Brownstone Institute
Government by the People: Is It Possible?
The Gettysburg Address celebrated “government of the people, by the people, for the people,” echoing the ideals of the Enlightenment: equality for all, and liberation from the yoke of tyrannical rulers.
Since 1863 when Abraham Lincoln made his iconic speech, the “government of the people” bit has just purred along without a glitch. There has been no dearth of individuals wanting to rule others, whether by election or by birthright. The people have been thoroughly governed, and governed more still.
The “government for the people” bit has had its ups and downs. Every government claims it rules for the people – it would be political suicide not to make that claim in a developed Western society – but humans have a tendency to look after Number 1 before they help others. When placed in positions of authority, individuals have usually used those positions to amass more power and wealth for themselves.
As a slogan though, “government for the people” has been a roaring success. Even the swastika of the Nazis symbolised prosperity and happiness (being derived from the Sanskrit svastika, meaning ‘good to exist’). The reality in recent times, as in many historical ones, is that government has been for the people only in name.
It’s the “government by the people” bit that has been the most problematic.
But we have elections!
Elections of politicians may be heralded as the pinnacle of democracy, but elections embody neither the Athenian idea of democracy nor, in the modern media age especially, the idea of “government by the people.” On the contrary, elections are an elitist system through which “men and women of high standing” achieve power over others — for their own good, of course! Modern representative democracy is akin to an aristocratic marketing exercise, wherein clubs of important people specialise in how to get others to give them more power. Political dynasties and training trajectories have emerged to buttress and strengthen this exercise.
Politicians today go to great lengths to forge coalitions with the media and with wealthy individuals who can buy them airtime there. A class of elite professional persuaders has risen to the top of our “democratic” systems. The system does not reward the ability to lead or to put the needs of the people first, but the ability to persuade others. This is merely yet more “government of the people.”
Hence with a hand wave to the existence of “free and fair elections,” and apart from a few odd places like Switzerland, the “by the people” bit of Lincoln’s vision is being roundly ignored in modern democratic countries. The elites in charge like to think that populations cannot be trusted to make good decisions and are in need of their guidance. The political elites denigrate movements oriented towards giving a greater say in national affairs to the population by using the term “populism,” and their negative use of that term perfectly sums up what the elected class and their mates think about ordinary people.
The lack of government “by the people” has been a key problem in our societies for the past 30 years or more, particularly in the US where obscene amounts of money have blatantly entered the elite election game. There has been too much government of the people rather than by it, leading to widespread apathy among populations that then become more susceptible to abuse. Abuse is what happens when one does not stand up for one’s rights. Perennial vigilance and standing up for yourself when you are pushed around is the only way to deal with those who face a perennial temptation to push you around.
We have seen decay in spades over the past two to three years, but in Anglo-Saxon countries the downward slide in the living standards of the bottom 50% has been accelerating since about the 1980s. The year 2020 ushered in a fresh phase of decay in living standards. Only the very top of society is now prospering, while the rest suffers a diminution in every way: their health, wealth, education, prospects of owning a home, ability to travel, self-respect, myriad freedoms, and access to reliable information are all under unprecedented assault. A new medieval society has emerged with a few chiefs and a lot of abused Indians.
Power (back) to the People!
To escape this trap, populations need hope. To have hope, one needs a plan and a slogan. The slogan of the Gettysburg Address is still a good one. Let’s take it truly seriously.
What would “government by the people” look like, and what core changes should a reform movement champion to make Lincoln’s vision a reality? We propose a set of two complementary reforms, both of which aim to reintegrate the presently governed masses into the business of power. The first reform would assign to the masses the role of appointing public-service leaders, and the second would involve the masses in the presently dysfunctional production of information (i.e., the media sector). Let’s get into the first one now, and we’ll cover the second one in a forthcoming piece.
The most important duty that the public must reclaim is that of appointing its leaders. Elections of politicians are not enough when the modern state apparatus contains hundreds of top bureaucratic posts associated with significant authority to wield the power of the people via large-scale resource allocation decisions.
Neither is it only in the government bureaucracy that the “power of the people” – the power represented by the nation state – resides. State-funded universities, schools, hospitals, libraries, statistical agencies, and other institutions also benefit from the state “brand” and hence draw on the power whose ultimate source is the population making up that state. The leaders of such organisations, and of the various silos of the state bureaucracy, should in fairness be led by individuals chosen by that same population, not just “of” it.
