19 April 2007
A Mature Democracy
In his Comment on the creation of a presidential super primary in many U.S. states (in the April 16, 2007, New Yorker), Hendrik Hertzberg called for the U.S. to become a “mature democracy.” His implication is that a popular democracy is morally superior to the American Electoral College system. And indeed, this might practically be true if the U.S. were really an aggregation of individuals rather than an association of communities.
The states that compose the United States are more than mere geographic locations where citizens reside. They have distinct characters created by history, topography, neighboring countries, etc. The grand compromise of the Constitutional Convention that formulated the system, which has served our country so well for 228 years, awarded relatively greater power to the more numerous but less populous states that would not be ignored in its affairs.
Small entities have become more and more important not only in international political affairs but also in business organization. The impulse to define one’s interests in terms of a shared community within the personal reach of its stakeholders has become essential to maintaining an individual’s bearings in the “flat” world of today. Eliminating curious Electoral College politics would contribute to that disorientation. It could be more costly to personal self worth than the theoretical disenfranchisement that Mr. Hertzberg attributes to the coming compression of American primary elections.
In his Comment on the creation of a presidential super primary in many U.S. states (in the April 16, 2007, New Yorker), Hendrik Hertzberg called for the U.S. to become a “mature democracy.” His implication is that a popular democracy is morally superior to the American Electoral College system. And indeed, this might practically be true if the U.S. were really an aggregation of individuals rather than an association of communities.
The states that compose the United States are more than mere geographic locations where citizens reside. They have distinct characters created by history, topography, neighboring countries, etc. The grand compromise of the Constitutional Convention that formulated the system, which has served our country so well for 228 years, awarded relatively greater power to the more numerous but less populous states that would not be ignored in its affairs.
Small entities have become more and more important not only in international political affairs but also in business organization. The impulse to define one’s interests in terms of a shared community within the personal reach of its stakeholders has become essential to maintaining an individual’s bearings in the “flat” world of today. Eliminating curious Electoral College politics would contribute to that disorientation. It could be more costly to personal self worth than the theoretical disenfranchisement that Mr. Hertzberg attributes to the coming compression of American primary elections.
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