There’s a story often told about a group of citizens who approached Benjamin Franklin on the streets of Philadelphia following the Constitutional Convention. Members of the crowd asked, “Mr. Franklin, what kind of government have you given us?” His reply: “A republic, if you can keep it.”
It isn’t easy to keep a representative democracy for as long as America has. In fact, most republics or direct democracies have not lasted for as long as the United States has. Franklin and the other founding fathers recognized the challenge of the form of government they created. As students of history, they understood that when a democratic government becomes ineffective, there’s a great chance for somebody who has great appeal (a “demagogue”) to take power, only to expand and abuse the authority.
Around the time Franklin spoke those famous words in Philadelphia, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay set out writing a series of 85 letters, known as The Federalist Papers, meant to explain and justify the new form of government created by the Constitution. In the first of those letters they wrote:
“History will teach us that of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career, by paying an obsequious court to the people … commencing demagogues, and ending tyrants.”
To prevent such a scenario they set up a number of formal controls on the distribution of power: a federal system whereby powers not delegated to the national government were given to the states and a system of checks and balances whereby no one branch of government had supreme authority over the others.
But beyond those institutional controls there are other informal norms of behavior the founding fathers knew were essential to the survival of a republic. Politics in the American system was designed to be slow and messy, requiring compromise and deliberation. For our formal systems of governance to work, they realized people had to treat one another with respect and fairness. Without basic decency, a republic doesn’t work.
Election Day is here, and America has to choose between the two most disliked presidential nominees in the last 30 years. Our next president, like it or not, will be either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton. Until I thought about what Franklin said, I didn’t know who I would vote for. But now that I have, I realize I’ll be casting a ballot for Clinton Tuesday.
As a Republican, I had never completely taken the idea of voting for Trump out of my mind. I hoped he would stop making ridiculous and false claims about things such as voter fraud, undocumented immigrant crime and the fight against ISIS. I thought he could back away from some of his most nationalist and aggressive proposals: building a border wall with Mexico, giving nuclear weapons to Japan and South Korea, torturing and killing the families of terrorists and banning Muslims from our country. I believed he would stop with the vicious personal insults directed at good people such as Sen. John McCain, Sen. Ted Cruz and Khizr Khan. I reasoned wiser Republicans who lent him their support — House Speaker Paul Ryan, Sen. Marco Rubio, etc. — would be able to bring him back.
But they haven’t. Despite all the talk of a “pivot” from Trump after the primary elections, it has become clear he will not change his behavior for a second. Trump is who he is, and isn’t he the kind of person Franklin warned about?
Trump is more concerned with winning than with the right way to interact in a republic. He doesn’t understand that our system of governance doesn’t work if our leaders hurl disgusting insults at political opponents: “[McCain’s] not a war hero. He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.” He doesn’t understand that threatening to not accept the result of an election, or threatening to throw his opponent in jail if he wins, are the kind of things that will destroy our country. This kind of talk isn’t “anti-political correctness,” it’s just un-American.
It’s clear that Trump has failed to realize that it is our system of governance and how we treat one another that makes our country so great already. The reason that we “win” is because we recognize that our system, for all its frustrations and shortcomings, produces the conditions that allow people to be free and productive.
That leaves me with Clinton. I’m not happy about this vote, as she herself is hardly an embodiment of what I want in a presidential candidate. I disagree with most of her policies, the Clinton Foundation reeks of favoritism and corruption and she herself shows great disdain for many of the people she would serve as President (see: “you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables.”).
But at the same time, Clinton has many redeeming qualities. Most importantly to me, she has shown throughout her career a willingness to work across the aisle to accomplish meaningful policy change. One could imagine her and Ryan sitting down for a real, substantive conversation on topics ranging from the national debt to entitlement programs to national security. I would hope she could recognize her victory is not so much an embrace of liberal policies in America so much as it is a rejection of Trump.
We don’t get a choice outside of Clinton and Trump. Third-party candidates and independent write-ins such as Evan McMullin (probably the candidate I align the most with on policy issues) have failed to gain enough traction to win a single electoral vote, let alone the presidency. With this in mind, it is most important Trump loses, and loses badly. We may never have another Reagan-Mondale election (Ronald Reagan won every state except Minnesota), but for Trump to lose by a 12 to 15 percent margin in the popular vote would signal a clear rejection of his demagoguery.
When I go to the polls Tuesday I’ll have a split ticket, voting for Rep. Andy Harris for my representative and Del. Kathy Szeliga for Senate. They are part of a slate of Maryland Republicans, including Amie Hoeber in the 6th District and Mark Plaster in the 3rd, who are running campaigns based on conservative values and sound policy. I hope they will win and bring some sanity to Washington, as well as a spirit of compromise and debate. I’ve seen Szeliga work in Annapolis, and I know she embodies those qualities.
But I won’t vote for Trump. I’ll vote for him to lose as badly as possible, knowing my vote is going toward a candidate I very much disagree with. But I will take her republic over what Trump offers. Franklin couldn’t have been more clear.
Sam Wallace is a public policy graduate student. He can be reached at samhwallace@gmail.com.
