What is the Point of Failure for US Democracy?
Developing the skill of looking at our government as a system
How to Change the World is a weekly blog about reversing American decline. I will (1) study successful models of governance throughout history, primarily in the West, (2) highlight what’s going wrong leading to institutional decline or ‘political decay’, and (3) present models of democratic innovation that could lead us into a prosperous, peaceful and abundant 21st century.
It’s no secret that the top contenders for the upcoming presidential race are almost definitely criminals. Trump has so many indictments against him simply keeping track of them has become a cottage industry. Meanwhile on the other side of the aisle, it’s been revealed that Hunter Biden often called Joe up in the middle of business meetings to help grease the wheels, something the elder Biden fervently denied. Link this up with all of the free money that Hunter has been getting from foreign actors and it starts to look pretty suggestive of corruption.
As these scandals crowd the airwaves, the broader question of what having such unsavory party leaders says about our broader system goes undiscussed. Not to mention the even more practical topic of how we could address it if we wanted to.
If one were to reach down and click off Fox News or MSNBC for a minute and use their own thinking faculties to zoom out, they could make some clear observations: Joe Biden is clearly suffering from cognitive decline and it’s appalling and irresponsible that with millions to choose from in the democratic ranks, the democrats nominate him. And there’s Trump: his biggest qualification is making his opposition live in a state of perpetual panic, seemingly unable to function without spending several hours a day reassuring each other that he’s a Russian asset. His schtick is to just be a giant middle finger pointed at the establishment. Consider how desperate people must be to vote for a human insult. That’s the state we’re in - and we’re provided no avenue for discussion on how to change it.
While these political dramas play out in some kind of a self-amplifying loop, society is tangibly degrading throughout much of the country. Homelessness and crime are skyrocketing. Affordability of housing, medical care and education are plummeting. And people everywhere are seemingly less hopeful and more pissed.
If there is one lesson that Donald Trump supporters can take away from his presidency, it’s that he did not reverse these trends. If there is one lesson that Biden supporters could take from his presidency, it’s that there is no going back to “normal,” and attempts to do so are more likely to look like a mockery of normal than the real thing.
To be productive, first exit the party feud
I would argue that all of this combined with the fact that no solutions are offered is a sign of system failure. If the system is failing the next logical question is what are the points of failure?
Consider that every tool we use we use has an intended outcome. If it doesn’t produce this outcome, we diagnose the issue, address it, and get the tool working again. We fix it. This is how we treat washing machines, computers, cars, our health, relationships and even our minds. Politics is a tool. Government is a tool.
But the answer to the question what is broken would almost definitely recommend a change to the status quo, and hence, the parties are not interested in asking said question. So we should.
What is the point of failure in our ailing democracy?
My motivation for writing this piece is to get you to ask this question yourself, not to pretend to provide the answer. But I’m happy to get us started with a few that come readily to mind.
Money in Politics
The vast majority of Americans are in favor of limiting the role of money in politics. In a 2018 survey, 66% of Republicans and 85% of democrats were in favor of amending the constitution to outlaw Citizens United, the controversial supreme court decision that allows corporations to spend unlimited sums on political campaigns. In an era when Democrats and Republicans can’t agree on anything, 88% of them agree that they want to limit the influence large campaign donors have over lawmakers.
The issue doesn’t stop at moneyed interested buying favor with campaign contributions. There’s also a revolving door of regulators moving on from government to become high paid lobbyists for the industries they used to regulate.
A recent study by Public Citizen found that in 2019 nearly two-thirds of former members of Congress have moved into jobs working for lobby firms, consulting firms, trade groups or business groups that seek to influence federal governmental policies. - Public Citizen
This is an enormous conflict of interest. If you were a regulator overseeing a major polluter like Monsanto, and you knew that in your next post they would be your boss, would you go soft on them while in office? There’s a lot of evidence that this is exactly what happens.
The two party system
It’s the nature of the American voting system that political races nearly always wind up with two choices, almost always a Republican and a Democrat. This is not the case with our peer democracies that use parliamentary systems. I’m not here to weigh the benefits of the two systems, but just to suggest that trying to reduce all opinions into simply two ‘opinion buckets’ may not work.
Over the last 30 years there is a clear trend away from both political parties and toward identifying as independent. However our system isn’t setup to accommodate independent candidates. This means that arguably the largest political constituency in the country, the disaffiliated, is virtually unrepresented.
We could experiment with changes at the state level that open up the playing field for more parties and thus more competition. This is what Katherine Ghel is doing at the Institute for Political Innovation. She claims that a couple small tweaks to how we vote could allow the entrants of more parties and independents into he political system, thereby reengaging the American public. Introducing more competition into the political process is exactly the kind of thing that the parties themselves would never do on their own, and would need to be pushed by civil society.
The Republicans and the Democrats
In addition to the fact two choices aren’t enough for people to feel represented on key leadership, the groups that provide the choices are so entrenched that they’ve become so corrupt they no longer represent their constituency.
Anyone who remembers the Iraq invasion by George W. Bush remembers that the Republican party at that time was damn near evil incarnate. I’m not exaggerating - they created lies, sold them to the international community, then invaded a sovereign country resulting in the death of over a million of its citizens, reducing it to twenty years of war and anarchy that even today is far worse than when the first bombs of “operation Iraqi Freedom” fell. This geopolitical monstrosity, likely the great turning point in America’s trajectory from undisputed hegemon to declining empire, was sold by the entire Republican Party with the exception of Ron Paul.
On the democratic side we can look at the 2008 bank bailout. Wall Street blew up the entire American economy, then received government bailouts from the Obama administration. Not only did none of the key players face legal action, they got their bonuses that year while six million Americans lost their home to foreclosure. All this after Obama had run as a man of the people who claimed he’d be tough on Wall Street.
I use these as the most glaring examples of the fact that when push comes to shove, the parties do not have the average American’s back. Americans are now hip to this and discerning ones are finding it harder and harder to pretend that either party truly cares for them.
What is the solution?
This is the key question. In my opinion, all criticisms should point eventually to solutions.
Earlier, I used a machine as a metaphor for a political system. I’m not sure if that’s correct to do, but to the extent a machine is an apt representation for a political organization, we’d simply find the broken part and fix it. We’d limit money’s influence on politics and we’d pass legislation that allowed for more parties. If you believe Ghel in her book the Politics Industry, it’s not even a complicated task, it’s just a matter of mustering the political will to implement some small changes.
What do you see as points of failure? What do you think are some potential solutions?
It’s our duty as Americans to think through these things. If we don’t know what kind of changes we want, how can we possibly ask for them?
Matt Harder runs the civic engagement firm Civic Trust, where he helps cities strengthen their civic environment by helping residents, civic organizations, and local government work together to create public projects. Follow him on Twitter.