New York Times op-ed pushes claim that 'elections are bad for democracy'

The New York Times published an essay Monday suggesting that American democracy would be better off if voters were spared from the daunting task of using their free will and God-given rights to select the candidate of their choosing.

Instead, Adam Grant, a so-called organizational psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, suggested that the fundamental choice characterizing the demos' "-cracy" in the American constitutional republic should be thrown out.

While the paper has since changed the title of its essay from "Elections Are Bad for Democracy" to "The Worst People Run for Office. It's Time for a Better Way," Grant's solution to the apparent problem of American kakistocracy remains the same: bar voters from electing personalities that may prove distasteful to progressive elites at the Wharton School and other Times readers.

"If we want public office to have integrity, we might be better off eliminating elections altogether," wrote Grant, undoubtedly cognizant that former President Donald Trump — facing charges for allegedly threatening to disenfranchise voters — and President Joe Biden are now neck-and-neck in the polls.

Integrity for the organizational psychologist apparently means swapping out America's 247-year-old system for Powerball.

Rather than allowing the electorate to winnow the field of candidates down to a handful from which they could then select a leader, Grant suggested that "democracy" would be better served if candidates were selected by way of randomized lottery.

A lottery, according to Grant, might not only help short, meek, and conventionally unsuitable candidates obtain power, but also help with the alleged problem of persons with "what psychologists call the dark triad of personality traits" getting elected.

The dark triad comprises "narcissism, Machiavellianism and psychology."

Grant presumes these traits are necessarily distasteful, claiming that if "the dark triad wins an election, we all lose."

Grant provided some examples of apparent dark triad figures, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, popular among his own people. However, Grant also included the popular Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán as an example, indicating that his supposed antipathy for kakistocracy may actually be a revulsion for democratic results unfavorable to the liberal order.

Since publicly demanding that Soviet troops leave Hungary in 1989, Orbán has been a popular pro-Christian politician, despised by liberal elites for having sought to protect his nation from LGBT activists' cultural imperialism, internationalizing efforts by unelected bureaucrats in Brussels, and unchecked immigration.

"Eliminate voting, and candidates" such as Orbán or perhaps his repeatedly elected American analogues (e.g., Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis) "would be less likely than they are now to rise to the top," suggested Grant.

Ironically, while proposing that Americans leave their fates to chance in hopes of dodging an Orbán, Grant likened letting the people choose to a game of luck, writing, "As lucky as America was to have Lincoln at the helm, it's more important to limit our exposure to bad character than to roll the dice on the hopes of finding the best."

Grant concluded by recommending that America mirror political fads in Europe and in Britain, the country whose rejection resulted in the founding of America.

CNN's Fareed Zakaria called Grant's anti-choice piece "brilliant."

Melissa Byrne, a leftist political organizer who once served as Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders' digital director, tweeted, "Imagine working in a missile silo shaped building funded by Huntsman money, christened by Dick Cheney on 10/25/02, and thinking you alone can save democracy by ending elections."

Within hours of the New York Times publishing Grant's piece, the Atlantic, which may similarly understand that Republicans may pick up seats and possibly the presidency as well in 2024, ran an article entitled, "Americans Vote Too Much."

Pronoun-stating Atlantic staff writer Jerusalem Demsas complained that voters are expected to vote too much and that the government should respond to need as opposed to voters routinely dictating who responds and how.

"Giving power to the people is sometimes conflated with giving people more access to government decision making through, say, community meetings or ballot measures," wrote Demsas. "But if only a small, unrepresentative group of people are willing to be full-time democrats, then that extra ballot measure, election, or public meeting isn’t more democracy; it’s less."

In both articles published by liberal outfits, the solution appears to be denying Americans opportunities to choose who governs them and how.

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