The legitimacy issue.
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  The legitimacy issue.
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Author Topic: The legitimacy issue.  (Read 2930 times)
Beet
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« on: November 08, 2005, 02:28:54 PM »

What if Bush had lost? You think you know but you don't. Consider this: here was a man who was president for 4 years, exercised all the rights and privleges of the presidency, yet was elected in an extremely controversial and questionable manner. 4 years later he loses. Presumably, he has never won the popular vote in his entire life.

Would this not create some major legitimacy issue, a crisis within democracy? If a Bush victory in 2004 banished the ghosts of 2000, wouldn't a Bush defeat have exploded those ghosts? People will think "People never wanted Bush, how come he got to be president?" "People rejected Bush the first chance they got. They were never behind him."

Thus from the moment Bush was inaugurated in January 2001, for the sake of the legitimacy of the U.S. government, two things had to happen:

1) Bush's brother had to win re-election. If he had lost it would have been seen that Rousseau's "will of the majority" was destroyed in Florida in 2000.
2) Bush had to win re-election. If he had lost the same conclusion would have been reached on a larger scale.

Consider, for example, the elections of 1824-28 and the impact that those years had on the legitimacy of the electoral system that had been set up as of 1824. Due to Jackson's victory it can be clearly presumed by historians that Quincy Adams never had a popular mandate, even though opinion polls did not exist back then. We have never had an 1824-style scenario since then, but I would argue that was because of the way it played out and a conscious will to avoid a repetition... we had major reforms during the Jacksonian era.  A similiar dynamic would have prevailed in the case of a Bush defeat. A Bush victory has salvaged the present electoral college system.

Anyway, just an interesting dynamic about the whole 2000-04 set of elections that was created by the nature of 2000.
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« Reply #1 on: November 08, 2005, 06:15:25 PM »

It seems people didn't care too much about his lack of popular-vote-winning the first time, either.
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Bacon King
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« Reply #2 on: November 22, 2005, 09:23:03 PM »

Gerald Ford wasn't even elected, but no ghosts exploded when he lost.
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Beet
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« Reply #3 on: November 22, 2005, 09:29:53 PM »

Gerald Ford wasn't even elected, but no ghosts exploded when he lost.

I don't think you understand my point. The popular will is useful only as an evaluation of how a legal controversy was settled by the established authority. If this will renders a negative evaluation of the established authority's handling of the controversy, this undermines the legitimacy of that authority.
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dazzleman
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« Reply #4 on: November 22, 2005, 10:04:07 PM »

I think that for the most part, the American people look forward, not back.  Also, except for those on the far left or far right, the American people have a very strong faith in the constitution.

Had Bush lost in 2004, there would have been a new president, and the issue would have been dormant.  I don't see how a former president could have a legitimacy problem, so maybe I miss your point.  I don't think the American people are going to fret over a presidential term that is finished, as long as Bush became president in a constitutional manner in 2001, which he did.

The Ford analogy is a good one, though doesn't perfectly fit the situation.  Ford was never elected, and pardoned Nixon within a month of taking office.  Yet, there was never any question of his legitimacy as president.  He was accepted as president as surely as if he had won a landslide.  Yes, his unelected position put him in a politically weak position, but his legitimacy was never questioned, and after he lost, nobody looked back and questioned his legitimacy retroactively, which I think is a ridiculous concept more apt to be found in some unstable third world country than the US.

Had there been a repeat of the 2000 election in 2004, that would have been most unfortunate, and certainly would have undermined Bush's popularity, but I don't see how it could be much worse than it is now.
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Beet
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« Reply #5 on: November 22, 2005, 10:45:55 PM »
« Edited: November 22, 2005, 10:47:33 PM by thefactor »

I think that for the most part, the American people look forward, not back.  Also, except for those on the far left or far right, the American people have a very strong faith in the constitution.

