Overthrowing the Government

Let us affront and reprimand the smooth mediocrity and squalid contentment of the times, and hurl in the face of custom, and trade, and office, the fact which is the upshot of all history, that there is a great responsible Thinker and Actor working wherever a man works; that a true man belongs to no other time and place, but is the centre of things.

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Apologies to my dedicated readers for the lack of "new content" lately. The academic calendar, for both JPL and myself, has been a bit "full"; hopefully we'll be back to a more regular posting schedule within a week or so.

In the meantime, just a few thoughts on Election Day, about the inherent injustice of the voting system itself. As many are aware (cf. 2000), the Electoral College system allows for the strange situation of losing the popular vote and winning the presidency anyway. This throwback to the "States Rights" world of the early federalist system, is obviously antiquated, and the 2000 election demonstrated its absurdity. In a similar vein, the system of disproportionate Senate representation is perhaps equally, or even more, troubling, especially in light of what's happened during the last six years of single-party rule.

By the numbers, the set-up of the Senate (as well as the often insidious (cf. Tom DeLay) redistricting for the House) makes it more difficult for Democrats to win control than it is for Republicans. According to this study by Columbia University, a statistical advantage of at least two percentage points is built in to the system, requiring Democrats to average a popular victory of 52% to have an even chance of winning. Here are the conclusions:

It's not easy being a Democrat. After their stunning loss of both houses of Congress in 1994, the Democrats have averaged over 50% of the vote in Congressional races in every year except 2002, yet they have not regained control of the House. The same is true with the Senate: in the last three elections (during which 100 senators were elected), Democratic candidates have earned three million more votes than Republican candidates, yet they are outnumbered by Republicans in the Senate as well. 2006 is looking better for the Democrats, but our calculations show that they need to average at least 52% of the vote (which is more than either party has received since 1992) to have an even chance of taking control of the House of Representatives.

This situation more or less guarantees that the makeup of the Congress, to say nothing of the executive branch, is not representative at all. As the editors of the New Republic write today, such conditions make it impossible to achieve an old style "wipeout," whereby the government actually is overthrown by the voters. Instead, we can expect only modest gains, which will leave the Democrats without the "clear mandate" that they probably actually have:

In the olden days of politics, electoral wipeouts were great spectacles to behold. When Democrats or Republicans slipped on the political banana peel, they would tumble, arms flailing like Chevy Chase, into congressional defeat. In the 1894 election, Democrats squandered 125 seats; in 1922, Republicans endured a loss of 77 seats. This year, for the first time in over a decade, there's talk of a wipeout. But this wipeout, should it occur, would entail Republicans losing a mere 30 seats--and only in the unlikely event that every Bible-beating, gun-toting rural district breaks in the Democrats' direction.

When we wax nostalgic for the bygone era of true electoral catastrophes, it's not just out of a hunger for more enjoyable political theater. We're pining for elections that reflect public will. And such an outcome is not likely this year. Take a look at recent opinion surveys, such as the one Newsweek released on October 28. Democrats have run up double-digit advantages on major issues from Iraq to the economy. When voters are presented with a generic congressional ballot, Democrats win 53-39. But there's simply no way that this will translate.

What to do? As Emerson noted, it is a difficult thing to contemplate overturning the systems that have been consecrated by usage and time, and there is a kind of understandable terror at the prospect of fundamental reform. But the times require it, and we would do well to remember his words of encouragement:

There is no virtue which is final; all are initial. The virtues of society are vices of the saint. The terror of reform is the discovery that we must cast away our virtues, or what we have always esteemed such, into the same pit that has consumed our grosser vices.

There is nothing in the system that is sacred -- especially when it is patently, quantifiably unjust. But there is nothing to be done about this today, except vote. Regardless of what TNR has to say, a thirty seat swing is possible and desirable, and a victory in the Senate is not impossible. And a transition of one or both of the houses, by whatever margins, will clearly be a reflection of the will of the majority, and serve as both affront and reprimand to the squalid mediocrity of our time -- even if, like everything else here in Bush-land, the numbers don't exactly correspond to reality.