The beauty of our democratic system of government is that anyone can get elected. But that feature is also a bug. We suspect we aren’t alone among Americans who watch some of the antics on Capitol Hill and think, “How on Earth did that person get elected?” Sometimes it seems that politicians know little more than how to win votes.

To take one recent example: In his first interview after being elected to the U.S. Senate in 2020, Republican Tommy Tuberville, the former Auburn University football coach, misidentified the three branches of our government, claimed that World War II was fought against European socialists, and promised to use his Senate resources to campaign for fellow Republicans, which is illegal.

This editorial was first published in The Dallas Morning News.