Frank's Musings

When Trump surprisingly defeated Clinton in 2017, I first thought it wouldn’t matter much because “the US has a government of institutions.”  However, those institutions turned out to be vulnerable to corruption, owing to the decay of vigilant commitment to democratic values, the same decay that allowed Trump to be elected in the first place.  The ambivalence towards the makeup of the leadership of the national government is a result of the public’s growing abdication of its responsibility for how the country is run.  It’s like a return to the days when everyone accepted monarchic rule as natural.

When citizens of a democracy throw up their hands in frustration with their lack of control over government actions, they commonly believe in conspiracy theories to explain political and economic events.  They don’t give credit to their own collective power that elections and markets exist to mediate.

The rise of conspiracy theorists in the Congressional Republican Caucus is due to the willingness of ordinary Americans to elect them.  Contrary to Trump’s supporters I’d almost be willing to assert that it is extreme right-wing election victories that are fraudulent.  Under the pretense that their policies would reaffirm the people’s control of government policies, they really intend to pursue their personal advancement agendas.

Democratic elections aren’t popularity polls like Nielsen ratings.  They afford the public in the U.S. representative system the only official way to direct government policy.  (This was the only available tool when the Constitution was written.  The Internet offers a possible future way to widen the public’s role in government.) 

Confusing elections with popularity polls leads to the empowerment of demagogues.  Constant vigilance is needed to protect a representative democracy.  Features of its written Constitution can always be distorted by a determined seeker of political power.