Democratic Deficit

There was a fascinating excerpt from Tudors by Peter Ackroyd, in Delancey Place recently about the "Tynedale Bible," his translation into English and the Church's efforts to suppress it in 1526.  The authorities finally caught up to Tynedale and executed him, burning every extant copy. The Church, and the broader State authorities argued "the Scriptures were too sacred to be left in the hands of the laity and that any interpretation of them should only be under clerical supervision..." The English Bible came as a sensation and a revelation; and it energized the faithful. The tradition of interpretation, argumentation and persuasion inherent in protestantism is also a core democratic principle.  Democracy need not eschew experts or elites; but the pronouncements and recommendations they make should also reflect the fact they have heard and understood the broader concerns.

There are those, today, who bang on about "too much democracy" and "mobocracy." They seem to me just the latest elitist apologists who do not trust people to know their own minds and interests.

To this dismal debate, Andrew Sullivan adds his voice, writing this month in New York Magazine that "Democracies end when they are too democratic".  He regards Trump as "an extinction-level event."  And says it is "long past time we started treating him as such."  Rather than examine the faults and omissions of recent government; rather than examine the road-blocks and anti-democratic institutional hurdles that play upon and amplify the electorate's sense that nothing can be done--the very things that have given rise to outside challenges--Sullivan doubles-down on the people-are-stupid side and lays faith in anti-democratic rules and institutions.  Indeed, he seems to urge Republicans to freeze Trump out of the GOP Convention process, and make use of arbitrary elite structures that are bound to inflame rather than placate those who are already angry.  Far from "too much democracy," the expression of generalized anger, resentment and frustration that are the tenets of the election season so far are the product of not enough democracy, of not enough ways for the electorate to exercise their judgement.

During the writing of my novel, Faithless Elector, I have had to become something of a student of the Electoral College, its rules, processes and history.   I can see someone, well-meaning, like Sullivan, making the case that freezing out the hot passions of the electorate is precisely what the Electoral College was intended to help us manage.

One of the dismaying tropes arising from discussions of the Electoral College is the insistence by some that the United States is a republic, not a democracy; and that Constitutional provisions like the Electoral College protect us from the "tyranny of the majority" or a "mobocracy".  The naked paternalism (and by extension the infantilization of the electorate) of this stance is often followed by statements like "the founding fathers knew best" or "the founding fathers wanted to protect us...".

Protect us from what?  Ourselves?  When someone invokes "tyranny of the majority," what exactly are they saying?  When would we as citizens agree that it is right for a minority of voters (those who lost) to dictate policy?  When, and under what circumstances does the loser in a campaign get to govern?

What if?

Novels are a like a big game of "what if?" When I found that Electors did not have to vote as they had pledged to vote, I felt the situation sounded ripe for mischief, and I thought, "What if....?"

Interestingly, when I began shopping Faithless Elector around, the rejection comments were along the lines of, "this is too far-fetched," and "it could never happen."  It seems the world may have caught up to Faithless Elector

I have recently come across Robert M Alexander, reporting for CNN, who noted that during the 2012 election, an investigation by the Associated Press prior to the election revealed that as many as 5 Republican Electors expressed uncertainty regarding whether they would actually vote for Mitt Romney if he carried their state.

Moreover, in the fiercely contested 2000 election, it turns out that many electors were the target of vigilant lobbying campaigns. Some even received thousands of e-mails; at least one Elector received a death threat. A group founded by two college seniors, called Citizens for a True Democracy, even published the contact information of 172 Republican electors online and asked people to urge them to put "patriotism before partisanship" and give their electoral votes to Al Gore.

So while Faithless Elector plays at “what-if?” it turns out this is no child’s make-believe game, but is (potentially) deadly earnest. What passes in the pages of Faithless Elector hasn’t happened, isn’t meant to happen…but it could happen.

Readings

Getting to meet readers is the best thing about doing readings.

• "You wrote Faithless Elector some time ago:  why is it more relevant now than a few years ago?" 
• "What is your creative process?" 
• "What kind of research did you do?" 
• "Is this an accurate portrayal of academics?"  
• "I love the taxi driver:  will he be back in the next book?"

