The Election Fallacy
I have the strange opinion that no one is ever right. Exactly right. That includes me. I am also, conversely, of the opinion that no is ever wrong. Completely wrong. But if, though, I don’t believe my opinion is necessarily correct, I certainly don’t ever believe my opinion is ever wrong. Obviously I would think I am right because it is my opinion.
I admit my opinion is not just ideas I crib but they are filtered through my experience. If someone else were to have read all of the exact references, their experiential filters could present them with a differing interpretation than I. So while I may believe my opinion is correct and not wrong, if I believe I am right but they are not wrong for differing, then the solution is to debate until we find ground to agree upon. Maybe one point today, or one point in six months, if we dialogue, at some point we may reach a workable understanding. That does not mean we end up agreeing on everything, maybe we still will not agree on many things, but we reach a point where we understand the other and can work together with our disagreements to some extent intact, but to be able to reach a workable, neither can be wrong, and neither can be right, we have to understand our disagreements to reach a workable agreement which doesn’t have to mean agreeing on anything else.
But during this process, often we find that our goals are similar. Our perspectives may be different on how to achieve those goals, but if we find, say, we both have a goal that people should respect each other more, now we have established a respect for each other and we can throw our ideas in the ring on how to best achieve that and we might be able to reach a compromise that is what neither might have initially proposed.
But if lines are drawn to begin with, I am right-you are wrong, so to respect each other means you must agree with me, then the next step is to pull out our sabres. For nations it’s to send in the troops and declare itself against its citizens who prefer the dialogue to the sabre.
A comment on a recent post elicited this response from me to a comment on my post:
“The only fault I see is the people who suffer from governments that don't fulfill their needs are not at fault when they express that dissatisfaction. That does not mean I may not prefer governments themselves to attempt to address those needs to reduce tensions of a dissatisfied populace. My point is a majority rule government always will create a climate to the minority that will remain unsatisfactory and we need to reevaluate our position on who's in the right and who's in the wrong or all governments remain in the wrong by creating harm to some who feel they are doing so. I try to stay away from the blame game, or the secret cabal game and simply point out governments will always tyrannize any who do not support it. I try to get across the idea that it is the approach that is taken by governments itself, no matter the label we may stamp on them, and it is the idea of how to rule that I challenge. To me it's not trickle down, or Biden's middle out, which admittedly I don't understand what he means. Make everyone middle class? Well that's exactly what socialism purports and Biden doesn't appear to be a socialist. I don't know the solution for everyone, I write the solution I prefer for myself. But that is the problem, when some presume to know what is best for, or what everyone prefers and simply using the concept that a majority might prefer one way or the other can never be a satisfactory solution for the minority who do not.”
If you are familiar with my articles, then you are aware I don’t think elections—by merely winning a majority is a satisfactory solution, or that in itself gives a person with a majority vote to become the accepted representative.Most elections are won with under sixty percent of the vote. In my lifetime I’m aware of only one presidential candidate with more—Johnson got 61% in 1964. Even though Reagan’s lopsided electoral vote was enormous in ‘84, he still only reached 58% of the popular vote. FDR, like Reagan, only got 58% of the popular vote in ‘32, which I believe was the highest ever received at that time.
Well let’s examine Johnson’s sixty-one percent. As far as I am aware that is the record for a popular vote for president. We might proclaim, hey that’s certainly a popular mandate—22 points we might say. Let’s look at it from the other point of view. Thirty-nine percent did not vote for Johnson and did not feel he represented them. That is just barely less than 4 out of ten who were unhappy or dissatisfied with the results. Forty per cent, like it or not, is several million people (76,358,000) who thought Johnson should not have been president, and taken from the minority position 76,358,000 people who cast votes against Johnson and thought he should not be means even his overwhelming majority left an awful lot of voters dissatisfied with his election. I could say look at all of the unrest that resulted. About the same percentage of college voters that Johnson won in ‘64 nationwide went for Goldwater. Johnson did get sixty-four percent of the overall 21-29 year olds, but Goldwater received 61% of the college vote. Of course statistics become difficult here- about 40% of Americans of college (typical) age had some post high school experience at least by the next election, but in ‘64 those mostly entering college could not vote and so Goldwater’s high percent among the college attendees who were eligible were probably nearing graduation or in post-graduate university programs, so a small population. Nevertheless, it was the protests of that generation that brought Johnson’s presidency to a screeching halt, even before the next election. The point being a minority of several million is too substantial to be ignored as “not what the majority wants.” Fiddlesticks on the majority, a government must represent the minority as well as the majority and loud-mouthed Newt Gingrinch focused the entire Republican campaign on that very issue and began the last 30 years of extreme party-ism. And ever since, even when the minority is in the majority, the Republicans have campaigned as a minority, which I suppose they are popularly. But the problem becomes that such an argument takes away any consensus building whatsoever and has evolved into repeated governmental prevention moves of what might be termed the more popular party.
