The Voter Will Bequeaths Upon Itself

Authored by: William Robert Barber

Part 1 of Many

One eligible citizen; one vote, is the law of the land in America. Note the law does not distinguish between the institutionally highly educated and the less educated, ignorant or enlightened, the literate from the illiterate, the lawless from the law-a-biding; every eligible citizen has the right to vote. Thus for those aspirating for public office every vote, and voter requires attention of and to their concerns. The candidates are required to present themselves for consideration by the electorate so to explain their policy, management of problems, answer questions, and publicly debate issues with other contenders. For the contender this is a statutory whetting process wherein those who seek public office must earn the blessings of the electorate by gaining the citizen’s vote.

The processes of elections define the political concept of power entrenched with the people; it is the voter who in common cause with their fellow citizens form the American ideal of a democratically founded governing system. The truthfulness of this definition is apparent when one grades the fairness measure to the nation’s laws, diligence of its regulatory agencies, integrity of its legislators, the efficiency of its bureaucrats, openness of its judicial proceedings, taxation policy, the adherence to the constitution of its courts, and the apolitical behavior of its military. Clearly, because of the electoral process, in America, the electorate will consistently get the government it deserves.

To some measurable degree there exists a growing majority of voters who are baffled, confused, and perplexed by the sheer size and managerial weight of the national government. Additionally, because of the enormity and complexity of international, as well as, national issues; the average voter is either not able to comprehend, is not interested or not willing to spend the time to understand the details of governing/managing the multiplicity of issues of critical national importance.

There is an empirically founded assumption that in local (city & county) elections the voter is more cognitive of details and policy issues verses national elections. One reason is the obvious indifference caused by distance; the other is that most citizens have only a cursory understanding of the national government’s complex and increasingly ambiguous structure, functionaries, or operating gadgetry. Therefore, the nominee easily escapes the requirements for specificity; they speak in generalities, fanciful quips that enhance and decorate the exuberantly rhetorical context, but, are intentionally void of objective substance. They for the most part need only point to the popular, the simple, the ruse of lights and mirrors.

In their defense, these national nominees are hampered as well by the largeness of government, the inherent governmental bureaucracy that engine the operations of governing and the requirement of raising money for political campaigns. These nominees are speaking to an electorate, in the majority, that blatantly lack the vocabulary so to comprehend the workings of federal governing; an electorate who have only media source understanding of national/international events; coupling this limitation of awareness by the voters it is of small wonder why the nominee communicates with sound bites.

Those nominees, seeking election to the highest public office in the land is beholding to an electorate with a scanty, basic, only nominal understanding of governmental resources, methods and practices.

The challenge of communicating the essence of an political, economic, or foreign policy argument to the voters reside within the nation’s media, pundits, and editorials.

The furtherance of this theme and title are forthcoming…