When power is born on the spot and conferred to-day by constituents who are to submit to it to-morrow as subordinates, they do not put the whip in the hands of one who will flog them; they demand sentiments of him in conformity with their inclinations; in any event they will not tolerate in him the opposite ones. From the beginning, this resemblance between them and him is great, and it goes on increasing from day to day because the creature is always in the hands of his creators; subject to their daily pressure, he at last becomes as they are; after a certain period they have shaped him in their image.—Thus the candidate-elect, from the start or very soon after, became a confederate with his electors.
Hippolyte Taine - The Modern Regime (1890-93)
Who are the electors though? It’s an old question, particularly acute at the moment.
elector
in British English
(ɪˈlɛktə)
NOUN
1. someone who is eligible to vote in the election of a government
2. (often capital) a member of the US electoral college
3. (often capital) (in the Holy Roman Empire) any of the German princes entitled to take part in the election of a new emperor
Strange how meaning 3 never really went away. It evolved and slipped into the background. Perhaps we could usefully revive a distinction here between electors and voters.
If so then Boris Johnson’s electors are those who supported him and helped make him Conservative party leader and Prime Minister. Voters merely voted for his party in the last general election where there was no real choice anyway. And that’s certainly another thought to dwell on - there was no real choice anyway.
As for Joe Biden – is he indebted to his electors or those dead voters? Or those voters who were so full of lively enthusiasm they voted for him more than once?
As for Joe Biden – is he indebted to his electors or those dead voters? Or those voters who were so full of lively enthusiasm they voted for him more than once?
4 comments:
Taine is spot on with his recognition that the electors look for the right sentiments in those they elect. More so today, when mere sentiment is more important currency than worked out policies and personal integrity.
He didn't seem to recognise the other bits, though. That the sentiments are usually faked, and there is no control over the blighters once they've got your vote.
Not that strange... consider the EU as a New Holy Roman Empire. Who gets to pick the Presidents? Not the ordinary voters but the Electors. Another good reason why we are better off out.
Now all we have to contend with is constraining the ambitions of our own Great and Good who get out of hand every now and again and have to be taken down a peg or two. An endless task, but one best not ignored.
A democracy can easily end up as a tyranny. It could be a tyranny of the majority of a tyranny of the minorities. I'm fast coming to the conclusion that what we need is a benevolent dictator, someone like Pinochet (don't laugh), Lukashenko or Putin (please stop laughing). Auberon Waugh used to hold that anyone who expressed a desire to become a politician should be banned from doing so. That's the root of the problem, politicians. Get rid of them and their advisers, the psychologists, the bureaucrats and we will be on our way to the bright sunlit uplands. A place where we are hardly aware of the government, where its heavy hand never touches our lives. Where the PM would be an anonymous nobody, riding the bus to his office every day to busily cancel laws and statutes.
I can dream can't I?
Sam - yes the sentiments are usually faked, as if the sentiments themselves are designed to be easily faked. No moral watermark perhaps.
DJ - the best way to take them down a peg or two seems to be voting for a party outside the club but we voters haven't made the most of that.
Andy - "A place where we are hardly aware of the government, where its heavy hand never touches our lives." Things were like that not so long ago, or at least the hand of government was much lighter than it is now.
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