Louis Capozzi | Dumping democracy

Citizen Capozzi | Should the people decide in 2016, even if they’re wrong?

By Louis Capozzi 04/20/16 10:41pm

“Democracy is so overrated.”

While this line was spoken by “House of Cards” character Frank Underwood, this sentiment is increasingly common in political discourse at Penn and around the country.

Whenever Donald Trump is mentioned here, there is almost universally an implicit assumption that he is not a legitimate candidate. To most students, Trump supporters are ignorant, sexist, xenophobic or racist. Even conservative students thumb their noses, most hoping for a contested convention that embraces a savior like John Kasich or Paul Ryan.

We’ve all participated in these conversations, which have the common theme that supporting Trump is unacceptable. While I know dozens of Trump supporters — both Republicans and Democrats — on campus, they keep their support secret for fear of being labeled as bigots. Consequently, support for Trump is rendered invisible, with those who do support him remaining silent. As for the millions of voters supporting Trump nationwide, campus consensus is clear: They’re wrong.

For some people, the conversation ends there and they resolve to vote differently than those eight million ignoramuses. Others, like Facebook’s executives, are doing more.

This week, we learned that Facebook’s leadership is currently debating whether to manipulate their massive social media network to ensure a Trump loss. Why let the people decide when they can intervene and ensure the voters reach the right result?

Leaders in both political parties have a similar idea. As Pennsylvania prepares to vote this coming Tuesday, neither party is prepared to trust the popular vote.

Of the 210 Democratic delegates available, 21 are superdelegates freed from democratic constraints. But that abandons 90 percent of the delegates to the popular will. As long as more than 60 percent of voters don’t choose Bernie Sanders, Democrats need not fret democracy. Voters, don’t screw this up.

The Republicans have better fulfilled Frank Underwood’s vision. Of their 71 delegates, only 17 are attached to the state’s popular vote, with the rest chosen by a complex process effectively dominated by party officials. In other words, Pennsylvania Republican voters have a say over about 24 percent of their delegates. What do the people know, anyway?

Across the country, the Republican party is striking back against Trump’s insurgency by retaining control of the delegate selection process. In Colorado, North Dakota and Wyoming, there are no statewide votes. It’s so much simpler to let a few thousand party activists decide than letting the million plus registered Republican voters opine.

In other states, the party is systematically working to reverse democratic decisions. Of the 42 delegates Trump won in Georgia, 32 of those actually selected Ted Cruz. In Louisiana, a state where the people chose Trump, Cruz ended up with 10 more delegates than the winner. At a contested convention in Cleveland, Trump could lose hundreds of his delegates because the party was careful to correct democracy’s failure.

But surely, as Ted Cruz responds, Trump should have known the rules and better navigated the party’s complex procedures. Fair point, Ted — but then we should make something clear.

America is not a democracy.

President Franklin Roosevelt once said, “We know [democracy] cannot die ... because democracy alone, of all forms of government, enlists the full force of men’s enlightened will.”

What “enlightened will” could Roosevelt be referring to? Perhaps Roosevelt would have revised his remarks if he knew millions of Americans would vote for Trump, if he knew that an ignorant, sexist and racist electorate might choose The Donald over Marco Rubio or Hillary Clinton.

So what do we prefer, letting the people decide or reaching the “right” answer? If we prefer the latter, perhaps we should consider establishing a monarchy or a technocracy, the trendy option preferred by many of my Penn friends. Surely these forms of government, staffed by progressive and well-educated people, would reach the “right” decisions more efficiently.

Or perhaps we can just retain the status quo, where we pay lip service to democracy while letting party officials, or perhaps Facebook, decide.

There are legitimate reasons to prefer this system, like stopping the voters from choosing Trump or Sanders. There are, after all, many good arguments against both, with the news media choking the airways with putdowns of Trump.

If we reject the voters’ will, can we at least dispense with our democratic ostentation and avoid glaring hypocrisy? Then again, perhaps I’m being naive.

As Frank Underwood says, “The road to power is paved with hypocrisy.”

LOUIS CAPOZZI is a College senior from Mechanicsburg, Pa., studying classics and history. His email address is capozzil@sas.upenn.edu. “Citizen Capozzi” usually appears every other Thursday. 

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