Referendums Abdicate Duty to Govern in Representative Democracies -The iPINIONS Journal

Participation of the “demos” (aka ordinary people) in representative democracies should be limited to electing a suitable person to represent their interests – at all levels of government. The sooner leaders in Western democracies realize and foster this, the better. Never mind that far too many ordinary people can’t be bothered to participate even to this limited degree.

As it happened, I began arguing for this limited participation long before Brexit made it a categorical imperative. Here, for example, is what I wrote in “On Syria and Almost Every Other Issue, the American People Are Insolent, Ignorant Idiots … and Their Congressional Representatives Are Pandering, Pusillanimous Pussies,” September 10, 2013:

Politicians have become little more than ‘perfectly lubricated weathervanes.’ In fact, they have made a mockery of representative government by abdicating decisions on complicated issues in favor of referendums.

For the record, the American people elect (and pay) congressional representatives to make ‘informed’ decisions on issues of national importance. We have representative government, instead of literal democracy (aka mob rule), precisely to avoid the spectacle of governing based on prevailing, and invariably uninformed, passions.

Frankly, I have nothing but contempt for politicians who look to the people they represent for guidance on how to govern. After all, this abdication is tantamount to parents looking to their children for guidance on how to parent.

Meanwhile, social media now propagate propaganda and brain-numbing fodder like viral contagions. And the destabilizing impact of fake news is only the tip of the iceberg.

But I hasten to stress that the trumpeting of post-fact or post-truth politics is not a uniquely American phenomenon. For example, the prevailing myth is that Britons are far more informed than Americans. This, despite the evidence British yokels and hooligans have always presented to the contrary. But the way Brexit played out should utterly destroy this myth.

Which brings me to the recent spate of national referendums. For they have crystallized this folly of people voting on issues of national importance based on brazen misinformation or in a state of willful ignorance.

Mind you, I am stupefied that purportedly sensible leaders like David Cameron of the UK and Matteo Renzi of Italy staked their respective careers, to say nothing of the fate of their respective republics, on the “gut feelings” of ordinary people voting in a referendum.

Yet, in this regard, 2016 is a year that will live in infamy. Here are the most notable cases where countries framed referendums to affect “Yes” votes … but “No” votes carried the day. Given my record of decrying referendums as anathema to representative democracies, my only consolation is that Western leaders learned a valuable civics lesson in each case.

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Instead of calling on members of Parliament (MPs) to codify laws granting women equal rights, Prime Minister Perry Christie called for a referendum.

Prime Minister Christie this morning called the failed gender equality [referendum on June 7] a setback for the program of constitutional reform…

‘The voice of the people [of The Bahamas] has sounded in the land. It needs to be respected and honored and it will,’ the prime minister said.

(Nassau Guardian, June 8, 2016)

This, of course, is the same country whose laws banning gay rights but sanctioning marital rape incited me to denounce it in several commentaries as a “Taliban paradise.”

Instead of calling on MPs to decide whether remaining in the EU is in the national interest, Prime Minister Cameron called for a referendum.

If those suffering from post-referendum ‘Bregret’ had voted to stay in the European Union, the outcome of the Brexit vote would have been in favour of Remain, according to new analysis published by the British Election Study…

Economist Iain Begg, from the London School of Economics, said the results exposed the shortcomings of using referenda in complex policy choices.

‘The finding that a sizeable proportion of Leave voters now regret their decision, coming barely one hundred days after June 23, highlights the shortcomings of using referenda to make policy choices on issues as complex as membership of the EU,’ he told The Independent.

(London Independent, October 17, 2016)

This folly is being compounded now by ordinary people filing lawsuits, asking the courts to declare that MPs, not ordinary people, have the final say on whether ’tis better for Britain to ‘Leave’ or ‘Remain.’

Instead of calling on members of Congress to decide whether a peace deal with FARC rebels is in the national interest, President Juan Manuel Santos called for a referendum.

Congress approved a revised peace accord with [Colombia’s] largest rebel group on Wednesday night, a vote that was most likely the final hurdle in ratifying the troubled agreement whose earlier version had been rejected in a referendum this fall.

By pushing the new deal through Congress, the government bypassed voters this time, who had turned down the accord by a narrow margin on Oct. 2.

(New York Times, November 30, 2016)

In effect, the Colombian Congress did what dismayed Britons are asking the courts to have the UK Parliament do, namely, to rectify the folly of having uninformed people decide an issue of national importance that should have been left to informed politicians to decide in the first place.

Instead of calling on MPs to implement reforms to make Italy more governable, Prime Minister Renzi called for a referendum.

Renzi announced on Monday that he would resign after suffering a resounding defeat in a referendum over constitutional reform, leaving the euro zone’s third-largest economy in political limbo…

The referendum, intended to change rules to make Italy more governable, was opposed by right-wing and populist parties, including groups that want Italy to ditch the euro…

Italy’s youngest ever premier had been feted around the world as a pro-European reformer and lauded by U.S. President Barack Obama for his ‘bold, progressive’ leadership.

(Reuters, December 5, 2016)

And so, plus ca change:

The Italians have a promiscuous penchant for changing governments… They’ve run through 61 over the past 60 years.

(“Another Italian Government Bites the Dust,” The iPINIONS Journal, January 25, 2008)

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That said, I would be remiss not to note that the shocking election of Donald Trump as president of the United States resulted primarily from a dystopian confluence of misinformation, ignorance, and anger. Which constrains me to suggest that America’s representative democracy would be better served if members of the U.S. Congress elected the president the way members of the UK Parliament elect the prime minister.

Granted, the way President-elect Trump is acting, you’d think he were elected by a Chinese-style people’s congress instead of ordinary people. But I digress….

I shall end this latest admonition with this reiteration from “Polls Show Americans Are Too Stupid to Poll on Any Critical Issue,” September 14, 2016:

I’ve been lamenting prevailing ignorance among Americans for years…

Their ignorance is such, in fact, that polling them on political issues is like polling athletes on medical ones. Only this explains the phenomenon of Donald Trump – who is nothing more than a narcissistic huckster exploiting the P.T. Barnum maxim about fecund suckers.

* This commentary was originally published yesterday, Tuesday, at 7:05 p.m.