Oversight
There’s a thing called the Goldwater Rule which applies to members of the American Psychiatric Association; it says they can’t diagnose someone they haven’t personally evaluated.
The Goldwater Rule is published as an annotation in the Principles of Medical Ethics with Annotations Especially Applicable to Psychiatry. I encourage you all to read the full text of the rule below, and keep it in mind during this election cycle, and other events of similarly intense public interest.
The “Goldwater Rule:”
On occasion psychiatrists are asked for an opinion about an individual who is in the light of public attention or who has disclosed information about himself/herself through public media. In such circumstances, a psychiatrist may share with the public his or her expertise about psychiatric issues in general. However, it is unethical for a psychiatrist to offer a professional opinion unless he or she has conducted an examination and has been granted proper authorization for such a statement.”
Principles of Medical Ethics with Annotations Especially Applicable to Psychiatry
You know, people who go into the military get evaluated first. They get screened. Some candidates are rejected. But candidates for president are not evaluated or screened in any such way. There is no procedure for blocking a candidate who is just plain unfit for the job.
Trump should have been screened out long ago. There’s a terrible mismatch between what the president has the ability to do – like starting wars and deploying nuclear weapons – and the total lack of a system for insuring that the president is not a raging narcissist.
The screening principle should be applied to all candidates for parliamentary election, or any political office.
The US isn’t the only country with narcissistic politicians. Both Trump, and that repellent Duterte were voted into office.
Voters should be screened as well, particularly for IQ, general knowledge and personality disorders. Many of them obviously don’t recognise a barking-mad politician when they see one.
We don’t allow just any idiot to serve on a jury, however any idiot can vote.
It is not appropriate to have intelligence testing for voters. The South used tests like that to keep African Americans away from the polls. A better solution is for all the thoughtful, intelligent people to vote in overwhelming numbers to act as a counter balance.
What, exactly, are you proposing here? It seems like you’re not sure, but that you want some kind of screening mechanism other than the voters.
I get the frustration, but this is a dangerous line of argument that you’re making. You’re starting to sound a little like Trump, who often complained about how people shouldn’t be “allowed” to run for president if they didn’t meet whatever criterion he was spouting that day.
Of course, some of the things Trump was citing as disqualifying were silly: using a teleprompter, accepting campaign donations, etc. But some were not as silly, at least not superficially: hey, maybe you shouldn’t be allowed to run for president if you’re under FBI investigation!
But I trust I don’t need to explain why somebody in the government should have the power to decide who can and cannot run for office.
Do you really think it’s better to entrust that kind of power to psychiatrists? 40 years ago, they classified homosexuality as a psychiatric disorder. I’ll bet you can find some religious psychiatrists today who will declare that atheists are irrational narcissists by definition. And why is being a narcissist disqualifying? Should every personality disorder or mental condition be disqualifying? PTSD? Autism spectrum?
Voters knew — or had enough information available to them that they should have known — exactly what kind of person Trump is. They elected him anyway. The fact that the voters screw up is not a newly discovered flaw in democracy, and taking choice out of the voters’ hands seems like a cure that is more dangerous than the disease.
Presidential candidates are “supposed to” release their tex returns, Trump didn’t feel like ti.
Presidential candidates are “supposed to” release their medical records. Trump didn’t feel like it.
So the next step would have been that presidential candidates are “supposed to” be evaluated psychologically. But Trump just wouldn’t feel like it.
Barbara @ 2 – something I wrote in my column for the Freethinker a few days ago:
Screechy – thanks for the Trump comparison; that’s highly flattering.
But you do realize that not all democracies let the voters at large choose the candidates as well as choosing among them, don’t you? It’s quite common for the parties to decide who runs, while the voters decide who wins. The US way of running elections isn’t the only way, and it’s pretty obviously not the best, either.
Barbara Baker @2
“It is not appropriate to have intelligence testing for voters.”
