The fundamental question
Super Tuesday and the recent decisions by the Supreme Court seem like a perfect backdrop to the ultimate question in a representative democracy. I can filibuster here, but the question is a fairly simple one to ask, but a very hard one to answer. Do we believe that we are better off with the people (all of the people) being able to have unfettered choices in who represents them? I would say it is pretty clear that the answer to that question has been a resounding no throughout our history.
In the beginning, only land owners could vote and even then they had to resort to the electoral college. African Americans and poor people didn’t get the vote for nearly a century. Women had to wait almost 50 years after that. Finally, younger people could work, pay taxes, and go to war, but they couldn’t vote until after the Vietnam War. Fast forward to the present time and the biggest battles of our times have been the methods used to keep certain people from voting.
The efforts in Colorado, Maine, and Illinois represented the other guard rail that we could place on our democracy. If you don’t want to restrict who can vote then you can restrict who they can vote for. The last nine years has been a circle jerk where each party or group has waited for the other to do the dirty work for them. The Republican party hoped that he would lose at the ballot box and go away. They also said it was the responsibility of the Justice department. The Justice department clearly slow rolled their prosecutions and hoped he would just go away. The cabinet could have used the 25th amendment. Congress could have voted to convict once if not twice. Mitch McConnell himself said it was a job for the courts. Now, the courts are saying it is a job for Congress.
I’m not sure whose failure is the most egregious. Each institution taken by itself could explain its actions. I found the use of the 14th amendment to be problematic at best. At some point some recognized court or institution has to come to an official stance that he participated in insurrection. The January 6th committee danced around it. Jack Smith has been dancing around it. We have been calling it out on cable television and the blogosphere, but there has been nothing definitive or official.
That lands us right back at the opening question. Do we absolutely trust the people to make this call? If the answer is no then it is time to do some hard soul searching. I’d argue that if we were really about letting the people choose their leaders in an unfettered way then he has been told no twice already. That’s a tiny consolation. If we still think it is way too dangerous to allow ordinary people to have the unchecked ability to choose their leaders then we have to seriously reevaluate who we are. I personally think a number of Americans are too stupid to vote and understand the gravity of it. They are easily led and vote against their interests too easily. I also have to acknowledge that the same exact arguments were used against women, African American, and young people voting. Do we bring back literacy tests? Do we bar people with red hats or stupid bumper stickers? Obviously, I speak in jest but if you decide that some people are incapable of doing it properly then you are fundamentally responsible for finding a way to cull the voter rolls in a fair and equitable way. Otherwise, we have to let it ride and fight like hell.
