Electronic Democracy vs. Representative Democracy

Sociologist Jeffrey Goldfarb is consoled by the idea that "though our political life is strikingly imprecise and emotional rather than rational, it still is democratic." ¹¹⁴ Consoling or not, the more difficult issue is exactly what can be labelled as democratic in the Carnival culture. Does the Carnival, for example, further a democracy in the sense of a republican form of government guaranteed in Article IV, Section 4 of the Constitution? Or does it promote a form of democracy not found in the Constitution, such as a democracy by plebiscite? How, if at all, will the democratization of discourse be affected by new information and communications technology? And, finally, what effect will all of this have on the relationship between the First Amendment and the public interest?

Just as our awareness of the Carnival culture can redefine our understanding of the First Amendment concept of reasoned discourse, so too can it redefine our notion of constitutional democracy. Those who adopt a cultural approach to the First Amendment realize that the mass communication permeating our popular culture depends on direct appeal to the public. In pursuit of something appealing, the citizens of the Carnival often "vote" directly, through their remote controls. Tellingly, Ross Perot's 1992 presidential bid commingled, in a fashion perhaps more explicit than ever before, the idea of electronic voting with the process of electoral politics. Perot's call for an "electronic town hall" ¹¹⁵ invited popular rule through the television medium, with viewers using a "push­button telephone or postcard" ¹¹⁶ to vote up or down on particular issues of national import.

The popular right of electronic enfranchisement is, as a matter of principle, less connected to representative government than to pure democracy. Yet it was precisely to such "pure Democracy" ¹¹⁷ that James Madison objected. The Madisonian ideal placed a buffer between the people and their rule. Representative democracy was that buffer, a system in which dispassionate and reasoned decisionmaking might temper the desires of an otherwise unchecked popular appetite. Indeed, Madison so greatly valued representative democracy that he deemed our Constitution indefensible without it. ¹¹⁸

Madison's ideological successors, individuals such as New York Times syndicated columnist Anthony Lewis, were predictably critical of Perot's idea. They argued that you cannot "'govern 250 million people with a TV set."' ¹¹⁹ In the "meritocracy of the tube," ¹²⁰ they warned, our leaders would take orders "from the sort of people who dial [television talk­show host] Larry King." ¹²¹ From the perspective of the Carnival, however, this mindset smacks of elitism, implicitly denying the worth of the popular will. What a Ross Perot offers and what the constitutional elitists deny is the people's right to choose their favored political agenda in the same way they choose their favorite television show. ¹²²