Voter Responsibilities and Self Rule

In 1787, the architects of our Constitution created a system designed to filter, and control, the passions of the broad public that had upended previous efforts at self-government (with Greece and Rome as examples).

The Founders of the United States of America established a republican form of government with checks and balances, state authority distinct from national, voters casting ballots for Representatives, not direct policy.

Bluntly put, James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, in particular, and members of the Constitutional Convention as a whole, were loath to grant ‘the people’ unbridled authority for self-rule.

Does the wide voter support generated by Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders validate the Founders’ worries?

It’s hard to fairly dispute that Trump is out of his depth as a presidential candidate or that Sanders’ socialist prescriptions would be a disaster for the country.  Yet millions of Americans support them.  That is simply irresponsible.

 

Obviously, the people’s vulnerability to the siren calls of the demagogue or the radical were anticipated in the terms of the U.S. Constitution.  But in more than two centuries, obstacles to the direct influence of the American public on politics have been weakened or removed (primary voting and direct election of U.S. senators, for instance).

The Sensible Conservative is not suggesting that the increased ability of the public to select its leaders or shape national policy is necessarily bad.  It is not. 

However, with increased potential for influence comes, I do suggest, greater responsibility.

If people are to exercise their right to rule themselves, they have a concomitant obligation to do so responsibly.  The greater the right, the greater the duty to use it seriously.  Viewing the support being garnered by Trump and Sanders, it is hard not to share the skepticism – and fear – held by The Founding Fathers.