A Government of Fools

In a letter to the editor of the Los Angeles Times, a voter from Encino offers his description of the electoral process in the United States. Here I have paraphrased it:

• All of us have voted for a candidate's concrete plan, only to have the candidate do something completely different once in office.
• A modern campaign candidate must be cautious and speak in generalities, so that he will not be skewered by his opponents, or accused of making a faux pas.
• Any of the Democratic candidates would provide an enormous improvement over the current administration.

Virtually everyone I know takes one or more of those positions. Many people vote strictly along party lines. They refuse to listen to a candidate from the opposition party, assuming that nobody in the other party could ever have a better idea. Many believe that most politicians will say virtually anything to get elected and, once in office, will renige on their promises. I guess they just can't tell when a candidate is passionate about a principle. Most important, people don't want to be bothered with facts and detailed plans. They would much rather vote for someone who is charming and who promises us "a wonderful life," whatever that is. To me, this false and lazy attitude among the voting public is the main reason that we have so many incompetent clowns running for and serving in public offices.

When we limit our judgements to how likeable a candidate is, and to general platitudes like "We need to get out of Iraq soon," or "We must have immigration reform," we elect candidates without knowing how they will resolve the problems. When they implement their disastrous agendas, we feel betrayed, but we deserve what we get.

Obviously, to offer too much detail about a plan for dealing with one of those issues would make a candidate seem inflexible, boring, and even unappealing to one or more segments of the voting public. But a candidate who is both passionate and intelligent should be able to define and outline a middle ground between the empty generality and the crippling details. He should be able to propose a few objectives or purposes that he believes are essential elements or characteristics of the resolution of an issue. Then, he should be able to prioritize those elements and define the possible alternative approaches to implementing each. This technique is extremely difficult for a candidate. It requires that he be able to parse a problem, and to define solutions that will be attractive to the majority of voters and, at the same time, to offer acceptable compromises to the minorities. Then, he must present his plans in a manner that is clear, succinct, sincere, and (yes) likeable as well.

It's tougher for us voters, too. We need to eschew those candidates who constantly attack their opponents, and utterly fail to offer alternative plans with substance. We can't rely on rhetoric and flashy slogans. We have to gather a lot of facts about complex issues. We must analyze each part of a problem from two or more perspectives. To do that, we may have to discuss the problem with people who do not share our view of it. We must realize that the optimum approach to a problem includes the best solutions for the most critical parts accompanied by compromises on some of the less important parts.

If voters and the candidates are unable or unwilling to step up to these difficult tasks, we will have to be content with a government of the fools, by the fools and for the fools.