by Mark Franke
It was on September 17, 1787, that the delegates to the Constitutional Convention lined up to sign the document they had jointly written. Well, most of them did; 39 of the 42 present signed. That’s a positive margin of 93 percent. Imagine getting that kind of consensus on major legislation in our Congress today.
What those 39 founders signed was a proposed Constitution, one that needed to be ratified by at least two thirds of the states to take effect. It is fair to say that the ratification process was more contentious than the actual drafting convention, at least in several important states including New York.
Fortunately, the Founding Fathers generation was able to rise to any occasion, including writing a series of essays to sway New York to ratification. We know them as the Federalist Papers.
My attention was brought back to these essays recently when reading an article that referenced Federalist 49. While addressing potential processes for amending the new Constitution, James Madison drew a distinction between appealing to the “reason of the public” and the “passions of the public.” Madison praised the former and feared the latter, which is in keeping with Madison’s rather high opinion of potential decision-making in a healthy republic.
Appeal to the reason of the populace, and exemplary results could be expected. Appeal to the public’s passion, and the American experiment could collapse in factional disputes. Factions in Madison’s political calculus were to be avoided at all costs, as he wrote in Federalist numbers 10 and 51, two of my favorites.
Madison was not the only founder who worried about the dangers of unrestrained democracy in which obtaining 51% majority allowed all sorts of political mischief to be done in the name of “the People.” John Adams, in my opinion, was the clearest thinker on this. He proposed a multi-branch government with a balance of powers such that liberty would be protected. Although he did not attend the Constitutional Convention due to his diplomatic assignment as minister to Great Britain, his influence can be seen.
Even with constitutional constraints and a Bill of Rights, government frequently is the target of those who care little for being restrained by the foresight of the Founding Fathers. Appeals to passion win out over appeals to reason just as Madison feared.
When was the last time you listened to a politician carefully explain his solution to one of our society’s problems? Even if he tried, the news networks would cut him off after about 30 seconds. And that’s assuming our screen-inebriated minds are still paying attention.
Or watch one of the interview shows on TV and time how long one speaker can go before being interrupted. Listening must be really hard work since we do our best to avoid it.
And so we are back to Madison’s caution against appeals to passion. Our politicians must know how effective it is since they are quick to push the passion button. It would be
informative to count the number of negative campaign ads, those which stir up our passion against the targeted opponent, with the number of positive ones advancing reasonable solutions instead. I don’t doubt for a New York minute that the balance is overwhelmingly negative, especially as election day draws near.
Consider these two examples:
The self-proclaimed socialists in our nation have been campaigning on promises of free stuff to be paid by someone else, especially those despicable billionaires. The deadly sin of envy motivates this political appeal and progresses (regresses?) to wrath, the political coin of the realm in our postmodern world. Read Dante’s “Purgatorio” for insight on this.
Take Zohran Mamdani as a poster child for this appeal to passion rather than reason. He got elected mayor of New York City by promising free childcare, frozen rent, free city bus service, wholesale pricing in city-owned grocery stores and a minimum wage increase to $30 per hour. All of this would be paid for by taxing “the wealthy,” which means somebodyelse. Why not vote for the candidate who is going to make someone else pay for what I want? This is what Madison warned would happen if the political system appealed to the passion of the public rather than its reason.
Donald Trump is another expert practitioner of appealing to passions. Much of his electoral support came from just that. So it should have been no surprise that he would challenge the socialists at their own game and promise free money to everyone, coming from somewhere else rather than the taxpayers’ pockets.
Both parties play this like a poker game, betting their electoral success on appealing to voter passions, James Madison’s warning notwithstanding. Voters appear to be rewarding this cynicism on both sides.
Politics can make strange bedfellows. Donald Trump and Zohran Mamdani as fellow travelers? Who’da thunk it!
Mark Franke, M.B.A., an adjunct scholar of the Indiana Policy Review and its book reviewer, is formerly an associate vice-chancellor at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne.
