Would you have surgery from someone who says they’re not a doctor? Would you fly in an airplane with someone in the cockpit who proclaims, “I am not a pilot?” Staying at the Holiday Inn Express is not sufficient in either of these cases. It’s also not sufficient for service in a publicly elected office filled by a political process through democratic elections and responsible to those who hold the highest office in a democracy — the Office of Citizen.
Politics and politicians constitute the means and the processes through which a free people govern themselves and shape their own destinies. This is accomplished with the election of representatives through a process in a political arena. Politicians are those entrepreneurs whom we elect to work in that process. Politics is the lifeblood of the democratic process. One cannot and should not want to take politics out of politics — democracy cannot exist without politics and politicians.
Because we are a democracy, we have the option to choose other forms of government. Monarchy? We had that and fought a war to overcome it. A “benevolent” dictator? We haven’t tried that yet. We have fought and continue to fight wars to overcome such in other societies, and on some of our worse days we seem to flirt with the idea. How about a commission or a ruling troika? We tried those, too, in local commission forms of government all across America, and we got rid of those, also. These options are absurd.
We are democrats, want to be democrats, want the right to vote and want to elect and lobby our representatives and expect them to be responsive to our lobbying efforts — that’s politics.
It is the same process we cherish in the private market. The business entrepreneur is praised, not that the market is always fair or honest or even very productive, when he or she is successful. I suggest we need equally able, energetic, resourceful and productive public entrepreneurs. We need politicians who define and respond to public needs, develop programs or policies to meet those needs, marshal the votes required to adopt the solution and then deliver the product honestly and fairly through our public structures.
But, we don’t much like public entrepreneurs, otherwise known as politicians. Why not?
The major reason, I believe, is we confuse the term politics with some other not-so-savory terms. We confuse politics with illegal, immoral and unethical behaviors. When a representative breaks the law, that is illegal, not politics. When a representative violates a code of ethics, that is unethical, not politics. When a representative commits an immoral act, that is immoral, not politics.
We need to reserve the term politics for that process of persuasion and compromise through which public policy and law are made in a democracy. There are some bad and corrupt politicians. There are also corrupt physicians who abuse the Medicaid program. However, we do not call the practice of medicine bad because a doctor commits an illegal or corrupt act. There are immoral, corrupt and unethical lawyers, teachers, preachers and athletes. But we do not say that law, teaching, ministering or athletics are immoral, corrupt, unethical or bad.
Maybe the problem is that we are responsible for the election of every politician. Since we elect them, placing blame for poor performance is a little tricky. Even so, our democratic political processes have a built-in remedy for that — vote the bums out. It would be even better, perhaps, if we could be even more political by having the political power of the petition to enact legislation and change the Constitution, or have the referendum and recall to change things even before the end of a term of office.
Our problem may not be that politics and politicians are bad words and we are too political. Rather, it may be that we are not political enough.
Winston Churchill stated, “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.” (House of Commons, Nov. 11, 1947)
Democracy may well be the worst form of government ever established, except for all the others. Democracy is not neat, tidy or efficient. It is just democratic. In spite of its weaknesses and perversities, it is the most powerful, most productive and most envied form of government, and can be the most just form the world has ever known. It has captured the minds, hearts and souls of people around the globe.
Politics and politicians are good words. A democratic government and a free people embrace both. The real threat to democratic government comes not from politics, but from the apolitical and the anti-political. Democratic government will not remain if the apolitical and the anti-political occupy public office and if the people support such undemocratic ideas and candidates.
Gerald W. Johnson is Emeritus Professor of Political Science at Auburn University and director of the Capital Survey Research Center. E-mail: johnsong@bellsouth.net.
