To be viable, a representative democracy needs a virtuous and educated citizenry. Thomas Jefferson and John Adams agreed on this point in their exchange of letters in retirement. Their assumption was that an electorate would be able to apply judgment informed by virtue and a broad knowledge to not only matters of public policy, but also the candidates and incumbent office-holders themselves. To the extent that the people in power use it to present a false image, the judgment by the popular sovereign is unavoidably marred. The democratic system itself falters even if it is being portrayed as strong by those at its helm. I contend that the extent of political theater being orchestrated by U.S. office-holders compromises the democratic legitimacy of public power at the federal level.
In 2010, U.S. Sen. Carl Levin’s Investigations subcommittee questioned
Goldman Sachs managers on the mortgage-based securities sold the even the bank’s
best clients without mentioning that the subprime-mortgage-based bonds were “crap.”
Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman’s CEO at the time, calmly told Levin that the bankers were
under no obligation to share their view of their product on account of the
risk-return tradeoff. In other words, a client might want a lot of risk, and
such bonds may be of value in that case. However, it could also be argued that
crap is crap, regardless of risk. Furthermore, simply in putting their
derivative securities up for sale, Goldman Sachs was saying, implicitly, that
they have value. In short, it is reasonable to have expected the U.S. Justice
Department to make use of the evidence that Levin’s subcommittee amassed to
charge Goldman Sachs with fraud. Yet no such action emerged after the dramatic
hearing; it was sheer political theater. After all, the bank had contributed $1
million to Barak Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign—its largest single
contribution. No wonder Blankfein was so calm; he undoubtedly knew that in spite
of the political theater, he had nothing to fear from the feds.
In 2014, Chuck Hegel resigned as U.S. Defense Secretary. In
announcing Hegel’s departure, Barak Obama said he was sorry to see the man go.
Throughout the prepared remarks of both men, nothing suggested that the
secretary had been shown the door. Meanwhile, the media was claiming that
sources in the administration had disclosed that Hegel had been pushed out. In
an article the next day, The New York Times refers to Hegel’s ouster, quoting
David Rothkopf, an expert on the National Security Council, as referring to “the
Hegel ouster.”[1] Tension
between Hegel and the White House had begun with differences on the
administration’s policy on Syria, according to the Times. If the president even
just gave Hegel a hint that the secretary should resign, then the scripted
announcement was sheer political theater—that is to say, a lie.
If it is so easy for government officials to lie on such a
scale, then how can an electorate possibly make informed judgments when voting
on candidates? Put another way, if politicians’ respective brands are marketed
for effect rather than being based on facts on the ground, then voters actually
vote for or against something that does not exist. Were the elaborately orchestrated
lies exposed as such beyond a shadow of a doubt, perhaps voters would vote
against the offenders simply for having lied so egregiously. Such lying befits
a squalid character—certainly not one that can be trusted in positions of power.
Moreover, the basis of representative democracy in the
popular sovereign—the People—is severely compromised if much of what is
presented through the media is an act designed to manipulate rather than inform
the general public. In The Federalist
Papers, the idea emerges that the larger the electoral district—meaning more
constituents per representative and more distance involved—the less familiar
the voters tend to be with candidates and office-holders. This argument
bolstered the point that most of the domestic power should remain with the
States rather than be transferred to the proposed General (i.e., Federal)
Government. Back in 1787, the entire U.S. population was about 7 million. By
2014, that population had grown to over 310 million, with twelve States having
more than 7 million. Logic alone would seem to dictate that each of those
States should be federal systems. California, for example, could devolve some
of its sovereignty to States covering the central valley, the north, the Bay
area, and southern California. The particular preferences in these regions
would be better reflected in public policy—instead of a one-size-fits-all
approach that tends to go to the lowest common denominator.
The U.S. itself is essentially an empire made up of fifty
republics (i.e., representative democracies) and one federal republic.
Regarding the latter, regulating interstate commerce and providing a common
defense have traditionally been imperial-level governmental functions. With the
political consolidation at the imperial level has come greater distance, both
interpersonal and geographical, between the power and the people. A person in
Kentucky, for instance, is more likely to know his or her representatives in
Kentucky’s legislature than in Congress. What percentage of Americans have
spoken with Barak Obama? The vast majority ely on the managed image through the
media, and it is natural to assume veracity without evidence to the contrary. In
short, the imbalance in the federal system, along with the growth in
population, creates a climate in which egregious lies can thrive at the expense
of representative democracy in America.
1. Mark Landler “White House Shake-Up That May Have Stopped at Just One Departure,”
The New York Times, November 25,
2014.
