Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

In any representative system, there will always be what the French call “frisson” between an administration and its rank and file members, particularly in democratic systems in which the administration is regarded as a distributive mechanism in which the will of the rank and file is supposed to be faithfully represented by its elected or appointed representatives. In national elections this year, both socialist Democrat Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump – a sometime Democrat, sometime Republican – have exploited the gap that occasionally opens up between the electorate and the leaders of both political parties. But the gap is present in all representative organizations – including public worker unions in which union administration may occasionally wander from its democratic mandate.