Passion never fails to wrest the scepter from reason.
—Federalist Paper No. 55: An essay penned by James Madison.
Per the Bipartisan Policy Center, last August, "244 million Americans will be eligible to vote in 2024. The 2020 election saw record turnout of 66.6% of eligible voters. If we see turnout that high again, more than 162 million ballots will be cast by November."
162 million is about half America’s population per the U.S. Census Bureau. Political junkies assess the 2024 presidential election as a "dead heat."
A microscopic fraction of one per cent of the voters will determine which winner takes all.
The tossed coin lands on its edge.
Again. Per the Council on Foreign Relations as to 2020:
"When you look at the smallest popular vote shift needed to give Trump a victory, the 2020 election was close.
"Indeed, it was even closer than 2016. If Trump picked up the right mix of 42,921 votes in Arizona (10,457), Georgia (11,779), and Wisconsin (20,682), the Electoral College would have been tied at 269 all.
"The House would have then decided the election."
85,839 votes out of a possible 162 million to be cast yields. . . 0.0005 . . . about five hundredths of one percent per Pew Research — well inside the common 3% statistical "margin of error."
Such a miniscule margin doth not a governing mandate make. What’s up?
Expect much post-election-day skirmishing, as partisans litigate the state election outcomes for, possibly, weeks, leaving us temporarily in suspense as to the legitimate winner.
We-the-people appear to be arranging for a stalemate.
Or, in the common parlance, gridlock.
Never despotism! I’m not a member of the "Cthulhu for President, why settle for the lesser evil?" movement.
In the current absence of a credible vision by either national political party, maybe that’s not such a bad thing. Give me gridlock or give me death!
I am, in solidarity with the almost all America’s Founders, a (small “r”) republican.
The Founders considered — and I consider — democracy (a word to be found nowhere in the Constitution) a recipe for factionalism, leading to mob rule, leading to tyranny.
I’m no anarchist. I’m in very fine company.
Per the National Constitution Center:
" . . . [James Madison] had surveyed the history of failed democracies. He wrote to Thomas Jefferson… explaining that he was determined to help the convention avoid the fate of those 'ancient and modern confederacies,' which he thought had fallen prey to rule by demagogues and unruly mobs.
. . . "His reading further convinced him that direct democracies — in which citizens made all the important decisions by majority vote — were destined to fail, because they were vulnerable to the public’s uncontrollable passions.
In The Federalist Papers, written after the Constitution had been drafted, Madison argued, "In all very numerous assemblies, of whatever characters composed, passion never fails to wrest the scepter from reason."
Progressives keep pushing us toward something called "democracy."
Per the University of Vermont, Democracy is . . . a "virtue word or glittering generality used to dupe us into accepting and approving of things without examining the evidence carefully."
Examples: 'Natural,' 'Democratic,' 'Organic,' 'Scientific,' 'Ecological,' 'Sustainable,'" to be conducive to the left’s goal of achieving a radically egalitarian, totalitarian state.
Democratic? Yep.
America’s Founders must be turning, if not spinning, in their graves.
I’m ready to turn, if not spin, in mine.
I found no better definition of political legitimacy bestowed by republicanism than the speech by Old Whig Edmund Burke to the Electors of Bristol:
"Certainly, gentlemen, it ought to be the happiness and glory of a representative to live in the strictest union, the closest correspondence, and the most unreserved communication with his constituents.
"Their wishes ought to have great weight with him; their opinion, high respect; their business, unremitted attention. . .
"But his unbiassed opinion, his mature judgment, his enlightened conscience, he ought not to sacrifice to you, to any man, or to any set of men living.
"Parliament . . . is a deliberative assembly of one nation, with one interest, that of the whole; where, not local purposes, not local prejudices, ought to guide, but the general good, resulting from the general reason of the whole. . . . "
Burke, thusly, taught us that legitimacy resides in achieving "the general good, resulting from the general reason of the whole. . . . " I, too, am persuaded of this.
The federal government of the United States currently suffers now from a democratic taint, a whiff of mob rule, and the omnipresent threat of the public’s uncontrollable passion" wresting "the scepter from reason."
The left continues to attempt to drive America toward a glittering generality called "democracy." Paleoconservatives (like me) and neo pragmatists (like me) believe legitimacy is gained not by mere numerical plurality.
Legitimacy may be gained by honoring an oath we all have taken many times:
"One nation, under God, indivisible . . .
with liberty and justice for all."
(A related column may be found here.)
Ralph Benko, co-author of "The Capitalist Manifesto" and chairman and co-founder "The Capitalist League," He's also the founder of The Prosperity Caucus and is an original Kemp-era member of the Supply-Side revolution that propelled the Dow from 814 to its current heights and world GDP from $11T to $104T. Read Ralph Benko's reports — More Here.
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