THE DILEMMA OF THE AMERICAN DEMOCRACY

 

Clusters of early men must have simply gathered around a stronger and more skillful member of the group – the so-called alpha male of the animal kingdom- for reasons of safety and his hunting skills. As the size of clusters grew, this natural practice must have developed eventually into gathering around the warrior type leaders who had the gumption of roaming the vast uninhabited lands. Leaders became subjects of adoration when such leaders’ adventures turned into successes. After the introduction of the notion of religion, leaders became the representatives of whatever god worshiped at the time. When leaders elevated to such level treated people as “subjects”, the notion of democracy emerged. But, democracy is not a perfect system either. It has its own innate flaws. For example, it still did not and cannot avoid producing autocrats from within by its own democratic process. A presumed pillar of democracy, individual liberty, falls prey to autocrats created by free democratic individuals. Another presumed pillar, individuals’ equality, continues to elude democracy in all social fields, as the numbers of populations grow unimpeded along with changes in all walks of life.

So as to repair itself, democracy generated some variations or mutations in its past two hundred years of development. Various types of parliamentary democracies like communism, dictatorship, totalitarianism, elitism, oligarchy (or timocracy), and ochlocracy (or mobocracy) were tried unsuccessfully. Yet, we are still witnessing inequalities in many fields, encroachment on freedoms, corruption and mismanagement. All these undesirable systems were born out of democracy itself, even the most brutal dictatorships. But, not only one man tyrannies are the products of democratic process. When one section alone in the society comes to power, a tyranny by majority or minority ensues. If we were to seek to improve the practice of democracy, short of finding a new system to replace it, we need to make a historical examination of the reasons for the emergence and failures of the mutated versions, including that of the current democracy. For a quick examination, we may investigate two basic elements in the functioning of democracy, the democratic nature of the election process and the guardrails needed to ensure the observance of democracy by the elected power, the so-called checks and balances.

First, let us consider the election process. One common feature in all the variations mentioned above appears that the representation system practiced brings a certain section of the society to power, instead of being representative of all or the majority of sections of the society. This is the consequence of the majoritarian system practiced. A few countries, Switzerland, Belgium, Canada, remedied this flaw by practicing consociational democracy, whereby a proportional power sharing by major sections of the society is secured (according to a determined categorization such as ethnicity, gender, regional, etc.).

Another shared feature appears to be that none of the variations of democracy has a functioning or effective checks and balances over the executive power. This particular flaw seems to deserve a special and urgent attention for remedy. The countries with consociational system, not experiencing as much public dissatisfactions as the other states, may suggest that that system helps also a smoother functioning of governance.

Now, let us consider the election and the checks and balances in the United States. Of the types of democracy mentioned above, the US seems to have practiced a pluralist as well as a totalitarian style in its “experiment with democracy”, (leaving aside the argument that democracy is to be taken seriously, to tend, to nurture, not to be taken lightly, to try and to venture with). The US democracy is pluralist, because all types of organized groups of the society freely throw their weight in the election process, especially by way of free flow of money in politics, election campaigns and lobbying the Congress. It is totalitarian, because the most forceful section of the society in the pluralist regime wins the election as a result of the winner take all majoritarian system. For example, in the last five years, and currently, mobs with their xenophobic, exclusivist and exceptionalist nationalist-populism seem to have replaced the earlier business community corporatism in influencing politics.

The totalitarianism may be resolved, lest a new system is developed. A few States have been introducing new methods to address the issues with the voting process. Some countries practice the consociational system whereby workers, employers, the rich, the intelligentsia, or the mob alone would not be able to rule the majority; a consortium of some or all sections of the society would rule. This system also avoids sharp swings in the government’s direction when it changes hands, which so often happens in the US. Avoidance of swings in government policies enables a more stable stature on the domestic as well as foreign stage. A change in the totalitarian style of democracy, however, would require amending the Constitution. Yet -as will be explained below- the state of mind of the American polity is not conducive to a Constitutional amendment.

Totalitarianism in the US exists for two obvious reasons. The Electoral College system increases the possibility of governance by one political party alone, and the way the checks and balances between the three branches of power is exercised skews the power in favor of the Executive. The Presidential election is not truly a direct “election by the people and of the people”, may it be for the people. The election is carried out in every state according to their own laws and regulations, under the supervision of state officials, and by Electors “appointed by state legislatures” who “name in their ballots the person voted for as President and … the Vice-president”. Therefore, the national election results reflect more the will of the party in power in states than that of the people nationally. Accordingly, the party’s goal of retention of power takes precedence over common interests. As history taught us, one political party rule is a fertile ground for democracy to morphing to autocracy.

