总统:选举还是推举?

How to Choose a President:By Election or By Recommendation?

梁启超的《新大陆游记》曾指出美国自建国到20世纪初,历任最高行政领导人即总统庸才居多、优秀者很少,并分析了其成因。这同样适合于对当前美国总统特朗普和其他政治人士的评价。近年来美国内部政治撕裂现象的加剧,尤其是当前对新冠肺炎疫情的应对无力,暴露了当代美国政治领导者的德能与其职责的不相匹配。美国开国者十分重视政治领导者的行政才能与道德品质,所设计的选举人团制度,是一种精英选择机制,体现的是共和精神,但随着19世纪美国政治的政党化和民主扩展,政治领导者的产生越来越依赖于选举机制。随着20世纪中下叶以来的民主普及,政治领导者在直接选举机制下的劣质化程度加剧,这提醒人们需要反思民主制度的内在缺陷,和重新思考推举机制的意义,探索选举与推举机制在政治领导者产生中的结合优化。

As Liang Qichao observed and reasoned in his Travel Notes in New Continents,most of the top leaders in the executive branch of the United States government from the birth of the nation to early 20 th century were mediocre.There had been very few exceptions.The same can be said of President Trump and other politicians active at the moment.Recently,intensified political division and the inability to deal with COVID-19 have exposed the mismatch between the virtues,competence and responsibilities of modern US political leaders.The Founding Fathers of the United States placed great emphasis on the administrative competence and moral character of political leaders,and designed the electoral college system–a selective mechanism for elites–as an embodiment of republicanism.However,as a result of development in partisan poitics and expansion of democracy in the 19 th century,the making of political leaders increasingly depended on election mechanisms.As democracy grew more ubiquitous since the mid-20 th century,direct voting has produced worse political leaders,reminding us of the need to reflect upon inherent deficiencies of democracy,as well as the significance of rethinking tuiju mechanism.It is necessary for us to explore the optimal comination of election and tuiju in producing political leaders.