Reminder: Some of the comments below are links to stories being commented upon. I urge you to read the links for background to my commentary.
Interesting article on the downfall of the Westphalian view of the nation state in the 21st century. It is well worth the read. (Found way back on March 1, but I have been about moribund in my efforts here since then, for which I apologize to the few, if any, who bother to read my random efforts.)
What I am about to say will be unsourced. Why, because a) I am assuming that you have been following the news of the day and b) it is purely my opinion, although much will be predicated on facts and easily researched truth and a lot will be based in the history of the United States. I encourage people to study it and a basic civics primer from 50 years ago, because it seems that the American people are tragically ignorant of their own history – and those from other countries probably learned the Cliff Notes version. Having said that, let me begin.
FIRST, FOREMOST AND ALWAYS: The United States is NOT a pure democracy. Got that? It is not a democracy. Never has been, never will be, as long as it is governed by its current constitution. Don’t like that fact? Get over it.
The United States is a democratic federal republic, with all the nuances and vagaries that entails. Now, I hope you understand that. Despite what politicians say, your friends say, and maybe even your teachers may have said, the United States is a representative republic, not a democracy, where you and your neighbors are charged with the responsibility to select representatives to meet in councils to decide public policy, from the local town hall and school or water district all the way up to the president of the United States. Those representative are charged with their own responsibility to vote their best judgement and conscience when making their decisions on how to cast their vote at whatever level they are at, and not to have call back to their constituents on every vote for their advice and consent. Note: they are to use their own best judgement.
Now, having said all that, political parties are not part of the government. Regardless what may appear to be the case, political parties are not covered in the U.S. Constitution and are not arms of the various governmental bodies. I hope you understand that.
First, political parties were not envisioned playing any role in the political process by the brilliant gentlemen who drafted the grand compromise we call our Constitution. They anticipated various factions and interests competing for influence, but the idea of political parties was pretty much an anathema to them. In fact, the Republic had been in business for about a dozen years before the first semblances of what now are political parties began to shake out.
So, what are political parties? They are clubs. They are associations. They are groups of people coalescing under a common ideological banner. As such, they are not required be “democratic.” PLEASE, Trump and Sanders supporters, get that through your thick heads. Over the last 200 years, each party has developed its own system for selecting the candidates for public office. There is no requirement that they “elect” these people, or ask the advice of people who are not declared members of the party, regardless of what the pundits, talking heads, on-air personalities, columnists and reporters of various print and web news outlets may lead you to believe.
If the members of the party want to go ennie-menie-miney-mo to pick who runs for office under their banner, that is what they can do. They don’t have to hold caucuses or primaries or conventions. They can just do it.
Or they can ask for v0lunteers and go you … you … and you.
Funny thing, somewhere along the line the American people have been told that they get to pick the candidates, regardless of their party affiliation … well, at least if they are to be the candidate from the Democratic or Republican Party. Wrong answer. They don’t necessarily get that privilege if the candidate is a Green Party member, Reform Party member, or Libertarian Party member, or a Communist Party member, or one of the any other parties that tend to appear on the presidential ballot in November. Why should they get it from the Republican or Democrat parties?
People, WAKE UP! It is not a democracy. That is not how things work. The parties make their OWN rules on how the process works for picking their candidate and that IS how things work. It behooves candidates to learn those rules backwards, forwards and sideways, and then play better than anyone else according to the rules.
You want to play a key role in how your “party” selects its candidates, then get involved in the process. Go to party meetings, volunteer to be delegates to district, county, state and national conventions, or at least get involved at each one of those meetings to help decide who will be the delegates. Just helicopter voting in a primary doesn’t cut it. It is convenient and it may salve your conscience, but the system and the process demands more of you.
AND if your candidate doesn’t want to play by those rules, and die by those rules if that is the judgement of party leadership, then they had best go form their own party rather than to try to piggyback their candidacy off the back of a party that maybe they don’t agree with all their precepts and complain when the party regulars rally (although they maybe have been divided among other candidates earlier) against him or her and say they aren’t being fair. It is not a matter of fairness, but it is a indication that the candidate doesn’t want to play by the rules, unless the rules benefit them.
TRIGGER WARNING: A candidate who is unwilling to play by the rules, however arcane and weird, is NOT a candidate who demonstrates to me the requisite qualities to hold any office that they are running for in my book and will not (except in cases of dire extremity) get my vote for office.
You see, when you get into public office, whether elected dog catcher or president, you are bound to follow the rule of law. Unfortunately, we have seen far to much of NOT following the rule of law in this county in recent years, much to our detriment.
Unless and until Mr. Trump gets the majority of delegates at the Republican Party’s national convention the nomination is not NOT “His” to be stolen from him. I don’t care how many primary votes he gets or doesn’t get. They don’t matter. Delegates do, according to the rules.
Now, when Mr. Trump and his supporters whine about the GOP not being “fair” to him, or trying to “steal” the nomination from him, I want to take a long 2x4 and start whacking people upside the head to get their attention and give the aforesaid lecture.
Same thing holds for Bernie Sanders supporters who live and breathe the “Bern”
Now, children, for if you do not understand this, then you indeed have some growing up to do. Call me arrogant. Call me what ever you want. But whether it is sports, politics or governance, in a civilized society we play by the rules whether we like them or not. That is what grownups do.
Of course, if your candidate doesn’t win, then you can always go home and sulk, or you could, mind you, look at the alternatives – the other candidates in play and decide which is the lesser of all those evils – or at least the least bad. Because if you don’t, then be willing to accept that some people actually think what you consider is the most evil alternative really is a hot idea … even if the c0nsequences will be horrible … or haven’t we learned that lesson over the past eight years.
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