Maybe a brokered Republican convention will again rescue us
Our imperfect political system releases state delegates after the first ballot to select presidential candidates according to party rules; this is a “brokered convention.” Many citizens are disillusioned with this. Why should our democracy constrain voting toward preselected candidates? What were our founders thinking?
John Adams might answer that unregulated democracy degenerates into mobocracy — or, with our candidates, into kakistocracy — where fear and division infect the populace and encourage the scapegoating of others by tyrannical individuals. Angry fear is most destructive from those who have surrendered their critical judgment to a rigid ideology, or to an irrational religious dogma, or to a charismatic strongman falsely promising to “make us great again.”
Despite imperfections, there’s hope. Our 1924 “brokered convention” negated the political influence of the powerful Ku Klux Klan on the Democratic Party, and another in 1952 gave our nation President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Perhaps one may rescue us again in 2016.
Dan Biezad, San Luis Obispo
This story was originally published April 5, 2016 at 4:29 AM with the headline "Maybe a brokered Republican convention will again rescue us."