I did a reading of Faithless Elector yesterday (13-May) at the Rothermere American Institute at Oxford University.  I was nervous, anxious, as I am before each reading.

There is nowhere to hide when giving a reading of your work--you wrote the words; you speak them. It's daunting, humbling and thrilling.  But, like the first reading I gave at the Highland Park (NJ) Public Library, I was gratified by how well it was received, and how thoughtful and thought-provoking the questions were.

HPPL

HPPL

So much of a writer's production is necessarily alone.  You sit alone, tap on the keys, read things aloud, enact certain aspects in order to describe them better; and you tinker until you're almost sick of the piece.  To an outside observer, you would appear mad, hence the need for solitude.  But in solitude, you can think the story works, or the characters are good, but you can't know.

Readings are like a preview night for a play, a chance to connect with an audience, to hear, to feel what works--only you don't get to change anything.  

I can't wait to do it again!

Anti-democratic and reckless

I have posted earlier about the anti-democratic nature of the Electoral College, and I have had some fine discussions on Twitter and Facebook regarding #ElectoralCollege and #FaithlessElector.

One thing the debate about the fairness and fidelity of the Electoral College glosses over, however, is what happens if the Electoral College fails to make a decision.  What happens if there is no Electoral College Vote winner (270 EC votes or more)?  (This potential problem becomes particularly troublesome where there are more than two candidates.)

If there is no EC winner, as is provided in the Constitution, the House votes for president, each state having only one (1) vote; and the Senate votes for the vice-president. Under this arrangement, the House and Senate are not bound by any rules to keep the unified ticket. The House could vote for the Republican and the Senate the Democrat.

The anti-democratic nature of the Electoral College system is amplified if the vote goes to the House. As you can see in the picture below of one possible outcome, the Democrats take 20 of (generally) the more populous states, while the Republicans take 29-30 of the (generally) lesser populated states. If each state gives their one vote to who "won" the plurality, the Republican wins the election, because the votes of New York, California, Pennsylvania and Florida count the same as Wyoming and Montana and Alaska.  Is this what a government that derives its "just powers from the consent of the governed" looks like?

And that consent has been thwarted before.  In 1824, John Quincy Adams was elected president despite not winning either the popular vote or the electoral vote. Andrew Jackson was the winner in both categories.

• Jackson received 38,000 more popular votes than Adams, and beat him in the electoral vote 99 to 84. 
• Despite his victories, Jackson didn’t reach the (then) majority 131 votes needed in the Electoral College to be declared president. Neither candidate did. 
• The decision went to the House of Representatives, which voted Adams into the White House.

Prophetic Faithless Elector

The "world" of Faithless Elector seems to become more real every day.  As recently as the last election, Robert M Alexander, reporting for CNN, quoted a 2012 Associated investigation, prior to the election, which revealed that as many as five (5) Republican Electors had expressed uncertainty regarding whether they would actually vote for Mitt Romney if he carried their state.  

What will be the twists and turns in 2016?  What diabolical craziness awaits?  One thing the debate about the fairness and fidelity of the Electoral College system glosses is what happens if the Electoral College fails to make a decision--if there is no Electoral College Vote winner (270 EC votes or more). As is provided in the Constitution the House votes for president, each state having only one (1) vote; and the Senate votes for the vice-president.  Nor are House and Senate bound by any rules to keep the unified ticket.  The House could vote for the Republican and the Senate the Democrat.

My novel, Faithless Elector begins in December, 2016, when everyone thinks the election is over...

An idealistic young researcher uncovers a series of deaths among Electors and must race against time and a secret, deadly efficient conspiracy.

The Electoral College system for electing the president is a Constitutional compromise that is open to potential manipulation and mischief. At precisely the time when no one thought to look at what was going on a nationally organized threat to the integrity of the election of the president—secret and deadly—had struck. When Matthew Yamashita discovers a series of unexplained deaths among Electors, he and his advisor must work to get the information out and stop the plot. They are joined by an FBI agent, who, although initially sceptical, begins to glimpse just how deep the conspiracy goes.

