The submission deadline for this piece comes before knowing who our next President will be, but I’m nearly past the point of caring at the moment. The campaign has been like a bad wedding ceremony; you know the marriage won’t last, guests get clangorously drunk at the reception, and the sky is filled with lightning and thunder. There is only one thing everyone agrees on: thank God it’s over.
It’s time for a change.
I propose that we abandon our every two year and four year elections – those multi-billion dollar noise machines – and replace them with people chosen by the jury selection process. Compensation will be the usual: $35 a day and a box lunch. There are several advantages:
No one will be in office long enough to turn public service into a private cash machine; no foundations, speaking fees, or influence peddling will result from Mr. Nobody’s selection. No juryman will need to publicly disavow the KKK, or Neo-Nazi groups, while privately kissing their backsides. And there will be a clearer line drawn between church and state: churches will have time to mind the manners of their members and will stay out of the pants of some guy two or six states over.
I can’t think of any disadvantages. It’s true that the town drunk might get picked, along with the occasional reality TV Star, but state legislatures and Congress are already full of drunkards and talentless celebrities; this plan does not professionalize pathology: both the town drunk and the TV hack will get sent back home pretty quick.
Our jury system allows our peers to send us to prison for life; they can pass a death sentence on our sons and daughters. Since we are already agreed that our peers can change our futures in so personal a way, I see no practical objection to them voting up or down on the matter of corn subsidies, a military draft, or the utility of tax cuts for billionaires to “Make America Great Again!”
In the meantime, good luck to the next President of the United States… and to We the People. We’ll need it.
Your idea has a lot to recommend it. And instead of the expense of the White House, the prez could just stay in one of the hotels on 16th St. Win-win.