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Shaun King, columnist for the New York Daily News, knows how to fix American representative democracy. For King, a democracy that could elect Trump is no democracy at all, and he has five solutions, growing increasingly more ambitious: automatic voter registration, mail voting, making elections a national holiday, abolishing the Electoral College, and making the Senate more representative.

Now, I have no problem with moving federal elections to weekends or allowing mail voting, and it doesnt bother me very much when states institute automatic voter registration. As for abolishing the Electoral College and making the Senate more representative well, those are truly terrible ideas, but they have approximately no chance of happening anytime in the near future. The actual proposals in Kings article are a convenient mix of the inoffensive and the unrealizable, and therefore are not particularly concerning. But the underlying attitude behind the piece is concerning indeed, it reflects a very popular theory of democracy that is unworkable in practice and incoherent in theory, and that undermines confidence in our own quite excellent system.

Why, one may ask, does American representative democracy need fixing? To be sure, there is much room for debate as to the current state of American institutions: My particular hobby-horses here are the growing power of the presidency and the courts relative to Congress, and the parlous state of civic culture. But Kings concerns have little to do with such institutional concerns what worries King is that American governance doesnt represent the popular will. Our current system is such that the overwhelming majority of Americans despise Trumpcare, but politicians have the power to pass it anyway, laments King. Were not getting meaningful gun reforms and reasonable immigration reforms and its because our government no longer represents the popular will of the majority of Americans.

King is advocating here the popular theory that governance, properly construed, is a sort of constant referendum: that government consists of always advocating the policies that obtain majority support in the latest poll. Put aside the fact that even liberals dont consistently believe this, that Obamacare didnt have majority support when it was passed, that many wanted the courts to mandate gay marriage when most of America still opposed it, that some polls suggest most Americans support one way or another Trumps refugee-ban policy and consider the two main complaints: that some American institutions allow politicians or parties to win without winning a plurality of votes, and that Americans dont vote enough. Both are very frequent complaints generally on the left, but occasionally on the right as well. Both are unfounded.

The first complaint is very often a simple failure of civics. There are two sovereign bodies in the American political system: the states and the federal government. The Electoral College and the Senate the two allegedly undemocratic elements of the American political system fail to consistently reflect plurality popular opinion at the national scale because they are also structured to represent the states. Now, it is possible to make the case that it shouldnt be this way: that the states shouldnt be sovereign units and that the Constitution should be amended to reflect this. As a staunch federalist, I disagree quite strongly with this point of view, but it is an honest argument. But it is disingenuous to claim that these federalist structures are intrinsically undemocratic. Rather, they reflect a federalist view of democracy that balances democracy at the level of the state with democracy at the level of the broader nation. Martin Diamond put it best in his excellent essay The Electoral College and the American Idea of Democracy:

In fact, presidential elections are already just about as democratic as they can be. We already have one-man, one-vote but in the states. Elections are as freely and democratically contested as elections can be but in the states. Victory always goes democratically to the winner of the popular vote but in the states...Democracy thus is not the question regarding the Electoral College, federalism is: should our presidential elections remain in part federally democratic, or should we make them completely nationally democratic?

It is unfortunately representative of the current political debate that the word federalism never once crops up in Kings article.

The second complaint falls apart upon closer examination. The claim that American democracy requires automatic voter registration, mail voting, and a federal holiday for elections is in effect a claim that democracy entails the largest possible number of citizens voting. In the same vein are the occasional proposals that America adopt Australias system of mandatory voting. There is debate over whether voter-ID laws effectively prevent some Americans from voting National Review has weighed in on this debate but that isnt really whats at stake here. Whats at stake here is a matter of just getting as many people as possible to the polls: King, for instance, worries that finding where, when, and how to register to vote is cumbersome beyond belief.

Now, as a 21-year-old who has voted in three elections since turning 18, I would challenge the contention that its really that hard to fill out some forms and make your way to the correct polling place. But it probably is true that if we automatically registered everyone, or made Election Day a federal holiday, or allowed people to vote by e-mail, more people would vote. To which I wonder: So what? What good is done by dispensing ballots to every adult citizen who would not trouble himself with investing the effort to send an application to the registrars office, or to figure out the correct polling place, or to arrange his schedule so he has time on Election Day? How much harm is really done to democracy when those who by all accounts dont seem to prioritize their own voting very highly dont vote?

