Civitas No. 7
On Elections, and the Myth of Participation
To The People of the United States:
Few practices in American life are celebrated with greater reverence than the act of voting. It is spoken of as the essence of self-government, the fulfillment of civic duty, and the proof of popular sovereignty. Yet reverence, when unexamined, becomes an excuse. Elections are indispensable to a free Republic -- but they are insufficient to sustain one.
The error lies in mistaking a ballot for participation itself. Voting is a mechanism of delegation. It selects those who will act; it cannot act in their stead. When participation is reduced to a ritual, responsibility is surrendered at the very moment it is proclaimed.
A People who vote without engagement authorize power without supervising it. They confer legitimacy without maintaining accountability. Between elections, decisions are made, authorities expand, and precedents harden -- often without scrutiny or consent. When the consequences of these decisions become visible, citizens are told to wait for the next election, as though time alone were a remedy.
Political participation has been compressed into an episodic ritual. Attention is demanded briefly, emotions are stirred, and allegiance is declared. Then, the public withdraws. Governance continues uninterrupted, but self-government ceases. This cycle flatters citizens with the appearance of control while relieving them of its burdens.
Such a system fails because elections are asked to do work they were never designed to perform. They cannot substitute for vigilance. They cannot correct abuses tolerated by indifference. A ballot cast every few years cannot restrain a government that operates daily.
When citizens govern only on election day, they are governed every other day of the year. Authority migrates to those who remain present: administrators who draft rules, courts that interpret them, and organized interests that never disengage. Power flows toward attention. This is arithmetic.
The reduction of citizenship to voting distorts political judgment. Complex questions are collapsed into slogans. Long-term consequences are buried by immediate passions. The citizen is asked to affirm rather than deliberate. Expression replaces responsibility. In this climate, disagreement becomes hostility and compromise appears as betrayal.
A Republic cannot survive on affirmation. It requires Citizens who observe proceedings beyond campaigns and understand institutions beyond personalities. Responsibility does not expire when the polls close. Self-government is a practice, not an event.
This paper restores elections to their proper place. Voting is the beginning of accountability, not its conclusion. Where elections are treated as the whole of civic duty, they become alibis for neglect.
The health of a Republic is measured by attention sustained and by resistance offered. It is found in the willingness of The People to remain present after the spectacle has ended. Without these habits, elections legitimize power without governing it.
Self-government demands participation that endures beyond the moment of choice. Where that demand is refused, liberty persists only by inertia -- and inertia always favors accumulation.
Civitas Americana