Posted by
Andrews on Tuesday, April 07, 2009 10:34:06 AM
Last night I was thinking that perhaps we would be a bit better off were we more like a parliamentary system. After all, most parliaments have two tools unavailable to us. First, the vote of no confidence in the cabinet, allowing them to dismiss a president whose actions have caused too much public displeasure. Second, the ability to completely dismiss the government should they prove unable to form a functioning cabinet. Granted there is a wide range of specific applications, and these have varied over time (eg. the British monarch's ability to dismiss parliament no longer carries much weight). Still, parliamentary systems, unlike our own, have devices to allow for an early dismissal of both the executive and legislative entities.
Why this struck me was the general trend in Obama's numbers. Not only is his popularity waning faster than any president in recent memory, but he is even starting to lose the support of his party in congress (
as I predicted,
over and
over again). As many of his actions serve not only to increase the scope of government, but specifically the power of the executive body (as well as the power of international regulatory bodies), ther eis little to motivate congress to continue supporting these measures. In fact, as they will likely prove unpopular and will serve only to erode legislative power, there is every reason for congress to oppose the administration.
And that is why I thought about no confidence votes. Should Obama's recovery fail to materialize, and should he continue to antagonize congress by accumulating power in the executive, or give it away to international bodies, it seems the ideal set up for dissolving the executive, if we had the ability to vote no confidence. However, our present system allows no such solution. Short of an impeachable offense, or a voluntary resignation, our only way to handle an unpopular president is for congress to refuse to accept any of his proposals, to override his every veto, and generally cause government to do very little until his term runs out (or he sees the light).
However, after a bit more thought, I decided perhaps this is a good thing.
Think of the California recall election. Basically by enacting the recall power, the people fo California were told that elections no longer mattered. They could elect on a whim and just as quickly reverse their mistakes. It took away all consequences from a bad decision. Similarly, were we able to vote no confidence in Obama we would be spared the lesson that there is in being saddled with an incompetent for four years.
Imagine if we could have voted out Carter in 1977 or 1978, would we have been as wise in our choices in 1980 or 1984? Or might we not ahve been willing to risk a Mondale or even a Dukakis, hoping they could deliver on their pie in the sky promises? After all, if they proved as bad as the opponents warned, we could just vote no confidence and be rid of them.
No, being saddled with our bad choices for a full term may hurt, but it also teaches us an important lesson and forces us to take elections more seriously than we otherwise would. We can see it in this election. Most who learned the lesson before, in 1976, are getting older, and the younger generation allowed itself once more to be swayed by high sounding rhetoric and unrealistic promises of something for nothing, of peaceful disarmament and a world coming together to sing kum-bay-yah. And that younger generation will not learn the lesson of how important elections are if they aren't forced to endure the full four years of Obama. If they can simply erase their mistake it won't make them understand the real harm that a bad choice can cause.
So, much as I might fear four years of Obama, I think our system is still best. Though part of me might long for a no confidence vote and an early end to this administration, the more reasonable part of me knows we need to suffer through the next four years.
At least we can hope that congress comes to their senses soon and stops him from doing much more harm.