Had Bush lost in 2004, there would have been a new president, and the issue would have been dormant.  I don't see how a former president could have a legitimacy problem, so maybe I miss your point.  I don't think the American people are going to fret over a presidential term that is finished, as long as Bush became president in a constitutional manner in 2001, which he did.

The Ford analogy is a good one, though doesn't perfectly fit the situation.  Ford was never elected, and pardoned Nixon within a month of taking office.  Yet, there was never any question of his legitimacy as president.  He was accepted as president as surely as if he had won a landslide.  Yes, his unelected position put him in a politically weak position, but his legitimacy was never questioned, and after he lost, nobody looked back and questioned his legitimacy retroactively, which I think is a ridiculous concept more apt to be found in some unstable third world country than the US.

Had there been a repeat of the 2000 election in 2004, that would have been most unfortunate, and certainly would have undermined Bush's popularity, but I don't see how it could be much worse than it is now.

Yes, former presidents can have legitimacy problems.. look no further than John Quincy Adams and Rutherford Hayes. The example of Quincy Adams is particularly illustrative because he sought re-election and was defeated, very soon after which the system which put him in power was reformed so that such a situation could never again occur.

The intuition here is a dumb patient who speaks only one time in many years, and a panel of doctors unable to agree on what was said. Their goal is to determine the intent of the patient, and they must make a decision. If on his next chance to speak the patient rebuts this decision, then the decision-making process will be judged to have incorrectly evaluated the patient's intent at the earlier date, even though it is possible the patient could have changed his mind. The reason is that the patient has only two chances to speak, and on the first chance the message was ambiguous, so we have only one clear message. The clear psychological tendency is to impute that the patient's decision all along had been misevaluated, "vindication" by the opponents, and hence the doctors become discredited. If on the other hand the patient confirms the doctors' judgement, they become "vindicated."

Here our variable is the psychology of the majority electorate in 2000. There is no reason to believe that the governor's vote in 2002 tells us anything about which presidential candidate had the majority intent of voters in 2000. Yet psychologically, one will create a story by which the assumption that if the elite process that handed Bush Florida's electoral votes after the 2000 election went against the will of the majority, the result would have been simmering resentment, which would have been expressed at the first possible opportunity (Jeb's re-election). On the other hand, Jeb's re-election creates the alternative story that the majority of Floridians must have been happy with Bush because they didn't object enough to defeat his brother. In reality, does whether or not Jeb was re-elected have any bearing on who won the most votes in 2000? Of course not. Something that occurs after, of course, literally cannot influence something that occured before. Psychologically, does it make a big difference? Yes, most certainly. However, when the facts are ambiguous as they were in 2000, then the legitimacy of the law, and thus of the establishment is an instrument of psychology.
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dazzleman
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« Reply #6 on: November 22, 2005, 10:55:05 PM »

Dude, I don't think too many people give this issue the in-depth analysis that you just did. Tongue

Certainly, Jeb's strong re-election in 2002 was a good sign for the president, since it did signal that Florida voters probably didn't feel that their preference was intentionally violated in the 2000 election.  And I don't believe it was.

Psychology is important, I agree, but I just don't see legitimacy being an issue once a president is out of office.  Every defeated president has a legitimacy issue to some extent, with some people saying that person never should have been elected.  Carter is a good example of this.  But what difference does it make once the person is out of office?
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Beet
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« Reply #7 on: November 22, 2005, 11:15:17 PM »
« Edited: November 22, 2005, 11:17:25 PM by thefactor »

Well it makes a difference for the decision system that put the person into office. If the decision system is psychologically viewed as being flawed, it becomes delegitimized. Also, if the person is perceived as having been put into office through unlegitimate means, then the actions of the presidency in retrospect come under more severe criticism.

