Democracy in America? — Introduction
It goes without saying that the United States of America is a democracy. Our current President, Joe Biden, has spoken numerous times of an ideological “battle” between the democracy of the United States and its allies and the autocracy of Russia, China, and other states. When Russia invaded Ukraine, Biden capitalized on the war to reinforce this definition of our national historical purpose:
“Now is the hour, our moment of responsibility. Our test of resolve and conscience, of history itself. It is in this moment that our character is formed. Our purpose is found. Our future is forged. … We will save democracy.”
The political discourse in America is so far beyond the question of whether America is a democracy that it is essentially an official ideology. The understanding that America is a true republic, a state that is governed by and for citizens of the country, is a necessary justification for the power of the American state, at home and abroad. Democracy, as a concept, fulfills the role today that the divine right of kings did in European Christian monarchies, providing the fundamental justification for the coercive power of the state. In a democracy, the will of the state is the will of the people, so to resist it is to defy not just the state but the people of the country. Democracy plays a part in the rhetoric leading up to war as well. As the logic goes, we are a democratic and free nation. Thus, it is our moral responsibility to bring democracy to people living under tyranny, by force if necessary. When Joe Biden says he wants to fight this ideological battle between democracies and autocracies, he’s not talking about a debate or friendly competition of some kind. Fighting autocracy means wielding military power on a global scale, moving weapons, soldiers, and funds where they are needed to help our side win this New Cold War. We should remember that the original Cold War was an actual war in many ways, with proxy wars between the United States and the Soviet Union claiming millions of lives in Korea, Vietnam, Angola, Afghanistan, and beyond.
Given the alleged importance of democracy in the United States’ international decision-making, it is crucial that we ask the question of whether American democracy even exists, as well as why our leaders refuse to even consider it. Before we ask that question, of course, we need to figure out what a democracy would look like. Regardless of your political leanings or ideology, nearly everyone would agree that the simple existence of elections is not enough. If an elected government is actually powerless, and some other entity is making the important decisions in a country, such a government is not democratic. If individuals in a government or the government as a whole are bribed, coerced, or otherwise influenced by another group, such a system is not democratic either. The same is true if some people cannot participate in politics, if elections are rigged, or if the voters really don’t understand what their government is doing. Obviously, determining whether a state is actually a democracy is complex, and requires an in-depth analysis.
A place to start would be to see if the policies people want are reflected in public policy, by comparing the policy preferences of different groups, and seeing which is reflected in actual policy. A paper published several years ago by political scientists Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page concluded that “Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence.” Or as Gilens and Page put it in an article they wrote for the Washington Post defending their findings several years later, “Economic elites and interest groups can shape U.S. government policy — but Americans who are less well off have essentially no influence over what their government does.”
Another bad sign for American democracy is Americans’ growing distrust of our electoral institutions, manifested most dramatically in conspiracy theories whose premise implies that the country is controlled by a small elite. 40% of Americans believe American democracy is working “Not too well” or “Not at all well,” and 61% believe “significant changes” are needed. Polling has shown that as many as 15% of Americans, mostly Republicans, agree that “the government, media, and financial worlds in the U.S. are controlled by a group of Satan-worshipping pedophiles who run a global child sex trafficking operation,” and a majority of Republicans believe that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump. On the more liberal side of the spectrum, polls have shown that a substantial portion of Democrats believe that Russia tampered with vote tallies to help Donald Trump become President, despite there being no evidence for this.
Despite having “free and fair” elections with anonymous ballots and next-to-no evidence of voter fraud, democracy is neither felt by the people nor evident in the governance we are forced to live under. This series will attempt to explain this issue by taking a holistic look at political power in American society, taking into account the various ways that our economic and political systems effectively block the people as a whole from influencing government. We need to acknowledge the undeniable facts that some people’s votes count more than others, that millions of Americans have their political rights stripped away or were never given them, and that we are a de facto two-party state. We also need to understand the powerful influence of the wealthy and other groups, including on the American people as voters, and the way that this influence interacts with other features of our political system. Finally, we need to understand that there are groups and institutions in our society that operate completely undemocratically and yet hold power over us. This state of affairs is unacceptable. This series doesn’t just look at who rules America, but at how they rule America, and by understanding these levers of power, we can better draw a path to a more democratic and liberated society for all of us.