Our proposal is that the appointments to all leadership roles in hospitals, universities, national media companies, government departments, scientific and statistical agencies, courts, police forces, and so on — in short, the leadership of what has come to be called the ‘administrative state’ or the ‘deep state’ — should be made directly by the people.
One might even argue that strategic roles in large public-service-oriented entities, even if technically part of the private sector, should be included too because they also have major effects on captive national populations. This would mean adding to the above list the top roles within entities like water suppliers, electricity generators, large charities, and big media companies, hospitals, and universities, regardless of sector.
How to make this happen? We propose adopting a method of mobilising and organising the population to judge others that worked reasonably well in Ancient Rome and Greece, worked again more recently in Italian city-states, and is ubiquitous today in courts of law: juries of citizens. The many benefits of giving citizens a strong and direct voice in the selection of leaders through citizen juries include fostering diversity of thought and breaking down the monocultures that have coiled their tendrils through and around our public institutions. At the same time, they can act as a bulwark against the power of the new private-sector barons whose wishes have come to dominate policy in many aspects of our economy and culture.
In a jury, unlike in an election, people pay attention and really talk to each other, particularly if they feel they truly are the ones deciding something important. They will be more likely to feel a weight of responsibility and to take their task seriously as members of a jury than when casting a vote together with millions of others once every couple of years.
We suggest juries of, say, 20 randomly chosen citizens apiece, of which each jury makes one appointment and is then disbanded. Expertise in specific disciplines is not required for jurors, just as jurors deciding the verdict in a money-laundering case do not need degrees in finance or accounting. Juries that do desire some expert guidance when making a decision can obtain this guidance easily.
As a practical matter, a sophisticated apparatus would be required to support the juries administratively. This would consist partly of a combination of jury alumni — citizens who have been part of juries before — and a purely administrative organisation that coordinates the jurors and the jury appointments. Jurors should not be told who to look for, what the selection criteria are, or any other such “guidance” that boils down to telling them what the existing power-holders want them to do. Via this system, trust is placed in the population, just as trust in the developed West is placed in markets rather than in central planning.
Involving the population directly in the appointment of thousands of leaders in the country every year is a step towards government by the people. Breaking the stranglehold of money and the professional persuaders over society in this way creates a new set of civic institutions that is independent of media-led elections and state and business elites, dragging the top of the public sector into the dominion of the citizens they are supposed to serve.
You can bet that this real transfer of power to the people will be strongly resisted by most elite individuals and institutions. They will loudly proclaim every single reason they can think of for why it is a crazy, impossible idea, and get “experts” from their networks to loudly profess the silliness of even proposing the notion. This vitriolic denigration is exactly the measure of how badly we need to loosen their grip on power and change the system they have entrenched for their own benefit.
Like Lincoln’s, our era calls out again for a “new birth of freedom,” not only for the United States but for all of the Western world, so that “government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
Authors
From the Brownstone Institute
Many news outlets reported the announcement of the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday by saying President Donald Trump had missed out (Washington Post, Yahoo, Hindustan Times, Huffington Post), not won (USA Today), fallen short (AP News), lost (Time), etc. There is even a meme doing the rounds about ‘Trump Wine.’ ‘Made from sour grapes,’ the label explains, ‘This is a full bodied and bitter vintage guaranteed to leave a nasty taste in your mouth for years.’
For the record, the prize was awarded to María Corina Machado for her courageous and sustained opposition to Venezuela’s ruling regime. Trump called to congratulate her. Given his own attacks on the Venezuelan president, his anger will be partly mollified, and he could even back her with practical support. He nonetheless attacked the prize committee, and the White House assailed it for putting politics before peace.
He could be in serious contention next year. If his Gaza peace plan is implemented and holds until next October, he should get it. That he is unlikely to do so is more a reflection on the award and less on Trump.
So He Won the Nobel Peace Prize. Meh!
Alfred Nobel’s will stipulates the prize should be awarded to the person who has contributed the most to promote ‘fraternity between nations…abolition or reduction of standing armies and…holding and promotion of peace congresses.’ Over the decades, this has expanded progressively to embrace human rights, political dissent, environmentalism, race, gender, and other social justice causes.
On these grounds, I would have thought the Covid resistance should have been a winner. The emphasis has shifted from outcomes and actual work to advocacy. In honouring President Barack Obama in 2009, the Nobel committee embarrassed itself, patronised him, and demeaned the prize. His biggest accomplishment was the choice of his predecessor as president: the prize was a one-finger send-off to President George W. Bush.
