000, only Boxer was willing to step forward to start the ball rolling. (And it didn’t roll far.) We had a nation of angry Democrats screaming about how the Republicans had stolen the White House – twice --, and hardly anyone in office was willing to be their voice in Congress. Not about the election. Not about the Cabinet nominations. Not about much of anything.
Just who do our elected representatives represent? In the end, judging solely on their voting records, “our” representatives represent only themselves and the golden principle of, “What’s in it for me?”
The sad thing about all this is that we have done this to ourselves. No matter how much we bellyache about our government, the bottom-line is that every community has the government it deserves. Think about it: Throughout history, if you take a close look at any population group, the government that is in place is the one that the people of that community have allowed to be in place. If the population doesn’t accept the government, the next election would throw the bastards out, or a revolt would occur. But until that changeover, the population as a whole is signaling that it is okay for that government to remain in place. The United States is actually THE prime example of a population throwing the bastards out. Then again in 1860 a significant percentage of the population at least attempted to separate from what was perceived as a tyrannical majority. When that majority demonstrated a superior military capacity, the oppressed minority eventually acquiesced. Since that time, American citizens have tolerated the excesses of their government as long as they were allowed to complain about those excesses without being arrested (usually). And as long as the voters felt they had an honest chance to at least vote the bastards out of office. Individual voices banded together to create larger voices, called political parties. The Lone Wolf just can’t make it in the political arena anymore. It takes the backing of a major political party to get anywhere in the political arena. But is the louder voice worth the sacrifice of individual ideals?
What we have in the U.S. today is what I call a “high school football team political mentality”. Once having identified with a given political party, to the party member the world devolves down to “us” and “them”. Individually, we choose our party because it is closest to what we ourselves hold near and dear. From that point, if you’re a Republican, then the most important thing is that for any given post, it should be won by a Republican. The same is true from the Democratic angle: all other things remaining the same, it simply would be better to have a Democrat in that office instead of a Republican. It has gotten to the point where, when you meet a smart, bright, lucid individual, once you learn he’s from the “other” party, then, despite appearances, that individual must be an idiot. Not only are they idiots, if they belong to the “other” party, they must be liars, fools, and selfish scheming bastards. It almost seems that even though we may not be clear on exactly who “we” are, nearly everyone feels confident in describing accurately what “they” are and the myriad flaws of “their” political beliefs, goals, and attitudes. Tune to any political talk show and I’d almost be willing to guarantee that within a matter of minutes you will hear either, “Republicans believe…” or “Democrats believe…” Rarely is it, “We believe…” that you hear. And almost universally, the description that follows the opening phrase will not be a flattering one. It may not be that the majority of “our” party members want those others to suffer painful deaths; it may suffice if they simply realized that they’re not wanted here and they voluntarily just went away. Or at least just shut up and let the rest of the right-minded citizens do what’s best for everybody.
Just like back in high school when “our” team was playing against the school rival.
The fact that the Republicans and Democrats dominate the political arena has pretty much eliminated any real possibility for political reform. It is absolutely true that Americans love winners. And nearly as much, we enjoy being winners. What is more important than the best candidate for the job winning the election is that it be “our” candidate that wins the election. (Of course, the best candidate for the job is “our” candidate. Always. Without a doubt.) So, what happens if you don’t particularly agree with all of the planks in the Democratic or Republican platform? A fairly large number of voters actually do vote their conscience; the end result of that is that election after election, Third Party candidates show up in the “Also Ran” column. I believe that for the vast majority of voters that would actually want a Third Party candidate to win, they nevertheless do not vote for their first choice. Having NEVER seen a Third Party candidate come close to winning the presidency, many people choose to “not waste their vote”. Knowing that it is totally and completely impossible for someone other than a Democrat or a Republican to win the presidential race, they then instead vote for whichever candidate comes closest to what they believe in. And if neither candidate comes close, then those voters vote against the candidate that is furthest from their beliefs. Because of this tendency for voters to choose not wasting their vote, any candidate that stands too far afield from the mainstream has about a snowball’s chance in Hell to actually win the big elections.
When all is said and done, rather than focusing on getting the most capable candidate into office, for the vast majority of voters it is much more important that they can say, “MY candidate won!”
You can readily see the quality of government that kind of thinking has gotten us.
Now that I have managed to gloom-and-doom everyone into the same brown funk I’ve managed to end up in, I feel obligated to toss out some suggestions about, “What do we do to fix it?” The solutions are, to say the least, Herculean. We start with the observation that nearly all of our “democratically elected representatives” are most likely “tainted”. Scrutinize their records meticulously and identify which ones have sold us out. Then, come election time, replace them with a New Face. Concentrate on candidates that favor election reform. Then, once the majority of Congress is made up of New Faces, pass a measure that lays out term limits for all senators and congressmen. (Two terms max, just like the Prez.) By doing so we sacrifice experience, but what we gain is the ouster of entrenched demagogues that have learned all the ins-and-outs of pork barrel politics. The ones that have repeatedly and effectively tempted young new idealistic representatives and taught them how to trade their ideals for personal gain. Thereafter, we need two MAJOR reforms. (What? That last one wasn’t “major”? I wasn’t kidding when I said “Herculean”.) The first of these has to do with lobbyists. Presently, lobbyists must register as such, and file a statement of exactly what it is that is being lobbied for. We need much more than that. We need a guardian for the people sitting in on every session between lobbyist and politician, recording everything that transpires between them. (The only way a politician gets “bought” is because he feels confident that it won’t get around that he was “bought”.) Secondly, the stranglehold that the Republicans and Democrats hold on the political structure of this country MUST be broken. One of our main capitalistic theorems is that competition promotes efficiency. How efficient is it for us to be forever stuck with only two real choices? If that means that the two main political parties get broken up (just like Standard Oil and AT&T way back when), then that is what must be done. When you have a voting population measured in the hundreds of millions, how logical is it to have only two real choices for any given job?
Having tendered these suggestions, I already know one thing: It ain’t never gonna happen. Too much power already resides in those that have a massive vested interest in maintaining the status quo. Too much money is available from Special Interests to fund whatever it takes to keep the unwashed masses from taking back the power that was usurped from them. What can hundreds of millions of unorganized, xenophobic, uncooperative rabble hope to accomplish when facing off with hundreds of billions of dollars funding well-organized, experienced, entrenched politicos?
When Great Britain dumped India as a colonial possession in 1947, the country was divided more or less into two major religious groups: an overwhelming Hindu majority, but a still sizeable percentage of Muslims. The Muslims already knew that in the new Indian scheme of things, their chance of getting a fair and honest representation in the political arena was about nil. So the Muslims cut a deal with the Brits to partition India into a large Hindu state and a much smaller Muslim state as the Brits were vacating the premises. All across India, 17 million Muslims pulled up stakes and moved to what became known as East and West Pakistan. A draconian task – one might even say “Herculean” – but one that was necessary for those new Pakistanis if they ever wanted to be assured of religious and political freedom.
Perhaps the time has come for those of us that repeatedly find ourselves disenfranchised to consider the Pakistani example.