While I in no way intend to imply that before Mr. Gingrich made an issue of minority obstructionism, that everything was hunky-dory and the American had always, til that point never had contentious objections to governmental policies. I might even suggest there might have been an ununited majority against many government policies and more people have always felt unrepresented by the majority of the congressionally elected representatives.
But there has been a concerted effort to point more fingers at the bad guys between the parties for all of the recent electoral disturbances. The Republicans are to a large extent claiming the mean majority is trying to take away our minority liberties and the democratic party is yelling about themselves being the majority of what people want and are trying to deny the rights of their majority. But the problem still remains that majority rule creates a multitude of unsolvable issues that can never totally reflect a multitude of minorities, because I really believe there is a majority beyond the majority party and minority party combined that rules in congress, as it appears somewhere between 48 to 52 of voters prefer neither the so-called majority or the so-called minority but are forced into being “swing votes” that determine who win. What if we didn’t force those swing voters to vote for either, or a throw-away candidate that too many believe can’t winso they cast their vote as a choice for whom they dislike the least; well what if we added NONE OF THE ABOVE PARTIES, and people are told if that selections wins a majority, a run-off will be held that excludes candidates from all parties and people can write in their own choice? And then we use ranked choice.
You cannot tell me no party could not be appealing, because in the past, when write-ins were largely permitted, many did win over listed candidates. Once a small town was so disgusted with all the candidates they wrote in a dog to be mayor. (I never got the follow-up on that election, but I’m sure the dog didn’t become mayor, but there was definitely an expressed preference that none of the candidates were preferable to a dog. But it even reached into presidential primaries. Henry Cabot Lodge was not on the New Hampshire primary ballot (I believe that was ‘64), and he won a majority vote by write-in. He then became a candidate (but did not get the nomination)
Of course there are the additional problems of money and advertising, but from my perspective I would often prefer to vote for my cat. I had a pretty smart cat once before he died a few years ago. He observed us carefully and learned which way to push the knob on the sink when he wanted a drink. He learned how to push the lever on the inner doors when he wanted to enter a room. I’m not sure some of our candidates can do that. They need an aide to bring them a drink and a remote control for their doors (something I’ve heard, but not observed) they can now open or lock doors with voice control. And really why do I want with a candidate who needs someone to bring him a drink. That certainly smacks of a candidate who has no experience in common with mine.
I have written my preference would be tiered representatives and every two hundred and fifty people select a representative for them who would then move up to the next tier of 250 representatives which now represents 62,500 people and that tier would select one of their midst to move to the next tier.
But there are other methods. One is the citizen’s lottery where every citizen in a community is selected randomly, sort of like a jury, and the randomly chosen people then legislate for a specified duration until the next drawing. This is actually being promoted by several political theorists. But the idea is old and dates to the lottery that Athens utilized to select its council (at least in the earliest formation of its “democracy”). But it has been utilized already in some jurisdictions, if not for governance. A prime example was the Michigan redistricting after the last census which was done by a citizen’s lottery, although that I believe was done with x amount of democrats, republicans and independents.
But Ireland formed a citizen’s legislative council that led to legalizing abortion in Ireland. And France used one to help formulate its environmental policies. And of course it is actually how we select our juries, minus the voir dire. The beauty is it takes all money out of the equation and it broadens the participants to people with differing backgrounds, educational levels, and professions. It would be government by one’s peers, so to speak. And it would give opportunity to participate in governing and bringing forth a greater variety of ideas. But it shouldn’t work by unanimity like a petit jury, but more like the consensus of a grand jury to bring forth an indictment..
But as I began this post, my idea for correcting the system that elections cannot fulfill does not need be right, but something must be done to expand representative democracy into a more direct democracy. The democracy as we have it, has failed because power has never concentrated itself with the many but with the few; and it is merely a midway step between complete autocratic rule and slightly less autocratic rule. And especially if it is run by a caveat whose political philosophy is not necessarily the consensual fulfillment of all people’s needs but only what those representatives tell people their needs should be.
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This is why any governance should be limited to matters of infrastructure and law enforcement. Matters of local culture will always be negatively affected by attempts to create a singular national culture. This applies domestically and abroad.
I cringe when I hear a candidate talk about "fundametally changing our culture" or creating a "new world order". Culture must be allowed to evolve naturally and organically.
Ken, this is a great post. Your leading thought, warning against thinking one's own ideas are necessarily correct and competing ideas of others are necessarily wrong, leads directly to your support of the democratic process: solutions based on discussion striving for consensus are the objectively rational approach, and when they include everyone, either directly or through voting for a representative, they therefore have a natural legitimacy. Your caveat about protecting minority rights against majoritarian overstep is also important.
I certainly endorse your emphasis on structural reform. There are many flaws in our political structure that have led to the sorry state of our politics and addressing them should be of the highest priority. My following list of suggestions deals with giving each eligible voter equal access to voting, with all votes having equal value, and with combatting corruption.
