In my last few blogs, I have explored what I see to be the changes in society that are causing many white, mostly rural and even elderly Americans to be anxious about the nation’s future and incline them to doubt our system and to look to a ‘strong man” like Trump for answers. Many of those same people are conservative Christians of whatever stripe.
In this blog, I want to explore the anxieties of those on the other side of the political divide. Their anxieties are very different in character. They are likely to welcome the changes I described earlier. Their concerns arise out of their realization that our political system is configured in such a way as to give preference to the concerns of those who fear change, despite the fact that they are clearly in the minority. I think they are right to be concerned. If Trump is reelected in 2024 and does the things he is talking about doing, our government will become unrecognizable, and those who support him will not have to worry so much about most of the changes I have outlined in earlier blogs: they will have to worry about America sinking into national senility as we get hotter and hotter and more and more divided.
To be sure, Conservatives have long pointed out that we are not a democracy, but a republic. Where the Founding Fathers are concerned, they are correct. But what they are incorrect about is that over the last two hundred years, we have been inching ourselves closer and closer to a democracy. I won’t bore you with a long history lesson, but I must tick off a few examples of what I am talking about. When the nation began, only white-male-property owners could vote. Now all citizens over eighteen can vote, regardless of ethnicity, literate or non-literate, property owners or paupers, males or females, and those whose gender is non-binary.
When this country began, what we voted for was our Representative to Congress. We did not vote for Senators, and we still don’t vote for the President: we vote for electors, but a number of people clearly do not like it when the new President does not win the popular majority. No matter what Conservatives say, the American people want to be in control of their lives, and they resent it when government seems to be working to the advantage of a rich and privileged minority.
The resentment from the liberal side of the aisle is that while the majority of Americans say they approve of the measures liberals support, the way our government works, the minority party- the Republicans at present, is able to manipulate the system to enable them to thwart those changes and protect the wealthy in doing so. Let me explain how that works.
First, the Constitution was set up to make sure that popular influences were not able to express themselves. The Founding Fathers were clearly afraid of the “mob” and created a Constitution that protected our society against it. One way to do that was the have a two house legislature , one popularly elected, based on population, and the other appointed, with two members from each state. To be sure, we now elect our Senators (although some Republicans would like to change that and go back to what the Fathers had originally intended). Even so, this body is a boon to conservatism. Here I have to remind you of the map of voting by geographic distribution I mentioned in an earlier blog. Recall that rural states are more numerous than urban ones and these states tend to vote more conservatively than the ones that have large urban populations. In other words, some people’s votes have more power in them than others where the Senate in concerned, and both Senate and House must approve legislation for it to become law. This stumbling block to change was intentional where the Founding Fathers were concerned.
Second, the popular house is itself not really popular. In times past, when Republicans controlled the House as they may well do again after November- the total number of House votes cast for Republicans in the country was always less than for Democrats, even though Republicans gained more seats. Why? Because of the districting process. Governors draw district lines in such a way to guarantee their party’s control even without a popular majority, gerrymandering. Lately Republican governors have been utilizing these techniques very effectively and the current Supreme Court has ruled that such practices are constituional.
There is another problem with the House. The term only lasts for two years, and most of the time, all House members are running for office. They certainly cannot be expected to work on legislation that involves reaching across the aisle for a compromise. The recent near paralysis we have seen in government in the last decade or so is the result.
We need to make some revisions in our system of government, revisions that would get us back on the road to becoming a true democracy. First, we need to adopt a system of directly electing the President. The Electoral College should be done away with.
Second, we should adopt a system of voting whereby people may vote for candidates in rank order, much like they use in Alaska now. Using this system, we would no longer need runoffs; and the person most people most prefer would be selected for office. It would also diminish the influence of political parties, and come closer to what the Founding Fathers were thinking in the bargain.
Third, we should amend the Constitution to require mandatory retirement of Supreme Court Judges once they have served for ten or, at most, fifteen years. As we see in the court now, the majority of the justices reflect the most conservative thinking in the country. Their recent decisions are not in keeping with the sentiments of most people in the country. Often in our history, the court has been manned by people of advanced years who were out of touch with the thinking of people in the country. If you placed a limit on how many years a justice can serve, as we do with every other office in the country, it would help to keep the court more in sync with the rest of society.
I invite your thoughts.