How did America end up with the two worst presidents in memory, if not ever?
Maybe we should return to smoke filled rooms to avoid getting a repeat debacle in 2024 when the choice could again be Trump and Biden, Lord spare us.
There's Donald Trump who is so whacked out on himself that he would suspend (kill) the Constitution by having someone (we don't know whom) set aside the 2020 presidential election and install himself (who would do that, the military, a Supreme Court judge?) as president.
And Joe Biden. Someone is so oblivious to reality (the southern border is secure, inflation is only transitory) that one must wonder about his marbles, if he has any left. A president who is so addled that he can't find his way off the stage.
We, the American voters, selected these basket cases in the primaries. What does that say about us? That we are so easily fooled? That we are so wedded to our partisan and ideological biases that whom we pick, it matters not as long as they echo our favored cliches?
Consider: In the Republican primaries, Trump only once received more than 50 percent of the vote. In the rest, he scored somewhere in the 30s. He came out on top because so many self-centered GOP candidates managed to split the vote among themselves, giving Trump plurality enough.
Try to figure out how the Democratic primaries spit out a guy too slow, enfeebled or whatever to actually campaign. Before the party faithful turned to him as the “moderate” alternative to the wokesters who looked like they would secure the nomination for their goofy guy, the wildly progressive and clueless Sen. Bernie Sanders, Biden was widely ridiculed in his own party for his "no malarky campaign." When he accused a college student of being a “lying dog-faced pony soldier," (adding to his other frequent gaffes) many voters figured his campaign was through, as it should have been. Political parties historically had settled on their presidential candidates "behind closed doors," "in smoke-filled rooms," or battled it out during their conventions. Looking back, the results generally weren’t so bad—at least not as bad as coughing up Biden and Trump.
Now, instead, with the primary system in which voters pick the nominees, we've been burdened with two of the worst presidents in memory, if not in history.
We, the American voters, selected these leaders in the primaries. What does that say about us? That we are so easily fooled? That we are so wedded to our partisan and ideological biases that who we pick, it matters not as long as they echo favored cliches?
Thanks to the primary system in which voters pick the nominees, we've been burdened with two of the worst presidents in memory, if not in history.
There was a forgotten time in America before we turned to presidential primaries as the be-all-and-end-all formula for picking the best. I can remember some of those conventions when Adlai Stevenson and Estes Kefauver battled it out in not one, but two conventions. Neither of them were as bad as what we picked ourselves more recently.
John Kennedy only entered 10 of the limited number of state primaries skipping six others, including Florida's and New Jersey's. Only 16 states figured primaries were important enough to have one. The rest used other methods, influenced mostly by party leaders, to select their delegates for the nominating convention.
Early in the nation's history, members of Congress, acting in party caucuses, selected the candidates. Turned out that their picks were pretty good, far better. Yet, the system was junked, replaced by more and more nominating conventions.
Some good and not-so-good presidents resulted, but nothing comparable to Trump and Biden. A convention nominated Abraham Lincoln. Teddy Roosevelt and Franklin Roosevelt were nominated by conventions without the help of primaries. Harry Truman, expected to lose the 1948 election, nevertheless was nominated by a convention and went on to become one of America's best presidents.
After the strife-torn 1968 convention in Chicago, Democrats adopted primaries and other reforms to make the nomination process more "democratic" and "transparent." Republicans followed in 1972. That result speaks for itself.
Adding to the push for primaries was Hubert Humphrey's nomination in the 1968 Democratic convention without entering a single primary, defeating Eugene McCarthy who corralled plenty of primary votes.
Ironically, while Democrats were changing to a more democratic system, the 1972 convention proved just the opposite. The duly elected Illinois delegation was bounced out of the convention and replaced by a non-elected delegation of self-described reformers (read: white lakefront liberals) led by a white Chicago alderman and the Rev. Jesse Jackson. The legally elected and constituted delegation was voted out because it wasn't "diverse" enough--lacking enough women and minorities. It was a frightening precursor of today's woke habit of excluding, not including, voices and viewpoints considered to be heretical. To be clear this was, at its heart, undemocratic.
Primaries have been sold as the most democratic alternative--short of eliminating the Electoral College and going to direct election by popular vote. But is it effective? Can there be a better way of shifting the chaff from the wheat? Could Trump's and Biden's elevations to presidency have been avoided? After all, success or failure can only be demonstrated by the results.
Obviously, the danger of returning to a system that puts bosses, political consultants, lobbyists and other wheeler-dealers in charge is profound. I'm not advocating that. Nor do I want a political system that's autocratic. We can seriously discuss it, however.
But the danger of a primary system that enables less than qualified candidates to be nominated now is apparent in real time. Maybe a more educated electorate and a more objective media would be a start down the right road. But, how?