You’re thinking in terms of a narrow US experience. The fact that a test was corrupted by racial prejudice in America doesn’t necessarily invalidate the principle. Would you consider a general knowledge test?
Screechy Monkey@#
“The fact that the voters screw up is not a newly discovered flaw in democracy, and taking choice out of the voters’ hands seems like a cure that is more dangerous than the disease.”
The choice would not be taken out of voters’ hand, simply the hands of some voters.
Ophelia@6
“But you do realize that not all democracies let the voters at large choose the candidates as well as choosing among them, don’t you? ”
Yes, most democracies are parliamentary systems, not presidential, the PM is ‘first amongst equals’. America is unusual in its constitutional arrangements and so far it’s managed to remain a democracy.
“The US way of running elections isn’t the only way, and it’s pretty obviously not the best, either.”
Agreed. It certainly has its flaws, like any democracy. What I’ve noticed after discussing comparative politics with Americans, is that the overwhelming majority have no interest in other systems. As far as they are concerned, the US is The Model for humanity and the exemplar. Perhaps it’s time they took an interest and obtained a perspective. The US electoral system certainly needs an audit.
It’s worth remembering that despite the propaganda, the USA was constituted as an oligarchic republic, not a democracy.
My comments were mostly ‘tongue in cheek’, but not entirely. In my opinion people should need a license to breed, but that’s another topic.
American exceptionalism. Not working out all that well these days.
Ophelia,
I actually dialed it back a bit! I just really hate this line of thinking. Your original post seemed to be crying out for some People In Charge to restrain the choices of the voters, and as I said, I think that’s a dangerous game. I’d rather put up with some occasionally idiotic choices from voters than let some elite group get to act as a screen. (And I have a fairly dim view of psychiatry as a profession — it may be the best thing we’ve got right now, but I’m not exactly wowed by the scientific rigor.)
Now, if you want to remake the U.S. into a parliamentary democracy, I’m up for it. I think that’s a system that has many advantages, among which is that as a practical matter (though not a legal one), it seems to result in promoting expertise, experience, temperament, and ability to work with a team much more than a presidential system that relies on sheer popularity and where knowing nothing about the job (“I’m an outsider!”) can be spun as an asset.
I think the U.S. system has become dysfunctional because of a lack of accountability: low-information voters (aided and abetted by certain pundits who follow the Green Lantern School of Presidential Power) act as if presidents are all-powerful individuals who can accomplish whatever they want if they just WANT it badly enough. And during the bulk of the 20th century, when the two leading parties were weird coalitions rather than cohesive ideological factions, the president did have a fair bit of power to get things done in Congress. But now we’ve got ideologically distinct parties, with parliamentary-style discipline, without the parliamentary system — the executive has to stumble along with the confidence or support of the legislative branch. Republicans discovered how easy this was to abuse: obstruct everything in Congress. When nothing gets done, Obama still gets stuck with the blame because, well, he’s in charge, isn’t he?
But that’s a pipe dream. It’s way too hard to amend the Constitution. It might be possible to fix some of the worst aspects of the Electoral College — for example, the potential for faithless electors, or the ability of state legislatures to mess with things — but I doubt you could even get that. Abolishing the presidency? To adopt a system like the British have? Why, the Founding Fathers’ heads would spin…. etc. etc.
Sorry, that should read, “the executive has to stumble along WITHOUT the confidence or support of the legislative branch.” (On the off chance that anyone stayed with my comment that long…)
RJW@7
I admit I get nervous when it is proposed that some citizens should not be allowed to vote. A general knowledge test would work IF it were equally administrated and covered subjects that were taught at free public schools available to all. Of course, then you run into the situation where people are taught how to pass the voting test and then told how to vote.
I know I don’t have the ideal system, but disenfranchising citizens can’t be an answer. Ever.
My biggest beef with the electoral system is the “single-choice”, winner-takes-all (whether talking popular or Electoral-College counting). It drives the never-ending cycle of swinging between the extremes.