 As to the checks and balances, the special status given to the President makes the US a presidential democracy like the monarchical democracies of some European countries. For example, the justices of the Supreme Court are “appointed” by the President. He/she also has the power to replace all the top echelon of bureaucracy. Also the impeachment or in any way the conviction of the President is viewed by the public as a disgrace, thus an insult to the national dignity, despite the oft-repeated aphorism that “no one is above the law”. Consequently, the President is seen like an all-powerful monarch.

Conversely, the status of the Judiciary branch is relegated to the third lowest level in the sharing of power. Justices are “appointed” by the President, as mentioned above, like any other Executive branch officials -may it be with the proviso that they are appointed for life. This system has even a greater flaw in that it politicizes the judicial branch which is the only institute that is supposed to be apolitical, “supreme”. Thus, the Court does no longer appear to be functioning as part of the checks and balances. This practice risks the perception that the dispensation of justice is done by the Executive branch or by the party affiliation of justices, a system practiced in autocratic regimes.

While the flaws of democracy specific to the US are imbedded in its Constitution, the Constitution itself provides that it is an amendable document, and was amended substantially (ten times) soon after its adoption (within four years) and two more times soon thereafter (1794 and 1803). After about fifty years of hiatus, there were three amendments in 1860s, after about another fifty years of hiatus four in 1910s, followed by twice in 1930s, once in 1947, and thrice in 1960s. But, in 57 years since the last amendment the American polity either thought that the Constitution reached its perfection or did not care or dare to re-read the Constitution in the light of the social and technological leaps in the last fifty years. The Presidential oath contained in Article II Section1.7 of the Constitution, “to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution” is repeated ad nauseam on every occasion, while the soul, the objective of the Constitution contained in its preambular paragraph famous with the words “We the people” is not given the same importance. This foundational paragraph stipulates “to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility”. These are the basic values to be “preserved and protected” by the people, hence by their government and the political parties in government. The textualism and originalism of some legal scholars, like late Scalia and his followers, suggests reading the Constitution as themselves choose to read it or with the common (maybe dictionary) meaning of words. Such suggestion condemns the Constitution to being a dead document. A dead document need not be “protected or preserved”. A dead instrument cannot be expected to be a guide to a living, evolving, progressing entity like the society. It was the Constitution as was written at the time that caused the Civil War. That cause took about 170 years to remedy with the 1960s amendments. Constitutions are made by people as a foundation and guidance of their aspirations, they are not etched in stone by prophets for people to “believe” unquestioningly.

There is, of course, another obstacle in the US to amending the Constitution; it is the absence of implied public consent for a possible amendment. One reason for aversion to Constitutional amendment is the historical notion of distrust of the federal power. This historical distrust is emphasized in times of disfunction of any, most or all government branches. Another reason for the said aversion is the absence of unity at the national level. The public is currently divided in an epistemic sense to a degree of almost in two equal numbers. It is an insurmountable obstacle to persuading the half of the adults who are the “believer” type. This widespread public attitude may be the consequence of the disarray in the basic and general education. A style that nurtures exceptionalism, greatness, superiority, exclusiveness, arrogance, and misconstrued concept of freedom. This type of raising people creates a personality that is averse to performing any critical self-analysis, because it is satisfied with itself and afraid of losing that identity. A society boasts being the greatest, because it shuns its weaknesses.  It is natural, of course, that if invincibility blinds you, you cannot see the need for change. This is the part of the population that takes the Constitution as a petrified Bible. An entrenched division in the society could diminish trust in government and cause unrest, which in turn lay the ground for autocracy; autocrats do not descend from heaven or come by their sole power.

Public discontent against communism, dictatorship, totalitarianism, timocracy, and pluralism are justified because of their common feature of tyranny for the sake of power. As to ochlocracy, it comes to power as a consequence of tyranny. Elitism should not be nor become tyrannical, since it should be based on rational politics and science for the good of all. Accordingly, elitism, governance by technocrats, by specialists, by reason, appears to be the regime that holds the key to the best available way of serving the public. If mobs were to rise against elitism, they should be asked whether they would prefer the rule by chaos created by ignorance or by peace created by knowledge and rationality.

It is forgotten that protecting and preserving the Constitution wherein democracy is enshrined means protecting and preserving “union, justice, and tranquility” against an autocratic government, not against federal government.

February 2022