Editorial: A confederacy of dunces

'Spare a thought for the stay-at-home voter, whose empty eyes gaze at strange beauty shows.' – Rolling Stones, 'Salt of the Earth'

A tyranny of the majority exists, wrote 19th century French philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville, when a political decision 'bases its claim to rule upon numbers, not upon rightness or excellence.'

And how exactly do the musings of a Napoleonic-era wine-sipping fancy pants bear upon the fortunes of Napoleon Dynamite-era wine-sipping Sonomans?

In a word, Brexit – which may find a majority of Britons tyrannizing their nation's designs on 'rightness and excellence' well into the future.

The Brits' seemingly ill-advised foray into isolationism after four decades as one of the economic leaders of the European Union might appear a far cry from the Sonoma's tourism/leaf-blower-driven economies, but there's a truism faced by democratic institutions from the Greek Ecclesia to the Continental Congress – which is that oftentimes those voting have their heads up their arse.

That troubling thought began to take shape in the waning hours of the Brexit vote June 23, when the 'leave' contingent's victory was as plain as the egg on David Cameron's face. Apparently, it was only then that British Google searches saw a 250 percent spike in the question, 'What happens if we leave the EU?' as pasty-complexioned 'leavers' grew even paler as the ramifications of their vote became more sobering than the empty bottom of a G&T sifter. If the tardiness of the aforementioned inquiry doesn't send you rummaging for a bottle of Pimm's, consider the top British Google search as polls closed on the most historic English show of hands since the Beatles fired Pete Best – 'What is Brexit?'

It's not always the 'tyranny of the majority' we have to worry about; sometimes it's the stupidity.

Which makes it no wonder the Sonoma City Council threw caution to the wind June 28 when mulling details of a likely Nov. 8 ballot proposal to renew the Measure J sales tax, which sunsets next summer after five years. Measure J is the half-cent sales tax passed in 2012 in the wake of the state dissolving all the redevelopment agencies, a Gov. Brown budget slash that stuck towns like Sonoma with an ongoing tab of more than $2 million to cover the costs of various planned public works projects and other city services.

As council members debated Monday whether to seek a five-year tax renewal or make it permanent – save for a council repeal – one of the rationale for establishing the tax in perpetuity was how much Brexit demonstrated that an uneducated electorate can really 'F' things up. If knee-jerk populism can propel the nation that gave us 'Downton Abbey' into acting like gutter snipes in a Guy Ritchie film – what could prevent Sonomans five years from now deciding its sales tax is a half-cent too high and that we could live without a few redevelopment projects? (If that happens and it becomes known as Sonoma's Brexit, I really hope we dub it 'Sexit.')

Of course, that's the thing about democracy – it's the people's prerogative to make such decisions, whether one finds them responsibly frugal or inexplicably boneheaded.

In the end, the Council did the right thing and directed staff to prepare for a five-year extension of the measure, thus leaving the onus on city leaders to prove the tax revenue is being spent wisely in order to earn another round of renewal votes five years down the line.

Of course, none of this absolves electorates of the fact that, from time to time, they're as mad as a bag of ferrets. That's the initial take on Brexit, anyway, but it could just as easily apply to plenty of other 'what were they thinking?!' votes.

After all, such notorious names as Ferdinand Marcos, Silvio Berlusconi and Mohamed Morsy all won fair and free elections… well, the first time, anyway.

Democracy, as the Brits say, can be a bloody mess.

Email Jason at jason.walsh@sonomanews.com.