Liberals like to talk about the sanctity of votingthat it is a civic duty, an ethical responsibility that comes with citizenship. And actually, unlike, say, Kevin Williamson, I agree. But if you believe that voting is a sober obligation, why would you want to make it such a trivial act that it can be done without a moments thought or planning? If voting really is sacred, ought we really to make it frictionless for those who dont seem to take it very seriously at all? Really, its not voting that liberals hold sacred its votes. Liberals believe that an expanded electorate will vote Democratic and, in large part because of this belief, they have internalized a notion that democracy, properly construed, is something of a poll. The higher the response rate, the better the poll as if democracy were nothing more than sampling the attitudes of the broader public to see which candidate is most in line with a Rousseauian sort of general will.

This version of democracy does not make any sense, for the simple reason that there is no such thing as a static set of coherent public attitudes that can be dispassionately measured. Poll after poll has found that Americans are shockingly ignorant about politics a problem almost certainly compounded within the population that doesnt regularly vote. Public opinions are often far less robust than they may seem support for an issue often changes dramatically depending on how it is phrased in opinion polls. And many widely held political positions are incoherent: Americans often express support for the good parts of Obamacare such as the pre-existing-conditions provision and community rating but not the bad parts of the bill such as the individual mandate as if it were possible to have some without the rest. This all suggests that expanding the electorate would serve less as a transparent view of the policy preferences of America and more as a slightly improved measuring of tribal allegiances.

Fortunately, there is an alternative vision one that I, at least, find quite compelling. In this vision, there is nothing passive about voting: rather, voting is the crucial act whereby the American people affirm the consent of the governed by collectively choosing their leaders and representatives. The heart of democracy is not some abstract correspondence between governance and popular attitudes; it is the citizenry going to the polls and choosing its government. This is a serious task, and it should be taken seriously. It is a shame that many Americans are poorly informed, or lazy, or dont particularly care much for voting. But it is not a failure of democracy that we dont reach out to them with open arms. Democracy is not just a poll. Its something greater.

READ MORE: Why Are Democrats Afraid of the Election Integrity Commission? The Obama Administrations Ugly Legacy of Undermining Electoral Integrity Non-Citizen Voting Has Not Been Debunked

Max Bloom is an editorial intern at National Review and a student of mathematics and English literature at the University of Chicago.

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Democracy: Electoral College, Senate Exemplify Its True Meaning ... - National Review

When President Trump visited Poland earlier this month, he praised the country as a defender of Western values and democracy. But now, the countrys democratic institutions are quickly unraveling as the government pushes legislation that would essentially make its Supreme Court irrelevant.

On Thursday, lawmakers in the lower house of the Polish parliament voted in favor of a controversial bill that would give the government complete control over the Supreme Court.

The bill would essentially grant the ruling party the power to appoint new Supreme Court judges and calls for the immediate dismissal of the courts current judges, except those who had been chosen by President Andrzej Duda.

Specifically, the bill states that the National Judicial Council will select new judges. A law passed earlier this month made it so that the councils membership predominantly consists of people appointed by the president.

In a hard-hitting column, the Washington Posts Anne Applebaum argued that having a supreme court packed with pro-Duda judges could enable the government to falsify elections, evade corruption investigations, and prosecute opponents.

This is a blatant attack by Polands government on the independence of the judiciary and the rule of law, said Lydia Gall, a Balkans and Eastern Europe researcher at Human Rights Watch, in a statement.

The bill was submitted by the right-wing, EU-skeptic, and nationalist Law and Justice party (PiS), which controls both the upper and lower houses of parliament and picked President Duda. Since winning October 2015s democratic elections, the party has been determined to dismantle Polands checks and balances.

Now that the bill has been approved by the lower house, it moves on for a vote in the upper house. If it passes, it would then go to the president to be signed and passed as law.

In his July 6 speech in Warsaw, Trump questioned whether the West has the will to survive in its fight against radical Islamic terrorism.

Repeatedly throughout the speech, Trump praised Poland as a defender of the West.

