Four Republican backbencher candidates who failed to qualify for the first 2024 GOP presidential debate this week slammed the Republican National Committee over its rules, with multiple contenders calling them “rigged.”
The primary system in the US still blows my mind.
There are public, state-sanctioned votes to select candidates for private political groups? That’s wild. That gives the impression to the populace that these private organizations are part of the state apparatus itself. It provides an impenetrable legitimacy to those that are already dominant, and makes it so, so much harder for new ones to crop up, because they lack that mantle of legitimacy.
It’s all show, no go.
So here’s a part of the history you (and many others) are actually missing that will help contextualize this. Make no mistake, I have issues with the primaries too. But this is interesting and may even reshape your opinion.
For over a century we couldn’t vote at all on the candidates. They were completely selected by the parties. People actually protested that system saying they had no say in the candidates, and thus the first presidential primary happened in 1912 I believe (forgot the state). It rolled out over the 20th century because people felt it was unfair the party got to select without their input.
While we’re at it, people also forget that presidents and senators were originally intended to be chosen by state legislatures, not the public. The idea was (a) they didn’t trust direct democracy at scale because it was akin to mob rule, as well as (b) it reflects the fact that the States, not the federal government, were supposed to have the majority of the power.
That’s also how we ended up with the Electoral College: it couldn’t be “one legislator, one vote” because state A has vastly more constituents per legislator than state B, so there had to be a sort of ‘compatibility layer’ to even things out.
The upshot is that the system we have today represents a half-assed attempt to switch away from the original design to a direct democracy system, which is why it doesn’t work properly and is inferior to either alternative.
For over a century we couldn’t vote at all on the candidates. They were completely selected by the parties.
You understand that that’s how it works most other places, right? The candidates that are supported by private organizations are chosen by those organizations. Because they’re private. And because that support is not state sanctioned. Having a party affiliation on your campaign sign just means that you are supported, financially and otherwise, by that party.
The flip side is that independent candidates are fairly common.
And if you want input as to which candidate the private organization supports in a public election, you join the private organization. You pay your dues, you show up to meetings, and you vote on who you think the party should support in the next election.
Meanwhile, in the US, you have people declaring themselves “lifelong Democrats” or “lifelong Republicans” who have never, ever been affiliated with the party. They just vote for whoever is their candidate every time. And maybe they show up to vote in the primaries, further entrenching the illusion that they’re part of the organization.
But that’s all it is: an illusion. The reality is that primaries are nothing more than A/B tests to see which candidates stand to do best in the actual, real election. They’re market research surveys that let you LARP as party members, and which get made to look official and legitimate by being run by state electoral officers.
Which means they’re private market research surveys that you pay for.
Please do not talk down to me. Nothing I said indicates I think this is standard. I was giving the historical context for why it is that way in the US. So please don’t come at me with this “well actually” nonsense please. It’s needlessly hostile.
The flip side is that independent candidates are fairly common.
That’s not the result of not having people vote in primaries. That’s generally the result of a parliamentary system, which is more common than anything resembling the US’s representative democracy system.
As for the rest of your comment, you’re grinding an axe over something I did not say.
