Los Gatos Weekly-Times

Founding Fathers didn't intend us to have government by poll

By Bob Aldrich

The Founding Fathers did not seek to establish a government that would act in immediate response to the momentary shifts of public sentiment. They labored hard to set up a government that deliberately called for, it was hoped, reasoning representatives. The idea, as is evident in the writings of Jefferson, for one, was to avoid the kind of changing-with-the-winds leadership that had brought down so many European governments, to establish something more stable and lasting; in short, a government that would withstand the storms of immediate public whims.

Writing in the conservative Weekly Standard, David Tell points out that the Founders did not mean for Americans to be demagogically "led" by their own passions. Alexander Hamilton warned against elevating to high-office men with "talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity." It's a warning that sounds rather naive today.

In brief, the country's original leaders had it much in mind that they must ensure the independence of government, that it must not be one to bow weakly to every demand of the citizenry.

Of course, men like Franklin, Jefferson and Madison never heard of polls, nor could they have imagined a time when our leaders would rely on almost daily polled opinion for their decisions.

Some may say government by poll is just fine. The moment we sneeze, our president responds with a new cold remedy. With one eye on the polls, politicians know exactly what measures to legislate to keep Joe and Josephine Citizen happy. When reason and sober consideration are abandoned in favor of ensuring victory in the next election, what we get is government by impulse, government by the passions. Government based on unreasoned feeling led to the French Revolution, to Communist Russia and Hitler's Germany.

The pollster on the telephone asks "how do you feel" about such-and-such. In a bad mood, I may "feel" that all politicians should be exiled or shot. The pollster does not ask, "Have you thought carefully about this issue? Have you considered all sides, including its effect on the country's future?"

Consider the opposite extreme to the ideal of American democracy: Russia under Stalin, the Communist ideal that so many American "intellectuals" admired and supported in the 1930s and '40s. At the merest whim, the slightest suspicion, Josef Stalin could and did order the arrest of anyone who might resist his iron will. Millions were sent to the gulag or murdered on the Leader's sudden whims.

Government by the immediate passions may not be so obviously destructive as is communism or fascism. But by slowly eroding the principles of the Founders, whereby (with God's grace) thoughtful representatives would employ their reasoning powers, standing between the people and the government itself, we risk chaos. By relying on the mere statistical accounts of dubiously "scientific" polls, we invite demagogic leaders who succeed by popularity alone. We sow the seeds of future national calamities.

Bob Aldrich is a Los Gatos Weekly-Times columist and feature writer.