America is a republic governed by elected representatives. The will of the people is expressed at the point in time those representatives are changed out for new ones. The will of the people is the engine of an orderly election. In America, an election is the only functional expression of the will of the people. It is not an expression subject to interpretation by anyone, especially those standing for, or succeeding in, an election. It’s simply a matter of electoral mathematics.
Marx’s Communist Manifesto, first published in 1848, took several decades, a civil war, and a couple of economic depressions, to fully gestate into organized political action in America. It took the form of socialist progressivism late in the 19th century, and like the drunk at the party who just won’t go home, it’s been with us ever since. The Left, who subscribe to variations on Marx’s themes, don’t limit or recognize the role of the will of the people in America as outlined in the Constitution. For them, the will of the people constantly evolves. For them, the role of leadership is to enunciate this moving target, each day if need be, and rule on policies in accord with their anointed divinations.
This point is worth restating. For the right, the will of the people is an election. For the left, the will of the people is a mythology.
To our great collective misfortune, governance based in Marxism failed miserably wherever it was tried. It directly led to the deaths of 100’s of millions of citizens, innocent people put to death through war, famine, and persecution by progressive states acting under the authority of the will of the people.
One of the minority candidates for commissioner in Elbert County thinks he can ‘advocate for’ the will of the people here. The first problem is that by definition, a minority candidate cannot represent the will of the majority unless he succeeds in defrauding the majority. Moreover, beyond the scope of a specific election, the will of the people cannot be abstractly known or advocated, by anyone. Anyone who advocates for the will of the people is, in reality, advocating for their own subjective concept of the will of the people – for their myth. Elbert County voters should not reward this delusional approach since, as history has shown, this path leads to extremely negative outcomes.
To be sure, it’s a free country and commissioner candidates can advocate for whatever they want. As voters, we must decipher the candidates’ well known self interests and their myths about the will of the people. Those candidates who sell myths about the will of the people that happen to confirm their own self interests should come under the most scrutiny.
And elected commissioners should be guided first by the law, and secondly by factual assessments grounded in objective circumstances. Delusions and myths about the will of the people are a very poor substitute for good governance.