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In the European singing contest/show in which Susan Boyle competed, she lost the top spot to a rap group of teenagers.  The general public could text in to vote.  The choice was not made by the three judges.  That one of the judges explicitly advocated for her after her final performance (just before the voting) was not sufficient to sway the majority of the votes cast by the public.  To be sure, there were non-music-related reasons to vote against her. For instance, the suggestive comments she made on stage just before her first performance, including, “I’m 48, and that’s not my other half” (accompanied by swinging her hips), were downright emetic, if not strange.  So it is possible that the voters put her personality above her excellent singing.  It is also possible that most of the callers (or most of votes, as people could text more than once) could have preferred rap music.

What I am getting to is this: a tension or outright contradiction can exist between meritocracy and democracy.  Plato and Aristotle both claim that there is a dark side to each system.  Meritocracy can slide into aristocracy and democracy into government by selfish and uninformed mob.  What struck me about the results of the singing contest was that the rap singing wasn’t good singing. The teenagers seemed to be playing around, their performance being more about dancing than singing.   It was not a dancing contest.  The voters could use any reason (or none) in deciding who to vote for.  Furthermore, it can be safely assumed that most voters were not experts on what makes good singing.  They were not trained to separate their own tastes from a critical perspective focusing on the voice.  The judges presumably could do that, but they were relegated to making their views known—views that the voters could ignore without any imprecation.
In a representative democracy, popular election is held to be the best political decision-making device regarding choosing representatives because the government is supposed to be for the people.  It is not that the people will necessarily make the best decisions, even where their own interest is concerned.  The US and EU relish popular election, yet both governmental systems contain safeguards, or checks, on it by having various lengths of terms and some officials appointed rather than elected.  Yet popular election is generally regarded as sacred in both Unions and in their respective states.    But not so fast.  This is not absolute.
In the case of Susan Boyle, a good case could be made that the three judges should have decided who won because they had greater expertise concerning singing.  Or take movies: I would wager that the Oscars, whose awards are determined by members (i.e., people who have expertise in the various fields of filmmaking), is more esteemed than are the People’s Choice Awards.  I would argue that the results of the Oscars are more credible and accurate because expertise is not chucked for a flavor of the month.  For instance, in the 2010 Oscars, Hurt Locker beat Avitar for Best Director and Best Picture.  Hurt Locker was largely an Indie (i.e., on the fringes) film, whereas Avitar broke box office records and was no doubt more popular with the general public.  The Academy members were able to weight improved 3D effects, story and direction without allowing the technical dazzle to overshadow the latter two, which are very important to an excellent picture.  The most popular film is not necessarily the best.  Of course, Academy voting is not perfect.  The 5000 plus membership may be sufficiently small that cronyism or, its opposite, grudges, may play a role.  Avitar’s Cameron is apparently not the most-liked man in Hollywood, but on the other hand so many techies worked on his movie that he had his own voting bloc.  I suspect that both of these were factors, but were not determinative.  I must admit that I saw a television clip a few months before the 2010 Oscars showing Cameron being very rude to a fan who simply wanted an autograph at LAX. So I was rooting for his ex-wife and her movie.  No selection process, or person for that matter, is perfect.

My point is that in watching Susan Boyle as well as the Oscars, I would not be surprised if there were not a general recognition in society that there are drawbacks to popular election, such that it is not necessarily the best method in every case (even in terms of selecting government officials).  I am not arguing for a society ruled by philsopher kings or judges, or, moreover, by an elite (even though I suspect this is already the case).  Rather, I am arguing that maybe we don’t esteem popular election as much as we think. Ignoring our reservations has caused problems in the past.

Most notably, we have eviscerated the check that was to have been made by the Electoral College in the selection of a US President.  A charismatic, though vastly inferior, candidate can be elected if he appeals to the passions of the moment being enjoyed by the general public.  We can’t even be sure that winner was elected on the basis of one of his positions.  For example, we can’t assume that Barak Obama was elected US President because he was advocating government subsidies on the uninsured (health).   The President of the EU is selected by a body comparable to what the US Senate was until 1913 (i.e., before its members were popularly elected).  When the first EU President was appointed (or elected) in 2009, some Europeans criticized the lack of democracy in the process.  “The people had no voice!” one person claimed.  Well, the people did have a voice because they elected all of the people who made the decision.  In fact, electing a state-level official is closer to the people because the electorate is smaller.   The cases of Susan Boyle losing at the European “Idol” show and Avitar losing at the Oscars suggests that having a buffer on a popular election is perhaps not a bad idea.  Too much democracy by popular election in a system of government has its downside.  To be sure, popular election does have value. It can be used to hold officials accountable when unelected officials would let them remain in office.

