It’s funny. A GOP takeover of the Senate is by no means guaranteed, but many on the Left are already considering extreme measures to counteract a Republican-controlled Congress.
Basically, the Left is deciding this week that democracy isn’t really that great.
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The New York Times runs an op-ed by a Duke professor and student today shouting “Cancel the Midterms,” in part because they are “almost certain to create greater partisan divisions, increase gridlock and render governance of our complex nation even more difficult.”
Another point against the midterms, according to these liberal academics: “The main impact of the midterm election in the modern era has been to weaken the president.”
The horrors! A President being weakened by another branch of government!
Liberal writer David Roberts reacted to the current state of play by explaining to his followers how thoroughly dumb the American voter is — and presumably unworthy of the franchise. “The sad fact is that most US voters proceed in near-total ignorance, using wildly flawed heuristics & fleeting affective impressions”, Roberts wrote during his dissertation.
Both Left and Right get upset at the public when the public votes the opposite way. I think they are two different kinds of elitism.
Mitt Romney explained away his loss by saying Obama was more willing to give people “free stuff.” It’s the “poor, lazy saps want to live off the rest of us,” elitism.
As the Duke authors’ concern about a weakened presidency suggests, the liberal anti-democratic elitism is grounded in technocracy. It’s the “the hillbillies don’t know what’s best for them” elitism.
FiveThirtyEight had a great example of that mindset in an interesting article on San Francisco’s efforts to reduce its landfill contributions to zero. You see, the politicians and bureaucrats have all sorts of great policies and programs that would enable San Fran to have zero trash, but people keep throwing stuff out. As FiveThirtyEight writer Carl Bialik provocatively put it: “San Francisco’s stall shows that a city’s biggest obstacle to achieving big goals may be the people it serves.”
So maybe the problem isn’t the midterm elections — it’s just the people who vote in them.
p.s. An alert European reader redirects me to this East German poem:
Die Lösung
Nach dem Aufstand des 17. Juni
Ließ der Sekretär des Schriftstellerverbands
In der Stalinallee Flugblätter verteilen
Auf denen zu lesen war, daß das Volk
Das Vertrauen der Regierung verscherzt habe
Und es nur durch verdoppelte Arbeit
zurückerobern könne. Wäre es da
Nicht doch einfacher, die Regierung
Löste das Volk auf und
Wählte ein anderes?
The Solution
After the uprising of the 17th of June
The Secretary of the Writers’ Union
Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee
Stating that the people
Had forfeited the confidence of the government
And could win it back only
By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier
In that case for the government
To dissolve the people
And elect another?