Theirs becomes a race against time to get their information to light before the Electors meet on December 19, 2016. The conspirators always seem one step ahead of them, and it’s unclear who, if anyone, they can trust. The stakes could not be higher. If the plot succeeds, the government itself would no longer derive its "just powers from the consent of the governed."

In an era characterized as cynical and paranoid, Faithless Elector poses a creditable threat to the integrity of the electoral process and the selection of the president. The fights over delegates this spring were just the beginning….

Faithless Elector is a timely, compelling novel for our turbulent times, available at Amazon.com.  

Cafe Verite

Standards are important. Without standards we get garbled, impenetrable prose; we get mushy spaghetti drowning in watery sauce; we get spongy, undercooked (or something!) French bread that flattens between our teeth rather than divides satisfyingly into bites--a bit of crunch, a bit of crumb. And, most dispiriting of all, we get grainy, watery, flat coffee.

One of the distressing realities of American life is that very few culinary standards obtain.  You can't know whether a "good Italian place" creates sumptuous, lively dishes or whether they sling pale, tasteless, improperly cooked dreck.

Yuka Cafe, Brussels

You can't know whether you will get a good cup of espresso at a cafe with which you are unfamiliar until it's served.  Sometimes it's watery, sometimes it's bitter, sometimes it's watery and bitter.  Sometimes, it takes 10 minutes to be curated and tastes like iron filings. Until recently, here in Europe, every cup of espresso was good, and quick.  One might be a little better than another, but they were all acceptable.  Each had substance.  Each had an a full, heady aroma, a languorous chocolatey-bitey taste, the crema shivering atop the liquid.  Some had more than that.

The proliferation of Keurig "K" cups and capsule-pods for espresso, however, threatens this culinary equilibrium.  In London, and in Oxford, where I have been living this year, I have come across K-cup coffee in a number of places, but I thought I could put it down to a lack of British espresso tradition.  But on my my most recent trip to Paris, I had the memory of some fantastic meals marred by the hot pod-capsule water served at the end.  I have had lazy, sunny flaneur afternoons ruined by coffee I did not want to finish. Fortunately, it was not widespread, but even in Paris, I now began to look not merely for a place that looked comfortable, but for some clue from the outside of the place as to whether it was a real cafe, a real restaurant.  I regret that there is, as yet, nothing definitive I can offer short of an inspection and lengthy interrogation of the staff.   Here in Brussels, where I have traveled with an old friend, it is more widespread.

It doesn't have to be like this.  In Britain and Europe, the Real Ale and Honest ("Head is not Beer") weights & meaures campaigns forced bar and restaurant owners to use glasses with a liquid volume line on them.  And every establishment pours right up to the line.  There may be a nice head on the beer, which can certainly add to the taste, but you are not being cheated by a gassy line.

At this juncture, I don't see the need for government intervention.  Maybe just a decal on the door, or low on the window saying they make real coffee.  It would be a start.

Power of the Small States, Part 2

Yesterday, I wrote about the power of the small states within the Electoral College system--

And whereas California has 38,800,000 residents, and it has 55 electoral votes, or about 705,000 people per elector; and Wyoming, with 550,000 people, has three electoral votes, or about 183,000 people per elector. This discrepancy means that a Wyoming resident has 3.8 times the voting power of a California resident. Sixty-five Wyomings could fit in California, meaning that if California were scaled in the same way, California would contribute 195 votes to the electoral college. The winner-take-all nature of the contest (except ME and NE) further amplifies this unbalanced scenario.

One further latent anti-democratic issue in the Electoral College is the prospect of a three-way race where no one wins a clear majority (270).

When no candidate wins 270 electoral votes, the Constitution provides that the House of Representatives elects the president in such a case. If it were the full House voting, and since, ideally, the House's membership reflects the nation's population, this election would be relatively fair. However, this process provides that each state receives only one vote, further diluting and diminishing the power of large states, and utterly disenfranchising the people of the United States.

Given the undemocratic nature of the EC, if an elector switched his or her vote so that the EC vote matched the popular vote, would this be a good thing?

#FaithlessElector #ElectoralCollege