Imagine a state with two large cities at its NE and SW corner, and a medium-sized city in the middle. Voters must choose which city they’d prefer be the capital. Assuming everyone votes in their own best interest (minimizing their own travel time to the capital), using the present system, there’s about 45-55% chance the capital will be in the NE corner, 45-55% chance it’ll be in the SW corner, and 0.0000% chance it’ll be in the most sensible place, smack in the middle (even if 100% of the state would be “meh, okay” with that choice). Even sensible people in the NE corner who realize a vote for the middle-city is the most sensible location for a capital, will [correctly] realize that a vote for that city – with no chance of winning – just increases the chances of the capital going to the SW, and choose not to “throw away their vote.”
Mathematically, there cannot be such a thing as a “perfect” voting system… but there are certainly far better approaches at capturing the will of the people (i.e. “order the candidates by preference” or “give each candidate a score of 0-10”). It’s idle speculation, but I have very little doubt that with such a change, figures as widely detested (and utterly detestable) as Donald Trump would have no chance of being elected.
An aside @RJW – there are ZERO means by which preferential treatment of some citizens’ votes over those of others would not rapidly descend into favoritism and bias toward those currently in power. IMO, few ideas would give more meaning to the idiom about where roads paved with good intentions can lead. Does all of human history have a single example of it working out well?
Screechy Monkey,
“I think that’s a system that has many advantages, among which is that as a practical matter (though not a legal one), it seems to result in promoting expertise, experience, temperament, and ability to work with a team much more than a presidential system”
Yes, but to a limited extent, it’s not a remedy for political infighting, there are always politicians in the PM’s party ready to do some backstabbing, particularly if the polls are unfavourable. Significantly a Prime Minister has to command a majority of MPs in the Lower House of Parliament, but not necessarily the Upper House/Senate. So the PM has to have the ‘confidence of the Legislature’ to govern. Majorities, if they are slim are not necessarily stable, so occasionally there’s a change of PMs between elections, which seems to baffle Americans. The point is, we don’t elect Prime Ministers but parliaments.
Parliamentary systems are not usually subject to those interminable deadlocks between the President and Congress that seem to characterise US politics, that’s a critical difference.
Barbara Baker,
@11
Yes, I understand your position. I’ll concede that conservative politicians everywhere have a sinister record of disenfranchising voters in most democracies, America seems to raised it to an art form.
As far as I understand the US doesn’t have a national independent Electoral Commission, it might be useful to consider the possibility, if that’s the case.
Yes, that’s what I said. Let’s see, who should they be. How about Bernard Madoff, the Koch brothers, George Will, Timothy Dolan, and Bill O’Reilly.
Hah, Ophelia, like that would ever happen!
/s
It is maddening that people that are dumber, less educated, and less informed than I am get to elect or even win the presidency. That should not be happening…
…but then again I am a firm opponent of democracy. Freedom is the freedom to do terrible things.
The majority of voters did not elect him, your shitty electoral system did. But I guess the rest of the world should be cool with kissing its future goodbye just to safeguard the inalienable right of a tiny majority in a handful of American “swing states” to excersize a disproportionate influence on world history. (Just imagine how much worse things would have been if the will of 43.91% of German voters had not been allowed to trump everything else back in 1933…)
For the record, I don’t think anything is more dangerous than leaving more power than any person on the planet in the hands of this lunatic. I also don’t think it’s the democratic right of one generation to chose away the democratic rights of all future generations.
Bjarte – and the worst of it is, that tiny minority that have a disproportionate influence? They believe that they are marginalized, ignored, and have no power, which makes them angry. They have no clue how the system works, believe that the taxes they pay are going to “them” (when a substantial amount comes right back into our states in the form of farm subsidies – yes, people being supported by the government complain about people being supported by the government, but they distinguish between those people like them who “earn” that money and people like the underemployed waitress who is “lazy” and requires foodstamps because her hourly pay is so low that even working a zillion hours a week, she is unable to support herself). Sorry, long parenthetical aside. Feel free to slap me.
