George W. Bush, it was endlessly repeated when he first came into office, lacked a mandate and should therefore hold back on what he wanted to achieve, and just as endlessly it is now being said that Barack Obama has a mandate, and any and all opposition should therefore head for the hills.
May I make a suggestion? It is that all this mandate talk is what should head for the hills. Yes, for a whole host of reasons, it makes a difference whether or not there is substantial public support for a policy, but for even more reasons, other things count for more, such as whether the policy really, truly is a good idea worthy of enactment.
I say this while understanding that democratic self-governance as seen in the voting booth is a means of self-protection, of replacing those who have betrayed the public trust or acted in ways a majority thinks unwise.
It is a means as well of furthering one’s own objectives, of supporting those whose philosophy and positions on issues seem worthy, and whose character and judgment inspire trust. Majorities matter.
But ours happens to be a constitutional republic recognizing that the franchised majority itself can be tyrannical, as in supporting segregation or denying the vote to women. The Constitution limits the possibility of runaway, perhaps dangerous public passions when it puts in place rights hard to change and all sorts of checks and balances.
A pure democracy, we aren’t and shouldn’t be. We have instead a representative government in which elected presidents, governors and mayors deal with elected legislators who are supposed to attend fulltime to public issues, to gather information and study it, to debate and deliberate.
Both executives and legislators are expected to act in accordance with views made known in campaigns, but to change their minds if circumstances and fresh understandings demand it.
As citizens, we are obliged, it seems to me, to keep up with public affairs, but not to devote ourselves chiefly to that task. On any particular subject at any given time, huge numbers of us may be _ and almost surely are _ ignorant about crucial policy details, and even if that wasn’t so, their votes can be cast for a multitude of reasons that even exit polls cannot begin to fathom, especially seeing as how they do not allow for much in the way of qualifications to answers.
And yet, when Bush was elected and aiming to reduce taxes across the board as something he thought a public good, liberal commentators screeched that he had no mandate to act. Their position came down to this _ that because of the narrowness of his electoral victory and his loss of the popular vote, he should do what he thought was wrong and contrary to promises that may have led millions to back him.
The critics should have stuck to the merits of the issue, just as observers should stick to the merits of issues Obama will soon be facing, among them the trillion-dollar hurry he seems to be in to give this economy a series of stimulus packages, and whether present circumstances do or don’t demand that at least temporarily he back off his plans to hike certain taxes and institute an expensive health insurance plan.
The decisive issue isn’t whether more Americans may want him to do these things than the millions who might be opposed, but whether pragmatism, principle and prudence are served. The question is not one of there being a mandate for anything except the mandate that always exists for all public officials _ that they strive to do what’s right.
Examiner columnist Jay Ambrose is a former Washington opinion writer and editor of two dailies. He can be reached at: [email protected]
