Coyne: The U.S. election shows that sometimes the people get it wrong

One of his better columns. Many other examples, Brexit being perhaps one of the best among Western countries:

…But that is an entirely separate question from whether it is rational, in response, to vote for a candidate such as Mr. Trump. The Biden administration made its share of mistakes; Ms. Harris has her flaws; the American economy could be performing better (though quite honestly it’s hard to see how); identity politics has a lot to answer for. But the notion that any of these, or all of them, represent such a dire threat, such an emergency, as to justify a “remedy” such as Mr. Trump – there is no other word for this but irrational.

It is not polite to say this. The notion that “the people are always right” is a staple of democratic discourse. And there is much truth in this. Indeed, I have often been forced to acknowledge it myself – the issue in which I had been so heavily invested, the factors that I had felt sure really ought to decide this or that election, proved, in the fullness of time, not to be of such overwhelming importance as all that, at least when set beside all the many other issues and considerations that combine, by some extraordinary alchemy, to produce a vote.

The average voter, busy as they are with the regular distractions of life, may take a broader and I dare say better view of things than the full-time pundit, too caught up in the day-to-day minutiae of politics. But it is not necessarily true, always and everywhere. Indeed, it can’t be true for all voters – in any election, the abiding wisdom of the majority must be set against what is presumably the abject folly of the minority.

Who’s to say we must necessarily pay homage to the former, just because they slightly outnumber the latter? Sometimes the people – some of the people at any rate – get it wrong. Especially the people who say the reason they voted for Donald Trump is that he is a “man of God,” or will “get tough with Russia,” or “cares about people like me.”

It is expected of politicians, especially losing politicians, that they must nevertheless grit their teeth and mouth the words, “The people are always right.” But such pieties are not required of columnists.

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