‘We the people,’ but who exactly?
The idea of rule by “the people” is at the core of America’s founding, but from the beginning, there was a relatively narrow understanding of who “the people” were.
Although the days of landowning white males monopolizing political power ended generations ago, the limitation of the franchise has not. In fact, a broken primary system and increased polarization are at risk of narrowing it further — even, perhaps, to one person.
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Despite many restrictions on voting removed during Reconstruction and the Progressive and Civil Rights eras, insiders and elites still determined which candidates appeared on general election ballots. Which people are vested with political power has changed throughout our history, and most of the time, politicians have had to appeal only to a small subset of Americans.
In recent years, the selection of candidates in proverbial smoke-filled rooms has given way to partisan primary elections that, at least in theory, open the vote to all Americans. But in reality, they restrict meaningful decision-making almost as much. These modern primaries are “relatively new” and have become the norm for 50 years. In many parts of the country, primary voters have an outsized influence on who serves in office and sets the national agenda.
In some states, parties allow all voters to participate in primaries regardless of party affiliation. Many, however, limit voting only to people who are party members, and some use nominating conventions that further restrict participation to all but the most passionate party loyalists. While any voter can register with a party and vote in the primary election of their choice, the full electorate typically gets to choose only from a winnowed field that primary voters have already chosen. Since 2016, in one party, those most passionate party loyalists have tended to defer almost unquestionably to one figure — former President Donald Trump. The question of who is best suited to win a general election, much less faithfully serve the state, seems to be an afterthought.
Consider the Pennsylvania Senate race as an example. On the right, Republicans have nominated Mehmet Oz, an acolyte of Trump who seems to know little about public policy questions relevant to his potential new role. Oz may still prevail over his opponent, John Fetterman, himself a product of a narrow wing of his party, but Oz’s luck is not likely to be shared by Trump-endorsed gubernatorial nominee Doug Mastriano.
Jonathan Bydlak is the director of the Governance Program at the R Street Institute, a center-right think tank. He wrote this for InsideSources.com.
