Information, please

Seen on a T-shirt in New Orleans, years ago: IT’S NOT THE HEAT, IT’S THE STUPIDITY—referring to an overused coastal summertime complaint. But there’s another season that caption might fit, and it’s already upon us.

Seen on a friend’s Facebook post a few days ago: “I don’t think I can make it through another presidential election season. Anybody got a retreat in either Northern Scotland or Fiji that I can rent for a couple of years?”

I sympathize. I was minding my own business, scanning my own Facebook page when I came across a scurrilous post from another friend about a candidate I like, followed by vehement agreements from further friends (and total strangers), which felt like death from a thousand paper cuts. How could they be so ignorant? And I don’t have time to make a case, and it would just raise my frustration level if I tried, and a long Fiji retreat doesn’t sound too bad just now.

“Of the people, by the people, and for the people” is a messy proposition, plain and simple. The Founding Fathers constituted the electoral college and indirect election of senators as a hedge against the messiness—or some of it—but that was a futile hope. Presidential elections got off to a rousing start with slash-and-burn pamphleteers like James Callender, a Scottish immigrant who didn’t seem to like anybody. In 1796 Callender exposed an illicit affair of Alexander Hamilton’s and won the support of Hamilton’s bitter rival Thomas Jefferson—then later speculated luridly on a supposed relationship between Jefferson and his slave, “dusky Sally” Hemings. Not even the Father of His Country was safe from Callender’s smears, though it took some imagination to smear Washington.

When ‘the people’ can influence politics, politics can also influence the people, leading to radicalism at one extreme and disenchantment on the other.

George Caleb Bingham, Missouri artist and politician, portrayed antebellum democracy in a lively series of paintings—for example, The County Election, in which voters cheerfully accept whiskey bribes, haul comatose friends to the polls, and flip coins to determine their choice. After the Civil War, politics entered the machine age, including backroom deals, ward bosses, and industrial kingmakers. The most dignified presidential elections in American history probably took place in the 1950s—a period our liberated age often dismisses as insufferably boring and conformist.

At least in the old days, one could cancel newspaper subscriptions, avoid political gatherings, and steer clear of politically minded relatives for the duration of the campaign. These days no one is safe from robocalls and political ads where Candidate A (the one you should vote for) is represented by inspiring tunes and heartwarming photos, while Candidate B enters the picture with minor chords and scenes of despair.

The system comes preloaded with serious flaws. When “the people” can influence politics, politics can also influence the people, leading to radicalism at one extreme and disenchantment on the other. In God’s providence, however, this is the system we have. And, cynics and shenanigans notwithstanding, every citizen has a vote—Walt Whitman called it “the still small voice vibrating.”

I don’t believe in 100 percent voter turnout, but I do believe in 100 percent informed turnout, and that’s why 18-month vacations in Fiji are not an option. David Webb, a Washington, D.C., talk-show host, urges citizens to do their homework: Compare candidates’ actions to their words, weigh the candidates’ weak points, and consider the candidates’ appeal to the general public, not just their base. This might mean sacrificing some of my precious leisure time in order to peruse those online news sources I trust.

“The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance” (attributed to John Curran, Irish judge, 1790). A certain amount of simplistic repetition, outrageous statements, dirty campaign tricks, and plain old stupidity figures in to those conditions, too. If freedom means anything, people must be free to be wrong. But other people—preferably a lot more—must exercise their liberty to sort out claims and past records as best they can, make an informed decision, and raise their small still voices. And try not to complain. Eternal vigilance is a pain, sometimes, but the alternative is worse.

Email jcheaney@wng.org