There have been other strange laureates, including those prone to wage war (Henry Kissinger, 1973), tainted through association with terrorism (Yasser Arafat, 1994), and contributions to fields beyond peace, such as planting millions of trees. Some laureates were subsequently discovered to have embellished their record, and others proved to be flawed champions of human rights who had won them the treasured accolade.
Conversely, Mahatma Gandhi did not get the prize, not for his contributions to the theory and practice of non-violence, nor for his role in toppling the British Raj as the curtain raiser to worldwide decolonisation. The sad reality is how little practical difference the prize has made to the causes it espoused. They bring baubles and honour to the laureates, but the prize has lost much of its lustre as far as results go.
Trump Was Not a Serious Contender
The nomination processes start in September and nominations close on 31 January. The five-member Norwegian Nobel committee scrutinises the list of candidates and whittles it down between February and October. The prize is announced on or close to 10 October, the date Alfred Nobel died, and the award ceremony is held in Oslo in early December.
The calendar rules out a newly elected president in his first year, with the risible exception of Obama. The period under review was 2024. Trump’s claims to have ended seven wars and boasts of ‘nobody’s ever done that’ are not taken seriously beyond the narrow circle of fervent devotees, sycophantic courtiers, and supplicant foreign leaders eager to ingratiate themselves with over-the-top flattery.
Trump Could Be in Serious Contention Next Year
Trump’s 20-point Gaza peace plan falls into three conceptual-cum-chronological parts: today, tomorrow, and the day after. At the time of writing, in a hinge moment in the two-year war, Israel has implemented a ceasefire in Gaza, Hamas has agreed to release Israeli hostages on 13-14 October, and Israel will release around 2,000 Palestinian prisoners (today’s agenda). So why are the ‘Ceasefire Now!’ mobs not out on the streets celebrating joyously instead of looking morose and discombobulated? Perhaps they’ve been robbed of the meaning of life?
The second part (tomorrow) requires Hamas demilitarisation, surrender, amnesty, no role in Gaza’s future governance, resumption of aid deliveries, Israeli military pullbacks, a temporary international stabilisation force, and a technocratic transitional administration. The third part, the agenda for the day after, calls for the deradicalisation of Gaza, its reconstruction and development, an international Peace Board to oversee implementation of the plan, governance reforms of the Palestinian Authority, and, over the horizon, Palestinian statehood.
There are too many potential pitfalls to rest easy on the prospects for success. Will Hamas commit military and political suicide? How can the call for democracy in Gaza and the West Bank be reconciled with Hamas as the most popular group among Palestinians? Can Israel’s fractious governing coalition survive?
Both Hamas and Israel have a long record of agreeing to demands under pressure but sabotaging their implementation at points of vulnerability. The broad Arab support could weaken as difficulties arise. The presence of the internationally toxic Tony Blair on the Peace Board could derail the project. Hamas has reportedly called on all factions to reject Blair’s involvement. Hamas official Basem Naim, while thanking Trump for his positive role in the peace deal, explained that ‘Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims and maybe a lot [of] people around the world still remember his [Blair’s] role in causing the killing of thousands or millions of innocent civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq.’
It would be a stupendous achievement for all the complicated moving parts to come together in stable equilibrium. What cannot and should not be denied is the breathtaking diplomatic coup already achieved. Only Trump could have pulled this off.
The very traits that are so offputting in one context helped him to get here: narcissism; bullying and impatience; bull in a china shop style of diplomacy; indifference to what others think; dislike of wars and love of real estate development; bottomless faith in his own vision, negotiating skills, and ability to read others; personal relationships with key players in the region; and credibility as both the ultimate guarantor of Israel’s security and preparedness to use force if obstructed. Israelis trust him; Hamas and Iran fear him.
The combined Israeli-US attacks to degrade Iran’s nuclear capability underlined the credibility of threats of force against recalcitrant opponents. Unilateral Israeli strikes on Hamas leaders in Qatar highlighted to uninvolved Arabs the very real dangers of continued escalation amidst the grim Israeli determination to rid themselves of Hamas once and for all.
Trump Is Likely to Be Overlooked
Russia has sometimes been the object of the Nobel Peace Prize. The mischievous President Vladimir Putin has suggested Trump may be too good for the prize. Trump’s disdain for and hostility to international institutions and assaults on the pillars of the liberal international order would have rubbed Norwegians, among the world’s strongest supporters of rules-based international governance, net zero, and foreign aid, the wrong way.
