Democracy appears to be in a death spiral here in the United States.
What began as the Republican Party “Southern Strategy” in the late 1960’s to polarize ethnic voting and emphasize “states’ rights”, the initiative matured into the Nixon Administration’s “dirty tricks” campaign in the early 1970’s and eventually morphed into continuous mudslinging and non-cooperation in Washington D.C. coupled with an epidemic of virulent partisan behavior in American society.
You know, the “Red vs. Blue” thing: you’re either with us or you’re not.
Democracy, as envisioned by the Founding Fathers and designed into the U.S. Constitution, is supposed to find solutions to important problems through evaluation of options, meaningful debate, and eventual compromise that works for the benefit of the majority of “the people”. There have always been differences of opinion amongst our Federal elected officials, but solutions have been worked out. That’s how we grew from sea to sea, how the transcontinental railroad was built, how the Interstate Highway System evolved, how we became the industrial powerhouse of the World, how we helped win World Wars, and created “The American Dream”.
We used to all be in this thing together, as Americans. Generally speaking, we’ve welcomed immigrants to bring labor, new ideas, and energy into the fold. Every resident of the United States has an immigrant in their family tree, even “Native Americans” (who immigrated across the Bering Strait from Asia). The goal of all of us, going back the many generations, was to improve the quality of life for ourselves and our progeny.
Nowadays, a significant number of Americans seem to think that immigration is a bad thing, particularly if those immigrants have brown skin. White-skinned Northern European immigrants, legal or illegal, are encouraged. Interestingly, most of the hard-working, unskilled labor force in the U.S., deemed “essential” during the pandemic, is non-White. Evidently, their contributions aren’t really essential.
Democracy, as designed, gives every American, even the non-White ones, a voice in collectively moving the needle of progress. At least, that was the theory back in 1787. Of course, back then there were no political parties, just responsible citizens from each of the thirteen original colonies trying to fashion a republic that worked satisfactorily for their friends, neighbors, communities, and regions. Lots of compromises were made to come up with a contraption that worked for the majority of the people.
And, thus, the Great Experiment began.
The idea of compromise seems to have become lost in American politics. Both dominant political parties have become stubborn and hidebound, refusing to acknowledge that the “other side” may have a good idea. The supposedly “honorable” elected officials back in Washington D.C. (and in State capitols, as well) spend the vast amount of their time shooting spitwads and trash-talking their colleagues who don’t agree with them in every aspect. Consequently, nothing of consequence gets done, despite many important issues desperately needing creative solutions. The cost of government increases, while the effectiveness of government decreases.
This has not gone unnoticed in American society. People are fed up with the Rube Goldberg democracy that we are stuck with. Finger-pointing has morphed into public bad-mouthing which, thanks to the Internet, has now become a constant refrain of nasty behavior that divides neighbor from neighbor. Some neighbors that I know won’t even talk to others if they don’t support their political brand.
What’s to blame for this catastrophe? Each political party would have you believe that it is the fault of “the other guy”…as if that’s an excuse for do-nothingism.
Actually, the U.S. Constitution and the evolved rules that govern our Senate and House of Representatives may be at fault.
Despite the “majority rules” concept of democracy, it is possible for a minority party, or even one single Senator, to thwart the intention of the majority of Senators. This happens virtually every day in Washington D.C., slowing down or stifling Administration initiatives. The “Administration” is the Executive Branch of government installed by the President, as elected by the majority of the people.
A single Senator can filibuster to death a legislative proposal. A Committee chairman can block a bill. A single Senator can place a “hold” on a proposed Cabinet appointment. The Majority Leader can block the appointment, by the elected President of the United States, of a Supreme Court Justice.
These are examples of how our system of government virtually treads water if the Executive and Legislative branches are controlled by different political parties. This happens often, and causes the Executive branch to issue “executive orders” to bypass the Legislative branch when it fails to develop laws needed to solve important problems. Overreach by the Executive, because it cannot get the Legislative branch to do its job, often results in those Executive Orders landing in the Supreme Court (the Judicial branch) to determine if they are lawful. Hence, the Supreme Court takes on an importance even greater than originally anticipated. This is why appointments to the Supreme Court, which is supposed to be apolitical, have become extremely political.
Gamesmanship and nasty politics have begun to typify Supreme Court appointments which, in another failure of the U.S. Constitution, are lifetime appointments. This means that an incompetent or extremely political Supreme Court judge will affect SCOTUS decisions until he or she dies.
Another failure of the U.S. Constitution is the means by which top Federal elected officials gain office.
Congressmen are elected for two-year terms, which means that they are always campaigning for the next election. Successful campaigns require lots of money, so Congressmen are susceptible to the entreaties of campaign donors. Hence, they are more accountable to donors than to their constituents, and their legislative work tends to focus on donor interests as represented by lobbyists. If Congressional terms were for six years, like those of Senators, the constant campaigning and need for cash would abate somewhat.
There are two Senators per State. This presents a problem, as nothing can get done without the approval of the Senate, and the majority of Senators represent a minority of Americans. This occurs because there is a wide variance between the populations of States: a Senator from California represents 20 million people; a Senator from Wyoming represents 300,000 people. Thus, the “majority rules” principle of democracy is blatantly defeated via the provisions of our own Constitution.
This same defect plagues the Electoral College and is in fact that reason that it is possible for a President to be elected despite being rejected by a majority of American voters. This has happened on numerous occasions, the latest being the election of Donald Trump in 2016. In that year, the opposing candidate garnered 3 million votes more than her opponent…and lost.
When a President gains election in this manner, he/she faces a daunting task of governing, particularly if his party does not control both houses of Congress. This problem does not occur in “parliamentary” democracies such as that in Canada and England, where a vote of “no confidence” can occur at any time if the Prime Minister’s agenda is not supported by the majority of the people.
The frustration of dealing with the faults inherent in our Constitutional democracy have encouraged some partisans to sabotage it and go in a different direction: anti-democracy or autocracy.
It is now apparent that the events surrounding the January 6, 2020 Capitol Riot were an effort, orchestrated by the White House and carried out by extreme partisans, to ignore the vote of the American people via a bloodless coup. The excuse was that the election was tainted, something that has never been proved in the slightest. What was really going on is that one party, and its leader, didn’t like losing and having to relinquish power to “the other guys”.
This is what occurs in dictatorships: elections are held and, if the dictator loses, the election results are tossed out…because the other party allegedly “cheated”.
If it weren’t for a few public officials in key “battleground” States, and for Vice President Mike Pence doing his job on January 6th, the coup would have succeeded, despite Joe Biden beating Donald Trump by ten million votes nationwide.
That our country came that close to losing its democracy so easily is a frightening thing.
Moves are already being made by the Trumpist faction of the G.O.P. to insure a victory in 2024, even if the majority of Americans don’t vote Republican. Gerrymandering (modifying Congressional election boundaries to lock in G.O.P. wins) and the installation of “friendly” election officials in “Red” States is underway as we speak.
In this way, a candidate can win even if he/she doesn’t win.
That, of course, is the end of democracy.
At this point, does anyone care? Maybe most Americans don’t care anymore. However, they haven’t lived in a dictatorship.
It is easy to allow a dictator to come to power but almost impossible to overthrow him once he gets settled in. As the proverb goes, “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely”. Can one even imagine the consequences of a guy like Donald Trump invested with absolute power?
Unfortunately, America could be on the brink of another “Great Experiment”.