Just as Poland could not be broken, I declare today for the world to hear that the West will never, ever be broken, Trump said. Our values will prevail, our people will thrive, and our civilization will triumph.

His nationalistic message was clear: The United States has Polands back even as the government is undermining its democracy. His speech may have even emboldened Polish legislators to consolidate the governments power by making it clear that the US was perfectly content with the countrys rightward drift.

I am here today not just to visit an old ally, but to hold it up as an example for others who seek freedom and who wish to summon the courage and the will to defend our civilization, said Trump.

Over the weekend, thousands of government opponents protested the bill and the governments attempts to consolidate power in Warsaw and several other cities.

The Krakow Post interviewed a number of protestors who said they were afraid for their countrys future. One protestor said it was his first time demonstrating since communism ended in Poland 27 years ago.

Now it is more dangerous. Very, very dangerous, Robert, a local 51-year-old engineer, told the Krakow Post. Communism was part of external control by Russia. But [the Law and Justice Party] is an internal thief of law.

The European Union, which Poland joined in 2004, has warned that the Polish government could be sanctioned and have its voting rights suspended if it passes the supreme court law.

Frans Timmermans, the European commissions first vice president, said on Wednesday that the EU is very close to triggering Article 7, a never-before-used rule that allows the EU to suspend member countries voting rights. It was established to ensure that all EU countries respect the common values of the EU, according to Politico.

Trump, in other words, should have probably held off in holding Poland up as an example of a smoothly-functioning democratic nation.

See more here:
Trump praised Poland as a defender of the West. But their democracy is unraveling. - Vox

The dearth of foreign leaders willing to publicly criticize Mr. Xi has added to a sense of despair and isolation among activists. Many say they feel abandoned by the United States in particular, and they worry that President Trump will prioritize trade with China at the expense of human rights.

People are full of sorrow, anger and desperation, said Zhao Hui, 48, a dissident writer who goes by the pen name Mo Zhixu. We hope the democratic activists who still remain can keep the flame alive. But bringing about change to the bigger picture might be too much to ask.

The passing of Mr. Liu, who preached peace and patience, has provoked debate about the best path toward democracy. Many activists argue that more forceful tactics are necessary to counter what they see as unrelenting government hostility. Some have pushed for mass protests, while a small number believe that violence is the only option, even if they do not endorse it outright.

Some have turned to believe in violent revolution, said Hu Jia, a prominent dissident who served more than three years in prison for his activism and still faces routine surveillance. It makes people feel the door to a peaceful transition has closed.

Mr. Lius allies remain incensed by the Chinese governments handling of his case. Officials disclosed that Mr. Liu, 61, had advanced liver cancer only when it was too late to treat it, prompting accusations that his medical care was inadequate. The authorities have also prevented his wife, Liu Xia, an artist and activist, from speaking or traveling freely.

The scrutiny facing government critics is likely to grow even more suffocating in the months ahead.

The Communist Party will hold a leadership reshuffle this fall, at which Mr. Xi is expected to win another five-year term and appoint allies to key positions. In the run-up to the meeting, the party is tightening its grip on online communications and escalating pressure on critics.

Human rights advocates say that the party appears increasingly hostile toward dissent and intent on quashing even small-scale movements. Over the past two years, dozens of human rights lawyers have been jailed and accused of conspiring with foreign forces to carry out subversive plots. Mr. Xis government, wary of grass-roots activism, has also increased oversight of domestic and foreign nonprofit organizations.

Yaxue Cao, an activist who grew up in China but is now based in the United States, said Mr. Lius death was the climax of a long and continuous stretch of ruthless elimination. She recited a long list of critics who had been sidelined since Mr. Xi rose to power in 2012, which she said had led to a culture of fear and intimidation.

The party has been working systematically to block the path forward, she said. A few hundred or a few thousand activists are nothing for the party.

Advocates say they were startled that foreign leaders did not speak out more forcefully about the treatment of Mr. Liu. While American diplomats called on China to allow Mr. Liu to travel abroad for cancer treatment, Mr. Trump did not speak publicly about the case.

Western countries have adopted a policy of appeasement, Mr. Hu said. The Communist Party has the resources to whip whomever they want.