Brash and public lobbying for the prize, like calling the Norwegian prime minister, is counterproductive. The committee is fiercely independent. Nominees are advised against making the nomination public, let alone orchestrating an advocacy campaign. Yet, one laureate is believed to have mobilised his entire government for quiet lobbying behind the scenes, and another to have bad-mouthed a leading rival to friendly journalists.
Most crucially, given that Scandinavian character traits tip towards the opposite end of the scale, it’s hard to see the committee overlooking Trump’s loud flaws, vanity, braggadocio, and lack of grace and humility. Trump supporters discount his character traits and take his policies and results seriously. Haters cannot get over the flaws to seriously evaluate policies and outcomes. No prizes for guessing which group the Nobel committee is likely to belong to. As is currently fashionable to say when cancelling someone, Trump’s values do not align with those of the committee and the ideals of the prize.
Author
From the Brownstone Institute
Trump made sweeping claims that would have ended political careers in any other era. His health officials tried to narrow the edges, but the President ensured that the headlines would be his.
Autism has long been the untouchable subject in American politics. For decades, federal agencies tiptoed around it, steering research toward genetics while carefully avoiding controversial environmental or pharmaceutical questions.
That ended at the White House this week, when President Donald Trump tore through the taboo with a blunt and sometimes incendiary performance that left even his own health chiefs scrambling to keep pace.
Flanked by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya, FDA Commissioner Marty Makary, CMS Adminstrator Dr Mehmet Oz, and other senior officials, Trump declared autism a “horrible, horrible crisis” and recounted its rise in startling terms.
“Just a few decades ago, one in 10,000 children had autism…now it’s one in 31, but in some areas, it’s much worse than that, if you can believe it, one in 31 and…for boys, it’s one in 12 in California,” Trump said.
The President insisted the trend was “artificially induced,” adding: “You don’t go from one in 20,000 to one in 10,000 and then you go to 12, you know, there’s something artificial. They’re taking something.”
Trump’s Blunt Tylenol Warning
The headline moment came when Trump zeroed in on acetaminophen, the common painkiller sold as Tylenol — known as paracetamol in Australia.
While Kennedy and Makary described a cautious process of label changes and physician advisories, Trump dispensed with nuance.
“Don’t take Tylenol,” Trump said flatly. “Don’t take it unless it’s absolutely necessary…fight like hell not to take it.”
Kennedy laid out the evidence base, citing “clinical and laboratory studies that suggest a potential association between acetaminophen used during pregnancy and adverse neurodevelopmental outcomes, including later diagnosis for ADHD and autism.”
Makary reinforced the point with references to the Boston Birth Cohort, the Nurses’ Health Study, and a recent Harvard review, before adding: “To quote the dean of the Harvard School of Public Health, there is a causal relationship between prenatal acetaminophen use and neurodevelopmental disorders of ADHD and autism spectrum disorder. We cannot wait any longer.”
But where the officials spoke of “lowest effective dose” and “shortest possible duration,” Trump thundered over the top: “I just want to say it like it is, don’t take Tylenol. Don’t take it if you just can’t. I mean, it says, fight like hell not to take it.”
Vaccines Back on Center Stage
The President then pivoted to vaccines, reviving arguments that the medical establishment has long sought to bury. He blasted the practice of giving infants multiple injections at a single visit.
“They pump so much stuff into those beautiful little babies, it’s a disgrace…you get a vat of 80 different vaccines, I guess, 80 different blends, and they pump it in,” Trump said.
His solution was simple: “Go to the doctor four times instead of once, or five times instead of once…it can only help.”
On the measles, mumps, and rubella shot, Trump insisted: “The MMR, I think should be taken separately…when you mix them, there could be a problem. So there’s no downside in taking them separately.”
The moment was astonishing — echoing arguments that had once seen doctors like Andrew Wakefield excommunicated from medical circles.
It was the kind of line of questioning the establishment had spent decades trying to banish from mainstream debate.
Hep B Vaccine under Attack
Trump dismissed the rationale for giving the hepatitis B vaccine at birth.
“Hepatitis B is sexually transmitted. There’s no reason to give a baby that’s just born hepatitis B [vaccine]. So I would say, wait till the baby is 12 years old,” he said.
