I always find your viewpoint interesting, but I guess I'm even more cynical than you. Our politicians are a childish class and I think you have little hope of keeping them in line with ideas like "representation" and integrity. California, as you point out, will survive anyone for a year, and if Newsom is not recalled (which I honestly don't think he will be given some of the polling), it will only reinforce the Marie Antoinette-ism of the modern elites, a problem that is not limited in any way to California.
I would also argue that "legitimacy" in our current system is a laughable concept at best. You have two parties that have an iron lock on the system through finances and laws they have written that make third party ascendance difficult to impossible. The parties have really ceased standing for anything other than "we're not the other guy." In practice, they do little that differs. How long did it take us to get out of Afghanistan? How much pork fills bills? How many trade bills have we "signed" that gutted our own manufacturing? When it comes down to the nuts and bolts, other than token dissent, they all vote for the same things, the very things you can be sure the people they represent wouldn't want if they knew all the details. The important laws really only benefit certain people who coincidentally make sure these same people's campaign wallets--left and right--are obscenely bulging at the sides. (And, yes, to some people climate change, women's rights, etc., are "important" laws, but if you struggle to put food on the table and keep a roof over your head, they are much less important.) The party elite won't let anyone they don't like rise to the top (Trump being a glaring exception with Gabbard and Sanders being the rule). Given all that, "legitimacy" is a word one must qualify to the point of absurdity.
In other words, while I understand your point, the way we've been doing things hasn't gotten regular people anywhere. It might be good to shake things up.
"What’s more dire, in my opinion, is the prospect of the state being led by someone who has the support of something like 15 percent of the electorate."
It will be interesting in a year or so when the least popular candidate in a field of (what? a dozen, twenty, forty, fifty?) Democratic candidates is President of the United States.
I always find your viewpoint interesting, but I guess I'm even more cynical than you. Our politicians are a childish class and I think you have little hope of keeping them in line with ideas like "representation" and integrity. California, as you point out, will survive anyone for a year, and if Newsom is not recalled (which I honestly don't think he will be given some of the polling), it will only reinforce the Marie Antoinette-ism of the modern elites, a problem that is not limited in any way to California.
I would also argue that "legitimacy" in our current system is a laughable concept at best. You have two parties that have an iron lock on the system through finances and laws they have written that make third party ascendance difficult to impossible. The parties have really ceased standing for anything other than "we're not the other guy." In practice, they do little that differs. How long did it take us to get out of Afghanistan? How much pork fills bills? How many trade bills have we "signed" that gutted our own manufacturing? When it comes down to the nuts and bolts, other than token dissent, they all vote for the same things, the very things you can be sure the people they represent wouldn't want if they knew all the details. The important laws really only benefit certain people who coincidentally make sure these same people's campaign wallets--left and right--are obscenely bulging at the sides. (And, yes, to some people climate change, women's rights, etc., are "important" laws, but if you struggle to put food on the table and keep a roof over your head, they are much less important.) The party elite won't let anyone they don't like rise to the top (Trump being a glaring exception with Gabbard and Sanders being the rule). Given all that, "legitimacy" is a word one must qualify to the point of absurdity.
In other words, while I understand your point, the way we've been doing things hasn't gotten regular people anywhere. It might be good to shake things up.
"What’s more dire, in my opinion, is the prospect of the state being led by someone who has the support of something like 15 percent of the electorate."
It will be interesting in a year or so when the least popular candidate in a field of (what? a dozen, twenty, forty, fifty?) Democratic candidates is President of the United States.