We The People

Hey, y’all, before you fall TOO much in love with the whole “will of the people” thing, I want you to think about something.

A few years ago majority of people in multiple states voted in favor of amending their state constitutions to make gay marriage illegal.

It took the US Supreme Court to make that un-happen, and they did so in direct opposition to the express will of the people.

Sometimes the majority is WRONG, and that is why we live in a democratic REPUBLIC. “The will of the people” is of paramount, but not ultimate, priority. This nation was not built to be ruled by “the will of the people,” but by “the will of the people as expressed through their chosen representatives who also have a moral and ethical duty to oppose that will when it’s harmful or destructive.”

That’s why our system is constructed the way it is – and I’ve wracked my brain trying to imagine a more effective set of mechanics that successfully balances all the necessary priorities of a free modern nation, and I couldn’t do it. And I’m a political scientist, so I’m definitely on the shortlist of people who should be able to, if one could.

The system works: when “the people” tried to put something over that sucked, the system said “no, we’re not doing that.”

We’ve completely forgotten that the purpose of government is not to make everyone happy, if we ever really grasped it in the first place. You don’t elect people to do “what you want,” any more than you hire a doctor to perform heart surgery to your specifications.

You elect people, which makes them accountable to your will but not bound by it, to do what’s right.

This silly fantasy people have of a perfect candidate is just that – a silly fantasy. I wouldn’t even agree with 100% of my own decisions if I was in office, and if I did I’d be worried about it.

The problem is, a whole lot of folks honestly don’t give the first drizzling shit about what’s “right,” they only care about what benefits them. They aren’t interested in electing someone who’s going to do the right thing; they’re only interested in electing someone who’s going to do the thing that’s beneficial to them.

Because those among us who are sane and reasonable don’t think in those terms, we haven’t taken the threat these folks represent seriously.

But the threat is very real, and it’s in your town. It’s running for school boards and library boards and county commissions and small-town mayoralities and sheriffs and judicial seats. It’s showing up at every public meeting to loudly browbeat local leadership into accepting or conceding to things they shouldn’t, just to make the bullies and aggressors shut up and go away.

It’s not that I’m saying “democracy is bad” or anything like that. But it’s a system that requires engagement to work. If people of conscience allow themselves to neglect their duties as citizens, then people without conscience can weaponize it against the rest of us, and that’s exactly what’s been happening for decades.

I really have to add here that this isn’t a secret or conspiracy. It’s been openly discussed since I was a kid in the late 70’s or early 80’s. Here’s a link to a google search. Once you get there by all means look at the raw web results but also check the news items. If you have access to a favored news or periodical archive like JSTOR check that for obvious keywords in content produced in the 70’s and 80’s. This is an ongoing thing, and it’s time we stopped kidding ourselves that it’ll just go away if we ignore it. It won’t go away. Every time we ignore it, every time we back down because it’s too much hassle to fight, they get stronger and sanity and reason get weaker.

That’s why we’re in this mess. The covid deniers, the trumpers, the white nationalists and neo-fascists like the Proud Boys and the Prayer Warriors and the Oath Keepers, this is where they came from. We thought we could live with it; we thought we could let it go and it would just fade on its own like any other bad idea.

But we can’t, and it won’t.

If you’re going to rely on “democracy,” then you have to be prepared to deal with the reality that democracy only functions properly in an educated and informed and engaged society. The entire 20th century of social philosophy revolved around the great truths of Orwell and Bernays: if you control the information you control EVERYTHING. You can wipe out the entire concept of freedom if you just have enough power over information.

The fascists and authoritarians and nazis and white nationalists of the world are absolutely willing to literally rewrite reality if they think it will benefit them materially, and we’ve been letting them gain the tools to do it for half a century.

It’s time to stand up and say no more, now. While we still can. Go to that school board meeting, that city commission meeting. Run for that uncontested office if you’re in any way qualified for it. Run even if it is contested. Run as a third-party candidate just so you can have some power to direct the narrative even if you lose…and you might not. If you can’t stand the idea of running yourself, find someone. You know somebody you think should be in office. Ask them to run. Get a bunch of mutual friends together and stage an intervention if necessary.

But act.

Because to the precise extent you don’t, you are abdicating your democracy.