Democracy in America: a value undefined under threat.

[Preface: the following is another part in my time-capsule series of writings from the past couple year. As a result a few things mentioned are about contemporary events of the time (April 2019) and some noticeable elements have changed as we've learned more about how the country voted earlier this month. For example, I mention the problem for the GOP on race where they appeared to do a bit better than the previous several election cycles. However, I felt this essay was also pertinent in the obvious contempt for democracy that is being exhibited by President Trump's refusal to accept the results of his electoral defeat and the complacency of the vast majority of elected Republicans to either support or altogether ignore that refusal without offering rebuttal. This essay argues that the GOP had been showing signs of anti-democratic tendencies for some time.]

What are we afraid of in democracy? Bad decisions, electoral outcomes we don’t like, politicians elected with ill intent. Fundamentally, a loss of power. When my coalition goes from in power to out of power there is the feeling that perhaps we won’t be back in power soon. In the USA these fears are less and less pertinent. The last twenty years have seen a swing back and forth between Republican and Democratic control with a bunch of divided government in between. 

Democrats now fear that they will never be able to retake the senate. There’s some validity to this concern: each state is allotted two senators, and a strong handful of states are incredibly low population and incredibly conservative. In 2012 the republican party was fearful that, unless they started appealing to Hispanics and other minority voters, they would never be able to win back the White House. This fear was obviously a bit hyperbolic, although not entirely misplaced considering Trumps’ 2016 victory was only by a small margin and through the funky-math of the electoral college. 

Republicans still fear, rightfully, changing demographics and their ability to win elections. Trump used divisive rhetoric and racist language to get elected, although it also took a historically disliked Democratic nominee in Hillary Clinton to get him across the finish line (even as she beat him by more than 3 million votes in the popular election). There may be structural advantages for Republicans in coming years, such as the aforementioned senate structure and electoral college. But as American continues to become more diverse a message mostly directed at white Americans will not resonate as a winning platform forever. 

Yet the acceptance of Trump’s messaging among the Republican base in striking. A party that had long used coded language and dog-whistles when it came to policies that disproportionately affected minority peoples, now openly accepts Trump’s unfiltered and unabashed racism. It isn’t as though the party somehow rapidly shifted positions. As shown in Identity Crisis by John Sides, Michael Tesler, and Lynn Vavreck: American politics have become strikingly more racist in the last decade and a half. But their conclusions are not that the change has to do with a racial animus and racial hatred but rather from a deeper sense of place and power in society. The election of Barack Obama, a black man, opened up the fear in many white voters that their place in society was no longer sacrosanct, they no longer held a firm hegemony on American power. 

It’s this fear that leads to a fear in democracy. If we, as the dominant group in a state, are losing numbers and can no longer assure electoral victory, then democracy isn’t as enticing. This is the same fear that conservatives in American have been feeling for some time. The false concern that parts of the country are falling under Sharia law, for example. Not only are these concerns silly on their face, there is local, state, and federal law that would have to be abrogated first. But they are also fearful of democracy, regardless of your opinion on the matter, if enough of a county or municipality decided to elect a politician who promised to impose elements of sharia law, that would be that electorates right. It drives at the true fear, a loss of power. It’s the same reason why several Republican politicians have spoken out against the election of the first two Muslim women to the house of representatives in 2018: they represent a change in the cultural and political hegemony of the country. 

It’s this hegemony of white, mostly protestant, men that has held power since the country's founding. While the republican party derides their colleague, representative Steve King (Iowa 5th), for his open support of anti-multiculturalism and white supremacy they are simply covering for the vulgarity of the position of much of their base. For as despicable as King’s language is, you have to at least give him credit for speaking to the deeper concerns of his party. Loss of hegemony is certainly a frightening thing for any group: ‘what will be the retribution for our behavior in power once we no longer hold it?’ 

It’s this fear that leads to anti-democratic proposals and actions. Last week, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnel called Democratic attempts to expand voting opportunities and make voting easier a “power grab.” From his perspective, it is not necessarily wrong, McConnel and his party benefit from a limited voter base, they have a very specific coalition of voters and those voters turn-out. This too explains why voter ID laws are such a popular idea among state level Republicans. While not entirely unreasonable upon first glance, the addition of voter ID is another step to prevent certain segments of the population from enacting their constitutional rights. These laws are framed politically by proponents as a means of preventing voter fraud, although there is a significant lack of evidence that this type of voter fraud exists at any effective level. 

This discussion brings up multiple questions about democracy. Can a strong democracy exist in a truly multicultural setting? It is possible for groups to operate politically outside of their own racial or cultural group? Democrats do not seem to fear demographic change in the same way that Republicans do. But this is probably due to the way in which the Democratic coalition has increasingly realigned toward the interests of minority groups and voters. 

True democracy must allow for the voices of all citizens to be heard. If the only people voting are those who are most ‘tuned in’ to politics then the political direction of the state is going to resemble the most extremes. If a significant portion of the population takes part in elections then the parties should, ideally, represent a real consensus of opinion. This doesn’t always lead to good governance, but democracy doesn’t necessitate good governance, it’s simply a means of letting the people govern themselves as they see fit. This is why efforts to make voting more difficult among certain populations leads to a distrust and a lack of legitimacy in the governments elected.

Few people would argue that the governments of South Africa before the dismantling of Apartheid were legitimate, but in reality white South Africans did vote and elect their own governments. Oddly though, in the American conscious, we rarely look back on the first 70 years of the Republic and declare that, because of the disenfranchisement of slavery, that those governments from Washington to Lincoln were illegitimate. Likewise, we rarely look at democracies pre-women's suffrage as being illegitimate. Maybe this is the reason that today we are willing to make voting more difficult and the reason why Republican attempts to restrict the franchise are not being as vocally repudiated. The American model of democracy has been messy throughout, maybe we don’t really believe in democracy as a model for government by the people. 

But maybe things are slowly shifting, just last year Florida passed a ballot initiative to allow felons released from prison to regain the franchise. This is a positive first step, even if you believe punishment should include the loss of some or all civil rights, those punishments should not continue after the rest of the sentence has been completed. It’s the equivalent to a civic death sentence for any crime judged to be a felony. 

So what are we afraid of in democracy? Losing power. And not just the political power of a temporary government or elected official, but the power that comes with being the cultural hegemony. The hegemony that gets to decide what the parameters of debate are is most afraid of the loss of that ability.