Ralph Schoellhammer
There can be no doubt about it: Donald Trump is not a normal candidate – which is precisely why you should vote for him. The strength of a democratic system is not just its supposed moral superiority – which is a topic for a different column – but its ability to allow for renewal and revitalization within the system. Contrary to one-party states or military dictatorships one does not have to overthrow the entire government to create change, but one can simply vote in a new one. It is this element of democracy that must be protected at all cost, because if a growing number of people feel that they can no longer vote out those who are currently in charge, at some point their anger will be pointed not just at the government, but the very system itself.
Political parties and bureaucratic agencies tend to entrench their power and shield themselves from the will of the voters, and that is neither new nor surprising but a natural element of human nature. Once you find yourself in a cushy position, you do not want to give it up, and ideally ensure that you can hold that position as long as possible. This gradually leads to the emergence of vested interests who benefit from a maintenance of the status quo and are resisting change, which in turn leads to “institutional sclerosis” as laid out by Mancur Olson in his 1982 book The Rise and Decline of Nations. Think about it like barnacles attaching themselves to the hull of a ship: as they accumulate, they drag the ship and force it to burn more fuel, even though it does not pick up speed or becomes easier to manoeuvre.
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