He made clear that he was “not a doctor,” stressing that he was simply offering his personal opinion. But the move could also be interpreted as Trump choosing to take the heat himself, to shield Kennedy’s HHS from what was sure to be an onslaught of criticism.
The timing was remarkable.
Only last week, the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunisation Practices (ACIP) had been preparing to vote on whether to delay the hepatitis B shot until “one month” of age — a modest proposal that mainstream outlets derided as “anti-vax extremism.”
By contrast, Trump told the nation to push the jab back 12 years. His sweeping denunciations made the supposedly radical ACIP vote look almost tame.
The irony was inescapable — the same media voices who had painted Kennedy’s reshaped ACIP as reckless now faced a President willing to say far more than the panel itself dared.
A New Treatment and Big Research Push
The administration also unveiled what it deemed a breakthrough: FDA recognition of prescription leucovorin, a folate-based therapy, as a treatment for some autistic children.
Makary explained: “It may also be due to an autoimmune reaction to a folate receptor on the brain not allowing that important vitamin to get into the brain cells…one study found that with kids with autism and chronic folate deficiency, two-thirds of kids with autism symptoms had improvement and some marked improvement.”
Dr Oz confirmed Medicaid and CHIP (the Children’s Health Insurance Program, which provides low-cost health coverage to children in families that earn too much to qualify for Medicaid) would cover the treatment.
“Over half of American children are covered by Medicaid and CHIP…upon this label change…state Medicaid programs will cover prescription leucovorin around the country, it’s yours,” said Oz.
Bhattacharya announced $50 million in new NIH grants under the “Autism Data Science Initiative.”
He explained that 13 projects would be funded using “exposomics” — the study of how environmental exposures like diet, chemicals, and infections interact with our biology — alongside advanced causal inference methods.
“For too long, it’s been taboo to ask some questions for fear the scientific work might reveal a politically incorrect answer,” Bhattacharya said. “Because of this restricted focus in scientific investigations, the answers for families have been similarly restricted.”
Mothers’ Voices
The press conference also featured raw testimony from parents.
Amanda, mother of a profoundly autistic five-year-old, told Trump: “Unless you’ve lived with profound autism, you have no idea…it’s a very hopeless feeling. It’s very isolating. Being a parent with a profound autistic child, even just taking them over to your friend’s house is something we just don’t do.”
Jackie, mother of 11-year-old Eddie, said: “I’ve been praying for this day for nine years, and I’m so thankful to God for bringing the administration into our lives…I never thought we would have an administration that was courageous enough to look into things that no prior administration had.”
Their stories underscored what Kennedy said at the announcement about “believing women.” Here were mothers speaking directly about their lived reality, demanding that uncomfortable conversations could no longer be avoided.
Clashes with the Press Corps
Reporters pressed Trump on the backlash from medical groups.
Asked about the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) declaring acetaminophen safe in pregnancy, Trump shot back, “That’s the establishment. They’re funded by lots of different groups. And you know what? Maybe they’re right. I don’t think they are, because I don’t think the facts bear it out at all.”
When one journalist raised the argument that rising diagnoses reflected better recognition, Kennedy bristled,
“That’s one of the canards that has been promoted by the industry for many years,” he said. “It’s just common sense, because you’re only seeing this in people who are under 50 years of age. If it were better recognition or diagnosis, you’d see it in the seventy-year-old men. I’ve never seen this happening in people my age.”
Another reporter then asked Trump, “Should the establishment media show at least some openness to trying to figure out what the causes are?”
“I wish they would. Yeah, why are they so close-minded?” Trump replied. “It’s not only the media, in all fairness, it’s some people, when you talk about vaccines, it’s crazy…I don’t care about being attacked.”
Breaking the Spell
For years, autism policy has been shaped by caution, consensus, and deference to orthodox positions. That spell was broken at today’s press conference.
The dynamic was striking. Kennedy, Makary, Bhattacharya, and Oz leaned on scientific papers, review processes, and cautious advisories. Trump, by contrast, brushed it all aside, hammering his message home through repetition and personal anecdotes.
Trump made sweeping claims that would have ended political careers in any other era. His health officials tried to narrow the edges, but the President ensured that the headlines would be his.
“This will be as important as any single thing I’ve done,” Trump declared. “We’re going to save a lot of children from a tough life, really tough life. We’re going to save a lot of parents from a tough life.”
Whatever the science ultimately shows, the politics of autism in America will never be the same.
Republished from the author’s Substack
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