Of course it's absurd to say the events of 2002 could have impacted or told us anything about who actually got more votes (or intended votes) in 2000, but psychologically, voters are seen as having ratified the decision-making process that occured post-2000 (whether it was "just" or not), and that is what is important from the standpoint of legitimacy.
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dazzleman
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« Reply #8 on: November 22, 2005, 11:20:39 PM »

Well it makes a difference for the decision system that put the person into office. If the decision system is psychologically viewed as being flawed, it becomes delegitimized. Also, if the person is perceived as having been put into office through unlegitimate means, then the actions of the presidency in retrospect come under more severe criticism.

Of course it's absurd to say the events of 2002 could have impacted or told us anything about who actually got more votes (or intended votes) in 2000, but psychologically, voters are seen as having ratified the decision-making process that occured post-2000 (whether it was "just" or not), and that is what is important from the standpoint of legitimacy.

I guess the most vulnerable institution was the Supreme Court, since it ruled in the Bush vs. Gore case on the recounts.  I think it's unfortunate how bitter the whole thing became, because it could have been handled a lot better.

I agree with you about the psychological impact to institutions that are around after the disputed president leaves office.  Of course, if the decision was made by an 1876-style commission, I guess it wouldn't matter since the commission was not an ongoing entity.
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Beet
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« Reply #9 on: November 22, 2005, 11:24:30 PM »

Well it makes a difference for the decision system that put the person into office. If the decision system is psychologically viewed as being flawed, it becomes delegitimized. Also, if the person is perceived as having been put into office through unlegitimate means, then the actions of the presidency in retrospect come under more severe criticism.

Of course it's absurd to say the events of 2002 could have impacted or told us anything about who actually got more votes (or intended votes) in 2000, but psychologically, voters are seen as having ratified the decision-making process that occured post-2000 (whether it was "just" or not), and that is what is important from the standpoint of legitimacy.

I guess the most vulnerable institution was the Supreme Court, since it ruled in the Bush vs. Gore case on the recounts.  I think it's unfortunate how bitter the whole thing became, because it could have been handled a lot better.

I agree with you about the psychological impact to institutions that are around after the disputed president leaves office.  Of course, if the decision was made by an 1876-style commission, I guess it wouldn't matter since the commission was not an ongoing entity.

Perhaps, but voters don't have the opportunity to express their opinions of the court or the commission, so their next chance at the ballot must be a judgement on something that acts as a proxy for all those things.
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dazzleman
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« Reply #10 on: November 22, 2005, 11:45:57 PM »

Well it makes a difference for the decision system that put the person into office. If the decision system is psychologically viewed as being flawed, it becomes delegitimized. Also, if the person is perceived as having been put into office through unlegitimate means, then the actions of the presidency in retrospect come under more severe criticism.

Of course it's absurd to say the events of 2002 could have impacted or told us anything about who actually got more votes (or intended votes) in 2000, but psychologically, voters are seen as having ratified the decision-making process that occured post-2000 (whether it was "just" or not), and that is what is important from the standpoint of legitimacy.

I guess the most vulnerable institution was the Supreme Court, since it ruled in the Bush vs. Gore case on the recounts.  I think it's unfortunate how bitter the whole thing became, because it could have been handled a lot better.

I agree with you about the psychological impact to institutions that are around after the disputed president leaves office.  Of course, if the decision was made by an 1876-style commission, I guess it wouldn't matter since the commission was not an ongoing entity.

Perhaps, but voters don't have the opportunity to express their opinions of the court or the commission, so their next chance at the ballot must be a judgement on something that acts as a proxy for all those things.

The commission doesn't matter since it went out of existence after the election.  But the Supreme Court relies on implied public support, even though the public doesn't directly elect the members and they can't be removed by the public.  If the public really believed that the Supreme Court had been egregiously wrong, Bush would have been defeated and support for the court would have been imperiled.  So I guess we're agreeing, at least partially.

The Supreme Court, and the courts in general, must be careful not to overstep their bounds because they have no enforcement mechanism, and if the public is disgusted enough with the courts, the executive branch can simply defy their rulings.
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