This minority also believes that they have a God-given right to rule, and that the rest of us are here on their dime, in their world (yes, that includes me, as a white woman, because, well, woman). We are supposed to cook their food, raise their kids, mow their lawns, wash their cars, and pick their crops without anything resembling real pay or respect. And now that we are demanding our own rights alongside them, they believe their rights are diminished, because they are being told they don’t have the right to deny us our rights, which is something they firmly believe they have the right to do. They are white, they are male, they are Christian, and that is what “we the people” means to them.
What in hell are you all talking about? “Restraining voter’s choices?” “Restraining people’s ability to vote”?
You’re having a conversation with a straw man, not with Ophelia. Get a grip.
And of course, that disproportionate influence is actually enshrined in the system they claim to loathe, in the form of the Electoral College itself. I think the current numbers put the vote of an Alaskan at around 3-4 times that of a Californian, simply because of the effect of counting Senate seats as part of a state’s EC delegation.
Throughout most of the history of the country, this was an acceptable compromise, because if you had to ride a train to get your message out, it was clear the big cities were going to dominate every national election. However, since the rise of the Information Age, a speech made to farmers in Iowa gets heard, in real time, by farmers in every state in the Union. Thus, there’s no need to travel to every county, and if you have a choice of talking to the urban segment of society or the rural segment, you get a larger EC slice for each rural voter you convert, so it makes sense to pitch your appeal to them.
Josh @19,
Well, you tell me what this post is about then. I read a post that begins with a discussion of the Goldwater Rule, and ends with:
and it sure sounded to me like Ophelia is calling for some kind of “system” for “screening out” narcissists. It’s at least open to the implication that she’s talking about some kind of body being given the authority to say “sorry, you cannot be a candidate for president because you’re a narcissist,” which indirectly is telling the voters “you’re not allowed to elect this person.”
Now it seems that we’re talking about a nonpresidential system, or about abolishing the Electoral College. I’m really at a loss for how getting rid of the Electoral College would act as a screen for narcissists except in the sense that “well, in this specific instance, this particular narcissist might not have won the election if it were decided by the popular vote.”
In any event, while I’m glad that Ophelia has shed some more light on what she meant by the original post, I hardly think that those of us who questioned its possible implications were out of line or strawmanning.
Well, you wouldn’t think that you did that, would you?
I’m sorry. I’m having a hard time not being sarcastic. I believe—and I know that you disagree—that you’re making a leap based on a possibility that frightens you, which is understandable. But I don’t think that, when one steps back and considers what Ophelia wrote, that it is actually understandable or reasonable. You know that there’s no way a blogger could institute something “telling voters who they may vote for.”
And in candor, with no intent to needle you, it seems like you have an emotional reaction to anything that strikes you as potentially disenfranchising voters. That too is understandable. What is not understandable is the lengths you’re going to in order to reframe what Ophelia says as “telling voters who they get to vote for.” That’s an emotional, thought-terminating leap and it’s not fair.
It should be possible to say, “I don’t know how it could be done in a way that wouldn’t compromise the core values of political enfranchisement that we share, but it seems clear to me that having no screening at all for the most important and powerful position is a dire situation itself.” In fact, I think that’s a reasonable way to frame what Ophelia wrote.
So yes, I do think you have a hair trigger on this and that it causes you to go overboard. I’m saying that in the most tepid, non-accusatory way I can think of phrasing it.
That’s fine, Josh. I disagree with your characterization of me, of course, and I think that you’re the one with the emotional hair trigger here when it comes to leaping to Ophelia’s defense. But I’m happy to let people read the post and comments and draw their own conclusions.
Good afternoon.
Well, Screechy, you don’t think it’s a little excessive to describe my post as “crying out for some People In Charge to restrain the choices of the voters”? When it’s just a blog post? And when it didn’t say that anyway?
