Politicos: protecting the people from popular ignorance

In my view, the president should ideally act as a politico, representing the entire citizenry of the United States. Politicos are superior to either delegates or trustees, since it allows the president to avoid the pitfalls that face the other two models.

Delegates, who act in a way that represents the beliefs and desires of her constituents, face several weaknesses. There are many issues about which the general public is ill-informed or unaware. This is to be expected, as not everyone in the country has time to stay up to date on the hundreds of different issues regarding which the government must make decisions. On the other hand, a trustee feels no obligation to act in accord with the wishes of their constituents, which can be potentially harmful. Upon being elected, they make decisions based on what they alone think is best for their constituents, which gives the representative too much discretion, too much opportunity for action that opposes the interests of their constituents.

So, a politico representative strikes the best balance between the two. Regarding issues about which the public is well informed and is able to responsibly decide for itself, the politico acts like a delegate, acting in accord with the will of the people. Conversely, regarding issues about which the public is ill-informed and not able to responsibly decide for itself, the politico acts as a trustee, doing what he (or advising experts) think is in the public’s best interest.

The president, though not elected by the entire country or even the entire electorate, should represent every citizen of the United States to the best of his ability. While he has to be careful not to alienate his base, after being elected to the presidency, his obligation is to do what is in the best interest of every citizen of the United States. This isn’t a perfect world, so this won’t happen all the time, but a president who acts in the interests of his base when it adversely affects the rest of the country poses the same danger as majority factions in Congress, as discussed by Madison in Federalist #10.

People shouldn’t really expect their president to be descriptively representative, wherein the representative comes from the same social demographic. For one thing, the president cannot descriptively represent everyone, so it would be absurd for everyone to expect descriptive representation. Further, having a president who descriptively represented some social groups, such as those without college degrees or the homeless, just wouldn’t be a good idea. We want our president to have a college degree. That said, the president does often represent a large portion of the electorate descriptively. Given the trends in elected presidents, the educated upper-middle to upper class is typically represented descriptively. To expect anything different would be fairly unrealistic, and any other form of descriptive representation probably wouldn’t be of much benefit. Other perceived benefits of descriptive representation would likely be purely symbolic, not actually improving the substantive representation.