The Chinese government has defended its treatment of Mr. Liu and accused foreign critics of meddling in its affairs.

While China has seemed less responsive to foreign pressure on human rights issues in recent years, several activists said they thought it was still important for world leaders to speak out.

We hope the West can maintain its moral position, Mr. Zhao said. Even though the pressure is not as effective as it should be, it needs to be expressed.

Despite the governments efforts to limit dissent, some of Mr. Lius supporters say they have emerged more energized in the days since his death. They see hope in a middle class that is increasingly outspoken; grass-roots activists who are taking on issues as varied as pollution and forced demolitions of homes; and a generation of young advocates who have taken on causes like feminism and rights for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender citizens.

How long can such an approach last before discontent boils over? said Maya Wang, a researcher at Human Rights Watch in Hong Kong. One only needs to look at the protests, particularly in the countryside, to see the enormous grievances there are out there.

In the aftermath of Mr. Lius passing, his admirers have found ways around the governments controls on speech to honor him. Several supporters uploaded photos of the ocean this week as a tribute to Mr. Liu, whose ashes were spread at sea.

Wu Qiang, a dissident intellectual, drove about 400 miles last week from Beijing to the northeastern city of Shenyang, where Mr. Liu was being treated, to be near him in his final days. Mr. Wu, 46, said Mr. Lius death had left many of his admirers with a desire to turn sorrow into strength.

On one side is darkness; on the other side is hope, he said. We need to find a new way forward.

Iris Zhao contributed research.

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In China, Despair for Cause of Democracy After Nobel Laureate's Death - New York Times

Dennis Gronquist

Stillwater

To the editor:

Mark Krzmarzick seems like a fairly well informed writer and reader of the News Press. Good for him. I hope its not liberal brainwashing. In his Letter to the Editor, Writers arguments filled with holes on July 6, it is evident that he is still somewhat confused, as are many other people, over the difference between a democracy and a republic.

Yes, Mark, I agree with Merriam-Webster, even though it is a poor source for explaining this difference. Wikipedia or Blacks Law Dictionary are somewhat better, but it is still somewhat confusing as they are similar. Both democracies and republics may have laws written by representative governments. Thats a no brainer. But your attempt to clarify the terminology is not helping. What we just agreed upon does not change the fact that we do not have a democracy or a democratic republic. Yes, there are similarities.

To quote Steve King, Our Founding Fathers crafted a constitutional republic for the first time in the history of the world because they were shaping a form of government that would not have the failures of a democracy in it, but had the representation of democracy in it.

A better definition is to quote Benjamin Franklin, We have a constitutional republic, if we can keep it.

The Founders established limits on what government can do without public approval. When these constitutional limits are routinely violated by government, and we do nothing about it, our government is openly evolving into something other than what was originally intended and what has served us and the world so well. A prime example is the Democratic Party with a socialist candidate and platform. Then, there are the bogus Oklahoma public trusts used by the City Council to justify double utility rates and other excessive fees, simply because the state allows it.

They do not serve the common man, but their governmental entities at public expense. In doing so, they violate not only the Oklahoma state constitution, but the U.S. Constitution; the supreme law of the land.

The best example of a true democratic republic is still the Democratic Peoples Republic of (North) Korea, the proud DPRK, with its million man army. To suggest our government is a democratic republic is not only in error, its ludicrous.

If the majority ruled, Hillary Clinton would be carrying on the socialist practices of her predecessor. Thankfully, the Constitution defines an electoral college that temporarily saved us from paying the welfare state in Mexifornia; who, like our city employees, will always want more.

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LETTER TO THE EDITOR: We're no democracy, thank goodness - Stillwater News Press

In her July 13 op-ed in Foreign Affairs, How U.S. Officials Can Craft Innovative Human Rights Policy, former Ambassador Sarah Mendelson recalls her work as a senior, politically-appointed foreign policy official in the Obama administration. Her personal mission, as she recalls, was to elevate human rightsfirst within USAID, and later when she worked for the US Mission to the United Nations.

