So, who does a President represent? The short answer is, well…everybody. “The people.” Americans. His country as a whole. Not just the voters, not just his party, not just the big corporate donors that contributed to his campaign. The President is there to do what’s best for the entire nation. Sure, if he’s a democrat, his policies will still generally reflect democratic principles. That’s the lens he sees the world from and the ideology he subscribes to. But that’s not the same thing as the ‘party first’ mentality, not by a long shot.
What type of representative should he be? It seems like the only answer that has any real-world applicability is politico. The other two options are just these abstract, oversimplified concepts that don’t have a lot of merit when you’re trying to describe the way the political process actually works. What politician’s record could ever be put 100% into either the delegate or trustee category? The terms make sense if you want to use them to describe the way a politician reacted to a single, specific incident, but are pretty much useless otherwise.
How exactly does a President represent the American people, and what does representation even mean in this sense? Well, first and foremost it entails abiding by the Constitution and by the laws Congress has passed regarding the Executive Branch. (Sorry if that seems stupidly obvious, but bear with me.) Representing America means respecting the principle of majority rule while protecting minority rights. It does NOT mean that whenever 51% of Americans who happen to have been polled get some damnfool idea in their head that the President should immediately reverse course. Yes, if the majority of people seem to be strongly in favor of something (AND there doesn’t seem to be any likelihood of chaos erupting as a result of it, AND it doesn’t encroach on anyone’s rights) the president should probably accede to their will/demands. But honestly, isn’t that kind of what we have Congress for? To be all in touch with the people or whatever? Yes, we elect a President based on a broad policy agenda, but we also elect him to be a leader, and to make decisions. Part of electing a President is about choosing someone whose judgment we trust. I may not agree with everything the President does, but I have to respect his right to be, as much as it pains me to use the term, “the decider.” Within the limits that Congress has set for him, anyway. If we wanted things to swing with whatever a majority of people believed at the time, we could just have a referendum on everything.
Now obviously this isn’t a good idea in the least. (It’s an impossible one, actually. What a mess. But it brings me to my next point: Ugh. It’s so hard to tell what the ‘American People’ actually want. They’re not some unified body. There’s no group consciousness or way to make every person happy. There’s this clamoring mess of opinions, and upset, angry people always seem to have much bigger microphones than people who are actually happy with whatever the president proposes. Not to mention the questionable trustworthiness of polling data…
Another question raised was whether people’s level of knowledge on issues matters. Yes! It matters so much! It totally matters! Who are these ridiculous people that say it doesn’t matter? We don’t expect the public to negotiate nuclear treaties, and to be quite blunt, we shouldn’t necessarily care what they think. Americans are busy. They’ve got jobs and shit to do. They don’t have time to be experts on every political issue. Again, that’s why they have Congressmen. (Not that Congressmen are actually experts in most of these things either. That’s why they have staff…) Just ‘cause they came up with some half-cocked notion anyway based on a couple minutes of some incendiary rhetoric from some useless talking head doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. Take global warming, for example. According to this Yale University/Gallup poll I found*, less than half of Americans believe there is scientific consensus on global warming, and about 70% are opposed to increasing gas or energy taxes to help combat it. Should the president really wait for everyone else to get on board if he views global warming as a looming threat to our future security? No! It’s a highly technical, scientific issue that a majority of Americans* admit to not generally being that worried about. Sounds like a textbook case for acting as a trustee rather than a delegate…
Ok, I think the last thing I really have to mention is substantive/descriptive/symbolic representations. Maybe I’m viewing this too simplistically, but this part seems really easy. As far as the president is concerned at least, substantive and descriptive representation should be the same thing. I argued before that the president is a representative for all Americans, so he’s working to enhance the substantive representation of everyone equally. Not one specific social/demographic group over another. They’re all equally his constituents. Am I viewing this wrong? It seems like it makes sense. Barack Obama’s not just there to help middle aged guys or half-black people or people born in Hawaii or whatever; he’s representing the collective ‘social group’ that includes each and every US citizen. Symbolic representation, on the other hand, I have a major problem with. It’s totally insidious. That would be like women congressmen saying that women shouldn’t be able to vote. How do you turn traitor on your own interests like that? And it gives things this veneer of authority, like “oh, she’s a woman, so she knows why women shouldn’t be able to vote.” That’s an exaggerated example, but the point holds. (I had others, but they seemed more…contentious. Does this point make sense though?) Symbolic representation just seems to be using your social/demographic group in a most unseemly manner for your own personal ends. I can’t think of an example where I like it. At all.
So, reading back through this, I’m suddenly realizing that I view the Executive Branch in a much more paternalistic, overarching manner than I would have originally assumed. Apparently I’m a Rooseveltian at heart after all…
* http://environment.yale.edu/news/5310
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