Perhaps a good solution would be  to look back at the Electoral College and understand why the Founders wanted a such a buffer.  It wasn’t until after the 1860s that in every state the people elected their respective state’s electors.  Andrew Jackson has urged that the people choose the US President back in 1828, and the contagion spread so much that the people of the American republics felt entitled to directly determine the President of the Union.   In 1913, a constitutional amendment was ratified whereby US Senators had to be directly elected by the people (at the cost of directly representing their state governments in the General Government). Today, the US Supreme Court is the only branch of the US Government not directly choosen by the American people. Originally, the US House was the only body in the US Government designed for popular election because it was supposed to reflect the immediate passions of the people (hence the short term of two years).   The US Senate was meant to be a buffer on the passions of the moment, as well as to protect the turf of the state governments against usurption by the General Government of the Union.  The US President was meant to protect the long-term viability of the Union (which hardly best served by polls).
It is perhaps no accident, kein Zufall, that the long-term viability of the Union gets short-changed for what is expedient—and that this game is now played mostly in Washington.  Blinded by the allure of popular election, we can’t have enough of it and we have adjusted our institutions accordingly.  Yet at the same time, we take the Oscars as the default and hardly pay attention to the People’s Choice Awards.  In short, we have one hell of a blindspot going on here.

So I suggest that we have annual elections for the US House (as had been suggested in the convention, but for the hardships of travel in 1786).  Further, as the appointment of US Senators was rift with corruption when the state governments did it, why not fashion the Senate on the example of the European Council?  The sitting governors themselves would periodically meet (regular summits, as they do represent semi-sovereign governments…just like the US Government itself is semi-sovereign).   That leaves the US President and the people’s entitlement.  A continent-wide election puts the candidates very far from their electors, which means a very imperfect selection (more of a popularity contest, actually).  We must bite the bullet and buffer ourselves from ourselves.  This is perhaps the hardest thing for the American people to do—we are really so arrogant concerning ourselves.  We think we can’t be wrong.  How squalid that is!  How ugly!   I would rather see Susan Boyle fully displayed in Playboy than gaze upon this attitude.  Yes, I am a native (American)—no, not an Indian. I was born and bread in the heartland, yet I can smell the air and look around me—the human pollution being palpable.   Concerning selecting a President for the Union, the trouble in creating a buffer from excessive democracy is in avoiding corruption.  I was going to suggest having both the state governments vote in one body and the people in another and where the same candidate is not chosen through the election to the US House (each state having one vote).  But this is too complicated.   As we are  Union of States and the latter have been marginalized, perhaps the US President ought to be selected by the state governments.   Perhaps the governors could nominate a candidate and the senates confirm.  The states’ executives would begin the process whereby the Union’s executive is selected, and the confirmation would be a check against corruption between a candidate and a governor.   It would give the people an added reason to pay attention to their senate races. That the people elect their governor and state senators means there would be a link to democracy.   Contrary to a continental popular election, the governors and even the state senators could have a greater opportunity to meet the candidates and thus make a better judgment, at least in removing any real losers whose marketing could nonetheless say the people.   Considering that some candidates come out of nowhere, getting to know them is important.  Consider Carter in 1976 (virtually unknown nationwide before the primaries), or Obama in 2008.  It is risky to elect people we have just met on the basis of televised debates and commercials.

If we ignore the problem of excess democracy in the presumption that we can’t be wrong, we will risk repeating on a grander scale the sort of election outcome that went against Susan Boyle.   She may not be the best looking woman, but is that really relevant to listening to her voice?  The most votes is not necessarily indicative of the best.  Ironically, in proffering an alternative that moderates the popular election element, I am asking us to rise to our best.

For the drawbacks in the Oscars voting, pls see: http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1970502-1,00.html