Devolving Democracy

H.L. Mencken,in 1920,said that under the current American political system,the possibiity exists, indeed it is probable, that the time will come when we the American people elevate a complete idiot to the presidency. It didn't take long for his prediction to be fulfilled. In fact, it can be argued that we elected three in a row for the price of one; Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and Herbert Hoover, all Republicans, three men of distinctly mediocre capabilities in a post war era in which the American people wanted only to forget the horror of their relatively brief participation in the "war to end all wars", and to get down to the more important business of partying their tails off, partly in defiance of the government tyrany of probition of alcohol. The nation was founded upon the niave presumption that only men of the highest quality would be chosen as leaders. By the tiem James Buchanon took office in 1857, that false belief was out the window. The ancient Romans and Greeks both invented and tried democracy, and both times its inherent inefficiencies and corruptability devolved into dictatorships. It was too easy and too tempting to let Julius Caesar take care of everything, as he proclaimed himself tribue and consul and imperitor for life, all the offices and powers of state intact, but bundled, like a group of sticks tied together, like a "fasci" into one entity. Most people seem to think that Benito Mussolini invented fascism, but it was another, far earlier Italian,the great Caesar himself, who deserves the credit. The great war hero general marched his aremy, illegally, into the city, and took over. Amid the sloppy chaos of democracy, with thousands of voices competing to drown each other out,it is easy to see the appeal of slick, stremlined, efficient government by a single ruling oligarch. Of the three forms of government, by the many, by the few, and by the one, as leadership narrows and devolves into the hands of fewer and fewer human voices, efficiency increases. True democracy requires too much effort on the part of we the people. It is evident that a high percentage of the American people, perhaps as much as one third, would willigly cede all power to Herr Trump, thus cutting out all the middle men, those troublesome members of Congress, the irksone anti-Trump judiciary, the unfettered media, and a few other villainous democratic trouble makers. A sizeable percentage of the American people are obviously tired of the odious, burdensome apparatus of self government. Desptite a recent spike in voter turnout, historcally, less than half of eligible voters have bothered to vote. As Gore Vidal said, they are smart enough to know that their vote is meaningless in a pseudo democracy. Solutions such as mail in voting, computer voting, automatic voter registration for eighteen year olds offer hope, but are repeatedly squashed by the oligarchs within. We often forget or ignore the fact that, ensconced within our American democratic republic, are serious undemocratic forces, well funded ones. Why would the wealthy elite want to live in a country where the unwashed masses had the power to vote the money out of their powerful, plutocratic hands? They don't, and they don't have to, and they know it. Plutocrats control the media, and have succeeded since the founding in convincing the ninety eight percent to vote against their own interests, for plutocrats to govern them. In every society which ever existed, the oppressed masses have had the power to revolt and take control. LIke the Eagles sang: "So often times it happens, that we live our lives in chains, and we never even know we have the key."