1.) I thought your idea of a "None of the Above" candidate on the ballot, who’s winning would initiate a Ranked Choice Vote, seemed unnecessarily complicated. Why not just start with Ranked Choice Voting? Being personally impatient, I prefer the high road of Congress using its Constitutional power to directly mandate the RCV system for all federal elections to the slow, low road of doing it one state at a time. RCV destroys the spoiler effect which maintains the Duopoly. Congress seems not to have the power to mandate RCV for primary elections, but with RCV in place the Duopoly parties (or a fascist cult-leader like the orange one who currently controls the Republican Party) lose their power to discipline their members in Congress with the threat of being primaried. (These Congressmen (and women) have the option of ignoring the primary and running as independent candidates. Without the spoiler effect, this would no longer be a futile exercise. Voters no longer must choose the "lesser of two evils" for their vote to count. Independents can win.) Rather than losing members in Congress, the state parties would probably extend RCV to primary elections also. With the necessity under RCV of gathering an absolute majority to win, candidates will need to concern themselves with who will choose them as their second choice, third choice, etc. This will require being moderate and conciliatory. Firebrands lose!
2. Since the Supreme Court gutted the Civil Rights Act of 1965, the Republican Party has initiated a systematic state-by-state program of voter suppression. Pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act to terminate this vile campaign.
3.) Gerrymandering, creating odd-shaped voting districts to achieve packing or cracking, is done to deliberately make some voters more important than others. The usual reform is to design districts that are maximally compact. While this lessens deliberately created inequality, varying concentrations of like-minded voters leaves a great deal of voter equality in place. No one has ever attempted “anti-gerrymandering”: creating odd-shaped voting districts to achieve “anti-packing” or “anti-cracking”. That doesn’t seem practical. But there is a solution. In the context of our defective plurality voting system, multi-winner super-districts would aggravate the problem: all the state’s seats in Congress could be won by the majority party, with minority voters completely locked out of representation. So the current federal law prohibiting multi-winner super-districts was a proper reform in the context of our defective voting system. But with a generalized form of RCV enacted, voter equality could be maximized. These are the modifications for multi-winner Rank Choice Voting: For a district with 1 winner, that winner must attain 1/2 of the votes plus 1; for a district with 2 winners, the winners must each attain 1/3 of the votes plus 1; for a district with 3 winners, the winners must each attain 1/4 of the votes plus 1, etc. The counting run-offs continue until all the winners have been determined. When one winner is determined but other seats are still open, that winner’s “surplus” votes over the winning requirement are divided proportionally by the second choices on the winning candidate’s ballots among the remaining active candidates. The tallying process is more complicated, but the voting process is unchanged: simply rank the candidates by your order of preferences as you would in a single winner race. It is generally suggested that states with 6 or less seats in Congress have one super-district for the entire state. States with more than 6 seats in Congress would have multiple super-districts—as few as possible to avoid going over 6 seats per super-district.
4.) The abomination called Citizens United and other Supreme Court rulings leading up to it destroyed a century of legislation aimed at removing the corruption of money in politics. Congress should use its power to wipe out all these corrupt rulings. Money is not speech. Corporations have no citizen rights. Implicit (smart) quid-pro-quo is just as criminal as explicit (stupid) quid-pro-quo. All political campaign contributions should be limited to an amount that the average citizen would consider making—no loopholes! Include a reference in this legislation to the text of Article III in the Constitution instructing SCOTUS that this is outside of their jurisdiction.
5.) It is long past time for Congress to reform the Supreme Court. The Justices should be subject to the same rules of conduct as any other jurists. Since Court members have become blatantly political, replacing lifetime tenure with a fixed term (fifteen years?) is long overdue. Lifetime tenure is not mandated in Article III of the Constitution. It will not require a Constitutional Amendment to change it.
6.) The revolving door in regulatory agencies between members of the agency and members of the organizations being regulated needs to be closed. This is a corruption leading to agency capture. The boundary needs to be maintained. This prohibition is currently in place for military officers in material acquisitions and employment opportunities in companies supplying the military: the revolving door is closed for five years after leaving military service. The five-year rule seems like a good standard. It should apply, for example, to FDA agents and pharmaceutical executives. The same prohibition on the revolving door should be applied to Congressmen and lobbying organizations.
7.) Some rules of procedure in Congress should be changed. These will require only majority votes to be accomplished. (a.) The Senate filibuster has degenerated from something exceptionally used into a standard requirement (with few exceptions) of a super-majority for the passage of legislation. This is grossly undemocratic. It should be permanently abolished. (b.) The so-called Hastert rule (actually initiated by his predecessor, Newt Gingrich) mandates that legislation will only come to a vote if the majority party by itself can provide the majority to pass the legislation. The minority party is consigned to irrelevance. This also is grossly undemocratic. It should be permanently abolished.
I’m sure there are other useful reforms to be made. These are the ones that immediately come to mind.