American voters are not becoming more hostile to democracy but worryingly, thei politicians seem to be.
As with fist fights, it takes two to fight politically. America is stuck in a never-ending “battle for its soul”, where politicians on both the left and the right are convinced that the other side is determined to destroy all that is good about the country. On the right the grievances are cultural and political, the story goes that the Democrats want to destroy defining features of American culture like Christian values, capitalism, and patriotism. On the left the issues are cultural and political, the story goes that the Republicans want to destroy defining features of American culture like metropolitanism, a fair economy, and democracy. Trump tends to rant about the Establishment and illegal immigration whereas the Biden loves to talk about what a threat to democracy Trump and the Republicans are. The reason why things have gotten so bad, so uniquely polarized, is that neither side fundamentally understands the concerns of, or respects the views of, the other side; or even what the broad electorate really wants. Anti-democratic sentiment is a bi-partisan issue.
I tend to take the view that people like democracy more than they say in polls, and that any confessed doubts about democracy should be taken as a snapshot in time rather than a deeply seated ideological commitment. It is easy to see why partisans on the left and the right feel that democracy is not working well in America at the moment, I mean look at the clown the other side is hoping will be the next president. And moderate voters have ample reason to see both major party candidates and the major independent candidate Robert Kennedy as unfit and unworthy of the country’s highest honour and deepest responsibility. People are less likely to say that they believe in democracy when the democratic process is producing sub-par candidates than when it is producing popular, inspiring, and driven candidates like Obama or Reagan.
The situation is made all the worse by how the media often emphasises the overt anti-democratic rhetoric from Trump but underemphasises the anti-democratic rhetoric from Biden. Biden routinely and casually portrays Trump as a threat to democracy and as a madman. Why he is seldom chastised for that is beyond me. Consider what Biden said after the Trump v United States ruling by the supreme court: “Perhaps most importantly, the American people must decide if they want to entrust the president — once again, the presidency to Donald Trump, now knowing he’ll be even more emboldened to do whatever he pleases whenever he wants to do it.” Imagine if the leader of Russia, Venezuela, or the Central African Republic said those words, would they be interpreted as good faith warnings about a criminal, or a blatant attempt to scare voters into not voting for the opposing candidate – who is coincidentally currently leading in the polls?
I do not mean to say that Biden and Trump are equally bad, or somehow comparable. As I’ve explained previously, I think they are both unfit candidates for two very different reasons. But Biden is not the paladin of democracy he likes to claim. He is always relatively less hostile to democracy than Trump, but nothing in his public appearances indicate that he has anything except contempt for Trump and those who vote for MAGA Republicans. He seems to genuinely believe that the American people have been tricked into supporting Trump rather than accepting they are smart enough to understand what they are voting for, and accepting that they might just genuinely disagree with his vision of America. That is not consistent with a true belief in democracy.
A democracy is only a true democracy if the people can, should they wish to, vote to adopt a different form of government. I do not think that is what people are voting for when they are voting for Trump. They are voting for a different system, one in which state policies pay attention to the interests of the working classes by limiting immigration, protecting domestic industries, and avoiding foreign entanglements. They are voting for a different system, one in which politicians pay more attention to them rather than what elites are thinking. Political and economic reform is badly needed in the US and people see that Biden represents the status quo; his entire pitch in 2020 was that he would restore it. People want change, even if it is radical, but that does not necessarily mean that they long for iron fisted autocracy.
Indeed, most Americans are quite hostile to Russia and China, examples of non-democratic governance in contemporary peer great powers. American sympathies also lie with the victims of January 6th rather than the mob and militias. Sure, they may despise politicians and Congress but to be fair, Congress barely passes any laws and the politicians which make up the ruling class often seem more interested in campaigning on culture war issues than fixing people’s everyday problems. Congress’ failures are widely publicised while its successes mostly fly under the radar.
To make people more keen on democracy America need institutional reform to make democracy work better, but unfortunately that is an extremely fraught process. Pro-democratic political reform can often appear anti-democratic when expectations are anchored in the current system. Consider the senate. It is an ancient institution form a time when America was more of a confederation than a nation state. What was a crucial institution when small states where afraid of being steamrolled by bigger states with different interests and a different culture is now routinely an obstacle for passing laws that easily pass in the house of representatives, the more democratic lower chamber the now truly national electorate appoints. There has been plenty of talk about whether or not to get rid of the filibuster – a stupidly named and arcane procedure which means that most laws need a 60 vote majority rather than a 51 vote majority in the senate – in policy circles. But getting rid of the senate entirely is, in my view, a much better alternative as the design of it routinely gives conservatives disproportionate power while also making passing laws more difficult. Furthermore, it has a strange six year mandate which means that many of the senate members have mandates on a different time frame than the rest of the legislature and the presidency. In short, the institutional design is a mess and was mainly useful in a time when the primary concern was legislation moving too fast. Now it exists to frustrate presidents and members of the house of representatives by stopping policies with a mandate from a more democratically selected and recent election. Abolishing the senate would be a pro-democratic reform which would translate the voters’ wishes into law more often and at a higher speed, but any suggestion to do so would most likely be interpreted as anti-democratic. It might also be the sort of policy ostensibly anti-democratic voters would approve of.
I think this is why Americans seem to be less keen on democracy. They want their government to work, and the current systems just don’t. As I explained regarding Swedish NATO policy, it is a common mistake to think that the electorate want a specific policy when they really just want the outcome that policy is supposed to bring. Most voters are not experts in policy issues, that is why they outsource the drafting of laws to parliamentarians. If they hear that Obamacare will give more people cheaper healthcare what they want is not the specific package of legal changes that constitute Obamacare, they want the cheaper and more widely available healthcare it is supposed to bring; indeed they would probably be more than happy with a completely different, even diametrically opposed policy solution as long as it generates the same outcome. The same is true of democracy. The people want more effective government, and right now democracy is not delivering. They don’t really care how the system is reformed, they just want it to work better and until it does they show their disatisfaction by saying that they do not think democracy is working.
That is why I think Biden, and the American left more broadly, adopting increasingly anti-democratic rhetoric is worrying. Democracy as a system is rooted in the belief that your fellow citizens are engaged, knowledgeable, and acting in good faith. Undermining those foundational beliefs fosters a culture where democracy is not possible. By implying that voting Republican goes against everything the country is supposed to stand for makes it harder to compromise and harder for the other side to act in good faith in return. I do not believe that voters are all that animated about the political philosophy underpinning their current government structure, but acting as though the other side is opposed to democracy erodes the foundation on which democracy rests. Making the other side an enemy as opposed to a rival will always produce a hostile political culture. And as with a fist fight it is hard to trust the enemy in a political fight, and it is only a true fight when both sides are throwing punches.
If you liked this post you can read a previous post about British and French politics here or the rest of my writings here. It'd mean a lot to me if you recommended the blog to a friend or coworker. Come back next Monday for a new post!
I've always been interested in politics, economics, and the interplay between. The blog is a place for me to explore different ideas and concepts relating to economics or politics, be that national or international. The goal for the blog is to make you think; to provide new perspectives.
Written by Karl Johansson
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