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Federalist No. 50 brings forth the distinction between occasional appeals to the people and periodical appeals to the people. While I am not sure that this paper really satisfies the question it does force consideration of the question of what the difference is and how it plays out. The founders clearly settled on periodical appeals as proven by pre-set term lengths for various offices. They chose not to provide a limit to individual service, but they set the length of terms for the Representatives, Senators and the President. These set term length guarantee that we will go to the polls as a nation every two years, whether we like the way our government is functioning or not, and cast our votes to determine our representation for the next 2, 4 or 6 years (depending on the office in question).
If we want to consider the effect of occasional appeals we can look to other governments around the world such as Israel.
Another issue that was illustrated in this Federalist Paper is the effect parties can have of manipulating the thinking of otherwise intelligent people.
When men exercise their reason coolly and freely on a variety of distinct questions, they inevitably fall into different opinions on some of them.
It has always disturbed me to see those Republicans who will always praise the actions of Republican leaders and always denounce the actions of Democratic leaders. Likewise I am unimpressed by those Democrats who always praise Democrats and always oppose the actions of any Republican.
Of course the different parties have legitimate differences of opinion and the people who join the parties do so for a reason, but to refuse to see any good across the aisle is a recipe for poor policy. Real leaders know how to recognize the value being offered by the opposition and will not oppose the other party simply on the principle that it is the other party.
2 replies on “Federalist No. 50”
I have had strict partisans tell me something along the lines that they always support their party, not because it is always right in the tactical sense, but because it is pretty much right in the strategic sense. Each tactical matter, they figure, feeds into the strategic. So, even if the party is occasionally wrong, it still warrants their support, because the overall effect is more along the lines of what they want.
To this, I say, horse hockey. That approach is a lazy way to abdicate actual thinking. I don’t care which party you belong to; if you think your party is always right or that your party leadership is always steering in the right direction, you are seriously deluded.
Since we effectively have two parties, each party represents a broad variety of factions. A healthy party has plenty of fractious dissent within its own ranks — not for the sake of contest, but in order to represent the various opinions of party members.
I have heard that logic before and my response is pretty much the same as yours. I don’t think you do your party any favors when you allow them to be wrong tactically. I think if you care about the party and their strategic opportunities you have to encourage them to be right and insist on taking the right side whenever you can identify what that is.
I like what you said – “a healthy party has plenty of fractious dissent within its own ranks.” In other words, a party that lacks internal dissent and discussion is a party in decay. Sounds like the Republicans during the Bush era.