Around the
Fourth of July the Marist Institute for Public Opinion, one of the respected
polling outfits, conducted a brief inquiry into the American public’s knowledge
of their national origins. The
inquisition was not particularly probing.
The pollsters asked the following question: “From what country did the
United States declare its independence?”
A quarter of the people randomly polled did not know the answer to that
question. Among this group most declared
they had no clue; but others suggested Russia, Afghanistan, Mexico, China, and
Japan.
Many
Americans seem to sense that there is a crisis in our democracy, though most of
us don’t seem to know what it is or what to do about it. One person who claims to know is President
Trump. He thinks the problem is “voter
fraud,” which is why in May he established a “Commission on Election Integrity”
to look into voting irregularities.
There were roughly a hundred and
thirty-seven million votes cast in the recent presidential election. Roughly sixty-six million went to Ms. Clinton
and sixty-three million to Mr. Trump, though the geographical distribution of
the votes was such that Mr. Trump won handily among the constitutionally
mandated electors. About a hundred and
eight million eligible voters—approaching half the national total—cast no
vote. According to Mr. Trump, about
three million of Ms. Clinton’s votes—by no coincidence whatsoever her margin of
plurality in the popular vote--were fraudulent, cast by people ineligible to
vote or who voted more than once or both.
While there is no official position on this question taken by the
Democratic Party, there is an obvious consensus among Democratic politicians
that the “voting crisis” is of a very different sort. The real scandal is one of “voter
suppression”. The claim is that Republicans,
especially at the level of state and local government where the actual
mechanics of the election process are established, have systematically sought
to limit electoral participation by likely Democratic voters, especially
members of racial minorities.
The half-baked Commission on
Election Integrity is a waste of time and money, and it is quite predictably
foundering in a legal quagmire. The
absurd premise upon which it was founded—massive fraudulent voting in the millions—was bound to foster further
absurdities along the way. Transparent
partisanship is a Washington norm, but even so….At the same time I am unable to
embrace without cavil the theory of a conspiracy of voter suppression touted by
many of my liberal brethren. Voting is
indeed a general right of citizens, but that does not mean it is free of all
responsibility. Is it really a “burden”
to register to vote? More so, say, than
purchasing something through Amazon on the Internet? Would the requirement that a voter be able to
verify identity be no better than a poll tax?
I cannot check out a book at the library or use my senior discount on
New Jersey Transit—never mind get on an airplane—without official
identification. Recently I was asked for
two forms of identification to get
into a doctor’s office. The
“Motor-Voter” laws (to which I do not object) are based on the assumption that
we can make democracy more vibrant and participatory by linking it legally and
thematically with something of real social importance: owning or driving
a car.
To return to the true crisis of
American democracy is to return to the Marist Poll. Intellectual snobbery is not the least
noxious form of snobbery, and it is all too easy for comparative enlightenment
to mock flamboyant ignorance; but I am not comfortable entrusting the fate of
the land to people who think the battle of Gettysburg was fought in Viet Nam. There are other polls. At the height of the second Iraq war, half of
Americans of voting age could not find Iraq on a map. If you think the Fourth of July celebrates
our independence from Spain, you are unlikely to have studied the Declaration
or the Constitution very deeply and may be unaware of how warily the Founders
viewed the direct democracy of the crowd.
The whole national enterprise was based on the assumption of a
reasonably literate electorate and representative government constrained by
explicit divisions of power and limitations in its exercise.
The elderly hover between an
optimism born of hope and a pessimism tutored by experience. Benjamin Franklin was exactly my age—and here
the parallel ends--when he gave his final address to the Constitutional
Convention. He was far from believing
that the document he had helped hammer out was a “miracle in
Philadelphia.” It was more along the
lines of “the best we can do under the circumstances”. What circumstances? “When you assemble a number of men to have
the advantage of their joint wisdom,” he said, “you inevitably assemble with
those men, all their prejudices, their passions, their errors of opinion, their
local interests, and their selfish views.”
That’s a pretty good description of the “democratic” process, though democracy was not a word much in use in
Franklin’s day. The speech I cited above
is pretty well attested. There is a
related and possibly apocryphal anecdote.
One of a group of citizens, curious about what was going on in the
Convention, is supposed to have asked Franklin what sort of government the
conclave was going to propose. “A
republic,” was his supposed reply, “if
you can keep it.” It is most
unlikely that in offering this somber reply Franklin was worrying about the
British army—and quite certain that he was not worrying about the armies of
Afghanistan, Mexico, or Viet Nam. He was
thinking of an electorate moved by prejudice, passion, errors, faction, and
selfishness. And that was way back then.