Her initiatives to promote civil society and human rights within small powers such as post-Ben Ali Tunisia are admirable. However, her implicit suggestion that we ought to elevate human rights in our relations with great powers such as China and Russia is strategically incorrect. Our countrys policies vis-a-vis great powers (and to some extent medium powers, such as Turkey) must be guided, first and foremost, by a grand strategy rooted in our strategic interests, not one that aims to reflect our values.

In January 2010, Ambassador Mendelson was asked by the Obama administration to join USAID. Right away she embarked on a proactive agenda to push human rights to the top of the priority chain. Yet nearly three years later, as she was about to travel to Russia to assess the impact of Americas civil society promotion efforts there, Putin decided to quickly shut down USAIDs presence in Russia.

Ambassador Sarah Mendelson. Credit: Center for Strategic and International Studies/Flickr/Creative Commons

Astoundingly, she writes, she felt upset that there was no consequence (from the U.S. government) for Russias actions. This is a worrying sentiment from a senior official whose work impacts U.S. national security. Why should there have been a consequence for Putins crack-down on a political opposition promoted by USAID? Shouldnt she have expected that to be the reaction of an authoritarian leader?

Both the U.S. and Russia have nuclear arsenals that could bring about the worlds destruction. The situation is is tense, in Syria and in Eastern Europe, where American forces are in close proximity to an increasingly bellicose Russia. There can be no room for error. There can and should be real consequences for Russian strategic misbehavior: for example, a Russian attack on one of Americas NATO allies, or meddling in the U.S. elections. But Putins reaction to the Obama administrations democracy promotion in Russia (which the Kremlin viewed, probably correctly, as efforts to undermine his regime), does not rise to the level of injury Mendelson seemed to suggest.

If anything, Putins increasingly repressive measures should have had the opposite impact on Ambassador Mendelson: They should have caused her to reconsider attempts to elevate civil society promotion in powerful nations like Russia, an on-again/off-again adversary, especially since the results were so blatantly contrary to her intentions. And she should have considered, when reflecting on her time in government, whether her enthusiastic efforts to increase support to political opposition inside Russia inadvertently contributed to Putins decision to try to undermine Hillary Clinton during the 2016 elections.

Despite or because of USAIDs closing in Russia, Ambassador Mendelson continues, she doubled-down on her efforts to promote civil society in Russia. Following Putins closure of USAID, her team worked to establish centers in various parts of the world as places where members of civil society could learn to be more resilient and develop skills that made them better connected to the people they were meant to represent than to their foreign donors. This is both disappointing and illogical. Disappointing because it exudes undiplomatic arrogance: Does she really think that individuals who are courageous enough to risk their lives being part of the opposition in politically repressive countries like Russia or China need foreign officials (many born and bred in an elite, upper-class bubble), to teach them on how to be more resilient? And how does resilience training for activists in repressive countries look like? Solitary confinement in the morning, starvation in the afternoon, sleep deprivation at night, and torture at dawn?

In addition, such centers require the U.S. government to finance, lead, support, and sustain them. So the U.S. will (and in some instances already) becomes a foreign donor to centers that teach activists to pay less attention to foreign donors. This does not make sense.

The Ambassador is critical of President Donald Trumps and Secretary of State Rex Tillersons omissions regarding human rights and civil society. Yet this is precisely what is needed at this point in history. Putting aside Iraq for a second (since she is not suggesting promoting human rights through military force), think of the regionswhere the U.S. has tried promoting civil society over the last two decadesEastern Europe, Central Asia, and the Middle East. Today the sovereignty of Georgia and Ukraine has been torn to shreds by Russias counter-reaction (from sending in little green men, to increasing cyber attacks on those countries critical infrastructures). Meanwhile political factionalism and corruption in both countries has made future progress impossible.

Promoting human rights, democratic institutions, or civil society can remain the aspiration of individual diplomats, but American foreign policy must first be guided by strategic interests. Today, the U.S. should seek to find ways to cooperate with China and Russia on Syria, Iran, North Korea, and other pressing challenges, rather than to promote civil society in Beijing or Moscow, and thereby inadvertently trigger an unnecessary and dangerous escalation in hostilities.

Dr. Oleg Svet is a defense analyst. The views expressed here are his own.

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When Pushing Democracy on Others Backfires - The American Conservative