I do think there should be something – precedent, custom, back room pressure, rules, something – to prevent someone as grotesquely unfitted for the job as Trump is from winning a major party nomination. But I don’t know what that something should be or how it could be reconciled with the norms of democracy – but so what? It’s just a fucking blog post. It’s just an opinion in a blog post.
But also, notice that in your outrage you’ve totally ignored what I pointed out: that it’s quite normal in other liberal democracies for the parties to decide who the candidates are.
Indeed, in parliamentary democracies of various stripes, the parties decide. But the difference is that the Founding Fathers (oh, those infinitely wise and far-seeing men who weren’t at all itching to replace a far-distant landed aristocracy with their more proximate one) eschewed parties (or “factions”, as some of the Starting Dads termed them) from the outset, rather than integrating them (and consideration of their functions) into the workings of the state. Therefore, when parties inevitably (and almost immediately) arose, there wasn’t really anything in the machinery of the government to check them.
The first-past-the-post system encouraged the streamlining of parties down to two (since, as we see with the Greens, vote-splitting among ideologically-similar parties can lead to victories by parties whom the majority of voters reject), and the broad disdain for elites led to the democratisation of party nominations. Since the broad enfranchisement of people was not met with a commensurate increase in public education, and in fact one of the two parties set out on a path to both destroy public education and to undermine faith in institutions, American political parties (and one party in particular—no points for guessing which one) became hostages to the most vocal members of their broad coalitions.
Of course, this wasn’t seen as a problem by the Starting Dads because back then, only a small number of typically well-educated people could vote, and they didn’t generally imagine that situation changing very much. And modern American political parties, those ad-hoc Frankensteins with semi-public recognition but no parliamentary tradition to adhere to, are becoming less and less able to constrain the impulses of demagogues.
iknklast,
“…that tiny minority have a disproportionate influence”.
I’m sure this is no consolation whatsoever— that situation is not confined to the US.
The present government in Australia is a coalition of two conservative parties, one relies on the support of regional and rural voters (National) and the other is infested with ‘small government’ neoliberal ideologues and relies on the support of metropolitan voters (Liberal). They’re very strange bedfellows.
The Coalition is allowing our auto industry to die because it’s uncompetitive, however they can usually find enough taxpayers’ money to subsidise some failing regional industry, or to provide soft loans to farmers.
The tail wags the dog.
Actually, RJW, it would be more consoling if it was limited to the US, because then there would be more hope that something could be different. As it is, I see a lot of the other democracies heading the same way, with nationalist parties claiming victories even when they may not be the most popular. It’s a frightening time, especially for those who are not in the accepted demographic.
If all the other countries were doing a better job, I would at least look out the windows at a brighter world, and think, ah, someday. While I haven’t seen too many as bad as Trump (he looks more like a traditional hereditary monarch to me), we seem to be sliding down some sort of rabbit hole, and I’m not sure there will be a benevolent rabbit at the bottom…more like the Monty Python rabbit, I’m afraid.
First past the post (FPP) elections drive both disproportionality and two party systems. As an example, prior to 1994 New Zealand had a FPP system with an average disproportionality of just over 11% and an average number of political parties in Parliament of 2.4. When Mixed member Proportionality was introduced in 1994 the disproportionality score abruptly dropped to an average of 2.7% and we have consistently had 6-8 parties represented. Interestingly most Governments formed have been minority governments in a coalition of various types. Sometimes formal and sometimes informal or limited in nature.
From time to time people complain about the fact that this results in Governments being unable to advance their agendas in an unfettered manner. Those people tend to be either authoritarian, highly partisan or both. I actually think it has generally improved the quality of both legislation and consultation. It’s definitely improved representation of women, ethnic and other minorities.
No system is ever perfect, but it’s certainly more perfect than what we previously had.
