Pennsylvania’s still-recovering stroke victim and senator-elect, whose parents provided him with his main source of income for a considerable amount of his adult life, is the blueprint for America’s future politicians. Why bother proving your merit as a statesman when the system in which you’re entrenched is calibrated to ensure your success?
The American exercise in meritocratic self-governance and democratic republicanism is rapidly dying, and in its place, the old-world practice of political patronage is making its return. Yes, kingmakers and financiers have long been present in our political process. But in the era of “fortified” elections — in which nonprofit organizations funded by left-wing multi-billionaires, such as Mike Bloomberg and Mark Zuckerberg, have ensured Democrat constituencies have robust and immutable mail-in voting apparatuses — we are entering a new phase in American politics in which he who has the most gold rules.
Some may argue it’s naive to insist this, but previously, and traditionally, elections were largely a contest of merit. Candidates presented themselves to the electorate, made their case for why they should be trusted with power, and the public rolled the dice. James Madison more or less affirmed this in “Federalist 10” by arguing that the members of a republic will be more likely to trust a higher quality person with power:
In the next place, as each representative will be chosen by a greater number of citizens in the large than in the small republic, it will be more difficult for unworthy candidates to practice with success the vicious arts by which elections are too often carried; and the suffrages of the people being more free, will be more likely to centre in men who possess the most attractive merit and the most diffusive and established characters.
Not to disparage Fetterman’s character, because I don’t know
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