Populist paranoia has taken over both parties!
Any system that can nominate to the United States Senate a crypto-Nazi like Graham Platner in Maine and a bunko artist like Ken Paxton in Texas — both moral degenerates — is more broken than Bill Gates’ wedding vows. Here in Wisconsin, full-on socialist Francesca Hong is likely to win a seven-way primary election to be the Democrats’ nominee for governor. Mathematically, as little as 15% of the vote would do the trick in an election that historically engages less than one-quarter of the electorate.
No wonder John Nichols extols partisan primaries — that La Follette-era progressive reform. (Blaska Rule #267: Beware all “reforms.”) Comrade John’s foul-mouthed, big-Gummint collectivist could well represent the party of Patrick Lucey. Republicans don’t like to be reminded that Donald Trump benefited from a field so crowded 10 years ago that the debates had to be conducted in shifts, like meals at Little Annie’s orphanage.
Who votes in primary elections aside from heavy breathers? That is an argument against populism, which we define as the triumph of the ignorant many over the knowledgeable few. Anyone think this country would have been better off with populist William Jennings Bryan as president? Or George Wallace? We forget that Hitler was originally elected in a parliamentary system. A certain event on a January day five years ago was America’s beer hall putsch. Those who know better — pretty much every elected Republican — are afraid to say so. Because of populism.
Power-brokers in a smoke-filled
… Chicago hotel room selected Harry Truman to replace crypto-communist Henry Wallace to run with a President who they (and few others) knew was dying.
The USA, we are reminded on her semi-quincentennial, was conceived NOT as a pure democracy but as a democratic republic. The Founders:
• Restricted who could vote — usually requiring some investment in the community in the form of property;
• Limited who could serve, primarily by demanding the maturation of age; and
• Curtailed what they could do upon election. Something about the separation of powers.
The Bill of Rights is all about limiting what our elected leaders can do. Face it: the Founders did not trust The People — not completely. Since that long-ago time, the franchise has been expanded — and rightly so (except for the 18-year-old vote). But the likes of Madison and Adams — themselves propertied and educated elites — anticipated that leaders would (dammit!) lead! This the essence of conservatism.
The Constitution’s drafters were soon vindicated by the excesses of the French Revolution, which led to demagoguery, the terror, war, and dictatorship. There is a case to be made that Donald Trump is more Robespierre than Hamilton, constantly in search of traitors rather than consensus.
“Obscured by the turn to populist democracy,” Constitution professor George Thomas instructs, “is any sense that representatives and political parties play an important role in educating and shaping the public mind, or that democracy depends on political leadership to refine, channel, and elevate popular wants.”
As Madison put it in Federalist No. 10, “it may well happen that the public voice, pronounced by the representatives of the people, will be more consonant to the public good than if pronounced by the people themselves.” Contrary to populist democracy, Madison deemed it a virtue that popular will cannot be immediately translated into public policy. — “Madison and the Perils of Populism“
Which is an argument for the Senate’s three-fifths cloture rule. Majority leader Thune is not the enemy, MAGA militants.
Great presidents lead; populist presidents pander. Reagan refuted the prevailing dogma of containment when he demanded Gorbachev tear down that wall. FDR made the case for intervention over then-dominant isolationism. They educated. JFK inspired.
Blaska’s Bottom Line: goes to Wall Street Journal-ist Barton Swaim: “For a decade the chattering class has bewailed an attack on democracy. The advancement of Messrs. Platner and Paxton suggests the real problem is too much democracy, not too little.”
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