Ophelia @26,
No, I don’t think it was excessive, when viewed in context. I’ll try to explain myself, and then retire from the thread because I know this is derailing:
In my very first comment in this thread @3, I asked:
I think your comment @26 is saying that the answer is yes. But you didn’t address that previously. (Not, I hasten to add, that you are obligated to. I’m just explaining my understanding of your position.) And I acknowledged right off the bat that I may be misunderstanding you, or that you were just venting a not-completely-thought-out position, as one is certainly entitled to do in “just a blog post” or otherwise.
What you initially said in response to me @6, was that you were talking about having the parties decide the candidates. So in my response @9 that you’re now quoting, I said that it “seemed to be crying out for….” In other words, that was how it sounded to me, not “this is what you said and I’ve caught you in a contradiction!”
I accept that your comment @6 clarifies that wasn’t your actual intended position, and I’m sorry if my subsequent comments haven’t made that clear. I then went on in @9 to take up your thread about other ways of selecting candidates.
As for my supposed outrage: I’m really not outraged. I said that I thought that particular line of argument is a dangerous one, by which I just mean that if followed, it would lead to bad results, not that I consider you or any particular blog post of yours to be some dire threat to democracy.
Anyway, as to your point about how other democracies allow parties to select their leaders, it’s true that the current primary/caucus system isn’t the only way to do things. It’s not even really a legal requirement in the U.S., just something the parties choose to do because it’s become culturally ingrained over the decades. We could hope that the Trump Presidency produces such a degree of second-guessing among voters that they go beyond just “let’s not elect that guy again,” and even past “let’s not elect anybody like that guy again,” and start asking “how, procedurally, can we make sure someone like that guy never gets elected again.” Or that party leaders start asking that. Anyway, I think it’s more a “change the culture” question than a “change the system” one. But worth discussing either way, so thanks for raising it.
iknklast,
@29
My expectation is that countries with stronger social democratic traditions than the US will be more resistant to demagogues, however I certainly wouldn’t be complacent. The conservative parties here are concerned about the rise of populist politicians who might steal some of their voters, particularly in regional areas. It’s difficult to predict whether or not that will weaken the conservatives or push them to adopting more extreme positions.
The real danger is that our progressive party (Labor) might move to the right as well in order to win votes from the populists. If that happens the country is in really deep crap.
Screechy – Well, yeah – I would much rather see it go on being a tacit assumption that people who are wholly unqualified to be president shouldn’t try to be president, and should be cold-shouldered out by all and sundry if they try. That worked until it didn’t. Since the pres is commander in chief and in charge of the nukes, it’s clearly potentially an extinction-level event for the non-system to fail this badly. It scares the bejeezus out of me that it failed this badly. I see that as by far the more pressing danger now.
RJW @32
Yeah, I’ve been watching events across the ditch with disquiet. Both your labour party and ours seem a little lost and unsure of themselves at the moment. They’re worried that returning to full throated support of traditional left-wing issues will see them marginalised. that may well be true, given that conservatism is ascendant at present. From my perspective it would give them a distinct presence and reason for being, which they currently lack. Better to be marginalised and effective as a voice than still lose and be a marginalised and irrelevant voice which they seem to be now (especially over here).
Rob@34
“Better to be marginalised and effective as a voice than still lose and be a marginalised and irrelevant voice which they seem to be now (especially over here).”
The Labor party here spent years in the political wilderness because of an adherence to ideology and loyalty to complete deadheads who were party leaders. I’m old enough to remember how Labor lost one election after another. Now of course, Labor is actually more ruthless than the conservatives in dumping leaders who aren’t doing well in the polls, and of course they’re more ‘pragmatic’ in regard to social policy. Perhaps Labor politicians learned their lesson rather too well. However I’d say that it’s better to have a centre-right Labor government than a conservative regime any day.
The current neoliberal government has only a majority of one in the House and a generally “difficult” Senate that usually amends some of the Turnbull government’s nastier legislation. Also the polls favour Labor.
Labor is definitely not marginalised here. That said, it’s more than two years to the next federal election and many voters, are to say the least, “disaffected”, I’m not taking any bets.