The American electorate resembles a flock of Chicken Littles and it’s not their fault.
Since the Clinton administration, the public has grown progressively more concerned with the outcome of presidential elections. “As usual,” a recent Gallup report seemed to sigh, “voters say this election is more important than most.”
Except it’s not the most important election ever. And regardless of what happens next Tuesday, representative democracy will endure because the constitutional system will keep working like it has for the last 238 years. Pinkie promise.
Sure. Yes. Of course. This Election Day will have significant consequences. Depending on your political persuasion, the choice boils down to a serial con artist and a career crook. Minus an electoral college miracle, one of them will take up residence in the White House. But hyper-partisanship is driving the hysteria over the current contest, not reality.
Self-interested politicians and self-important celebrities have convinced the American public that their future hangs in the balance at the national ballot box. On the campaign trail, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton regularly claim that 2016 is “the most important election ever.”
Recently 27 famous movie stars parroted that line in a viral get-out-the-vote video. The clip features everyone from James Franco to Neil Patrick Harris and at least a third of the Avenger’s main cast. Clearly the clip worked. It has more than 7.5 million views. And obviously, the American people are concerned.
According to the Gallup survey, more than 70 percent of Americans report that the coming contest is one of the nation’s most important. But that’s not unusual. It’s just unfortunate.
Every four years, America experiences a November crescendo of concern that eventually dissipates into sweet indifference. That’s because individual citizens care exponentially more about their families and communities than politics. Retail habits put that in perspective.
Halloween shoppers, for example, regularly outspend political contributors. This year was no different. The nation spent an estimated $8.4 billion on fun-size candy bars and tacky costumes in one weekend. To elect the leader of the free world in 2016, the country shelled out a little more than $2 billion.
Clearly an involved citizenry is critical to the American experiment in self-government. But the state isn’t something that we all belong to. It’s a framework that allows individuals to pursue their own interests. And national elections simply punctuate the more important decision making that occurs in communities at local levels.
Of course, self-government is never more than one generation, not one election, away from extinction. Both good and bad things will occur after the election. Don’t worry if your guy doesn’t win though; your party can be part of the opposition. Elections aren’t everything.
Without exception, the best thing will be watching the checks of this constitutional system keep on balancing the nation. There will be another time for choosing in four years. So take heart, democracy isn’t falling.
Philip Wegmann is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
