Perhaps you’ve noticed the habit of U.S. politicians of all stripes to reference “the American people.” For some it is close to a nervous vocal tic. Pressed on any point, they will assert with certainty and bravado that the American people take the position they are advocating, or demand the policy they support.
Zany: This is where I would normally butt in and start spouting off all of the polling that would help the Professor make his point here, but if you’re on this website reading this, you already know the numbers. Besides, Professor Harmon does a great job by himself.
Just in case you’ve wandered into this article through some backdoor, I’ll provide a few examples. Don’t worry, I’ll keep it brief.
Universal Background checks on gun purchases: 90%
Red Flag Laws: 70%
Universal Healthcare: 62%
Those are just a few examples to buttress the Professor’s point that politicians have no right to claim what the people do or don’t want. There are plenty more!
When you look at what the majority of us want—and how our politicians currently in government vote—you’ll see that most of the politicians (not all!) always vote against what the American people want.
There is little evidence that politicians cite public opinion research or even noodle around with a Ouija board before proclaiming the American people as the good and noble reason for their efforts.
I decided to run a test of what Tennessee’s U.S. Senators and U.S. House members, via their online newsletters, are attributing to “the American people.” I ran a search for that phrase in DCInbox.com, a full-text site for all online congressional newsletters. The results, from January through mid-June, were revealing.
The most prolific user of that phrase was Mark Green, Republican congressman from Clarksville. Eight times Green used “the American people” to bash President Joe Biden’s border policies and to try to justify impeachment articles against Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
Green took pride in delivering those impeachment articles — ones that went nowhere — to the U. S. Senate. Green went so far as to bloviate, “The greatest threat to national safety and security of the American people is Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.” Really?! A greater threat than nuclear weapons proliferation, pandemic-potential diseases, global warming, terrorist cells, or Vladimir Putin’s expansionist wars and disinformation campaigns?
Further, Green used the phrase in messages about identification standards for illegal aliens, an upsurge in Chinese nationals illegally entering the U.S. and in opposition to student debt relief. Green also cited “the American people” in a rambling screed covering one murderous illegal migrant, People’s Republic of China businesses, fentanyl and DHS.
Nashville-area Congressman Andy Ogles also wrote “the American people” often in newsletters. He blasted the Republican Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence for supporting reauthorization of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Ogles blurted this was “a calculated attempt to scare the American people into supporting deep-state policy priorities.”
Ogles also used the phrase in a rambling list of reasons he voted against Fiscal Year 2024 appropriations. The list included bizarre references to drag shows and transgender body apparel. He also asserted the American people “see right through” President Biden’s recent immigration executive order.
Most egregiously, Ogles wrote, “It’s not America’s responsibility to perpetually absorb large numbers of nationals from unstable, developing countries — and it does not serve the best interests of the American people to continue doing so. Indeed, any measure allowing poorly processed Haitian migrants access to our neighborhoods will result in preventable crimes and tragedies.”
So many things are wrong with those claims, but let’s start with the crime element. Significant published research, including from Stanford economist Ran Abramitzky and from the libertarian Cato Institute, shows that immigrants commit fewer crimes in the U.S. than people who are born in the U.S.. Recent analyses by the Marshall Project and the New York Times found no link between undocumented immigrants and a rise in community violent or property crime rates.
One also should remember our nation-of-immigrants tradition embodied in a plaque placed on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty. Emma Lazarus’s sonnet reads “Give me your tired, your poor. Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
East Tennessee Republican Congressman Tim Burchett apparently read the mind of the American people to demand greater transparency on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (aka UFOs) and the late Jeffrey Epstein’s flight logs. Middle Tennessee Congressman John Rose, also a Republican, took aim at Colorado’s Supreme Court and its musing about leaving insurrectionist, felon, and former President Donald Trump off the state ballot. Ogles blasted the notion as subverting the will of the American people.
Sen. Marsha Blackburn cited “the American people” in: opposition to Biden border policies, alarm about TikTok, in stopping any state from using Medicaid dollars for undocumented migrants, and in demands for Epstein flight logs.
The only Democrat in the Tennessee federal delegation, Steve Cohen from Memphis, used the phrase very differently. He bashed the Supreme Court’s slow walking of Trump’s immunity claims — now settled in Trump’s favor — and the GOP’s recent phony impeachment narrative about Biden. Cohen also referenced his trip to the U.S. Holocaust Museum and one exhibit’s attempt to answer, “What did the American people know about the threats to the Jewish people posed by Nazi Germany.”
Cohen’s historical question aside, most of our legislative delegation can’t fathom that the majority of the public may not be with them on each and every matter. It’s a non-productive delusion.
The article in this post was originally published on Tennessee Lookout and parts of it are included here under a Creative Commons license CC BY-ND 4.0
