The pundit who
best explains the rise of anti-establishment populism in the twenty-first
century is Brutus, the Antifederalist opponent of the U.S. Constitution.
Today’s rampant anti-establishment populism stems from the belief that the
political ruling class is ambitiously self-interested and disconnected from the
American mainstream. This failure of confidence in the representatives was
foretold in Brutus’ fourth essay to the people of New York, and was a driving
reason behind his counsel against ratification.
Brutus adhered
to English Whig ideology. Among its central tenets was the belief that
representatives should mirror the people they serve. Representative government
was deeply personal. These elected officials should be familiar with the
circumstances surrounding their districts, and personally acquainted with the
people they serve.
This would
enable them to convince the electorate of the necessity of certain public
policies, while increasing political participation, fostering civic virtue, and
giving people a tangible stake in the direction of the government. Politicians
would “mix with the people and explain to them the motives which induced the
adoption of any measure, point out its utility, and remove objections or
silence unreasonable clamours against it.”
The Rise of
Anonymous Politicians
Antifederalists
today are ridiculed for their tirades against aristocracy, but their most
pertinent contributions today are precisely in the realm of this issue. Brutus
and others believed that the Senate as proposed by the Constitutional
Convention was dangerous because it would concentrate influence in the wealthy
elite, who would perpetuate their political privilege.
These arguments
should sound familiar. Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders, Ted Cruz, and a host of other
candidates for the presidency have based their appeal upon this very line
of attack against “the Washington cartel.” The Antifederalist solution to the
problem of political aristocracy was rotation in office. The idea was that
representatives would do their civic duty, enact policies, and then return to
live in the communities from which they came and live with the consequences of
those policies. The disconnect today giving rise to anti-establishment
populists stems from fact that today’s politicians “consist of men whose names
they have never heard, and whose talents and regard for the public good, they
are total strangers to.”
Opponents of the
Constitution like Brutus also saw a danger inherent in the House of
Representatives; namely, that the proposed allocation of 65 representatives was
far too small to truly represent the interests of 13 colonies. Article 1,
Section 2, Clause 3 of the Constitution provided for one representative per
every 30,000 inhabitants, and even James Madison wanted that amount doubled.
At the heart of
Brutus’ objection was the belief that the country could not grow, both
geographically and demographically, while remaining truly republican. The
representatives needed to have an intimate knowledge of the people. This owed
to the belief that effective government relies upon the confidence of the
governed. In essay four, Brutus wrote:
A [further]
objection against the feebleness of the representation is, that it will not
possess the confidence of the people. The execution of the laws in a free
government must rest on this confidence, and this must be founded on the good
opinion they entertain of the framers of the laws…but it is impossible the
people of the United States should have sufficient knowledge of their
representatives, when the numbers are so few.
A Bigger Voting
Pool Did Not Constrain Factions
This ran
directly counter to Madison’s suggestion in Federalist 10 to “extend the
sphere,” which would increase the number of factions but not allow any to gain
a national majority. Traditional wisdom from political thinkers such as
Montesquieu held that republics needed to be small, homogenous nations. In
Brutus’ view, the legislature would need to become unwieldy and excessively
large, or Congress must restrict the size of the house and thus dilute true
republican representation.
Antifederalists
may have had a moment of clairvoyance—the competing factions across a diverse
country did unite in our time—against the political establishment. Brutus could
stand on the debate stage today with Sanders and Trump and not be out of place
denouncing the leadership in Washington. Take this quote: “Being so far removed
from the people, their station will be elevated and important, and they will be
considered as ambitious and designing. They will not be viewed by the people as
part of themselves, but as a body distinct from them, and having separate
interests to pursue; the consequence will be, that a perpetual jealousy will
exist in the minds of the people against them.”
That jealousy is
precisely what we are seeing today. It has some unfortunate side effects, while
most of its prescribed treatments are worse than the disease. Because of
ineffective political participation, Americans across party lines are striving
to start a political revolution and turn the system on its head.
The current core
problem with American politics is not Washington’s unresponsiveness to the will
of the voters. Voters don’t feel a deep, personal connection to their elected
officials. Politicians are perceived as a distant ruling elite inside the
Beltway who become career politicians, do not partake actively in the life of
their communities, and fail to return to live in their place of origin under
the policies they enact.
Antifederalists
accurately foretold this new political aristocracy, the twenty-first-century
establishment, and the fractured relationship between the representatives and
the governed. Instead of turning to anti-establishment populism, what Americans
should be debating is how to restore responsible, locally based representation
to national politics. We can learn much from Brutus and the Antifederalists.
Paul
Bartow is a research assistant at the American Enterprise Institute. Follow him
on Twitter @Paul_Bartow. His views are his own and do not necessarily represent
those of his employer.
