Problems of American Democracy - Part 5 - Elections Are Popularity Contests
by John Lawrence
The most competent, knowledgeable and experienced candidates are not elected. The most popular are, and in many cases these people don't know anything about governing or legislating. Especially today in America's celebrity culture, media celebrities with tons of name recognition get themselves elected while people who would govern wisely are rejected. Case in point: experienced and talented Hilary Clinton lost the 2016 election to media celebrity Donald Trump. Now Trump goes around endorsing the ljkes of Dr. Oz. Why? Because Dr. Oz is a household name having been on television for a long time. This feature of democracy could mean the end of democracy as more and more incompetent celebrities who know nothing about governing are elected. In fact the candidates who pander the most to the voters are more likely to get themselves elected than the ones who tell it like it is. The question must be asked, "Is this the best way to run a country?"
I don't think so. What you want ideally is the best and the brightest, the most knowledgable and the most experienced running the country. At the very least there should be a requirement that all Presidential candidates must have served at least one term in Congress. But that's not what the Founding Fathers ordained. Any nincompoop can run for President of the United States and become the most powerful man or woman in the world. Kishore Mahbubani writes in his book, "Has China Won?": The Chinese Communist Party is not run by doddering old apparatchiks. Instead, it has become a meritocratic governance system, which chooses only the best and brightest to be promoted to the highest levels." I am not endorsing the Chinese system. Yet by removing selection of people for the highest offices from the general public, the system does not fall victim to elections by the lowest common denominators. In China the people elect officials at the city or county level, and those officials elect officials at the next highest level and so on. So the highest officials are elected by that governing body at the immediately lower level.
It seems that what you want at the national level are officials who represent the best and the brightest not those who have become media celebrities or prominent athletes. You also don't want millionaires and billionaires in a position to buy elections. Money corrupts politics and makes it certain that government will be by the elite and for the elite. Just because a politician has a lot of money or worse yet has people with a lot of money running his campaign does not mean that that politician is in a position to govern effectively. American democracy is entering a phase in which only media celebrities are going to be able to collect enough votes to get themselves elected. They become the ultimate "influencers." Government by the most popular is antithetical to government by the best and brightest. When these "influencers" also are total panderers you have government by those who can most effectively dupe the voting public.
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