My Dwindling Faith in Democracy

Throughout adulthood, I have clung to my belief in the ultimate wisdom of the American public: that in the end, their collective judgments on potential leaders, on policies, on national priorities will prove right. The source of this faith in our democracy? Perhaps my fifth grade civics teacher; certainly my father’s dedication to national service and responsible citizenship; to a fundamentally idealistic belief all will turn out well.

But more and more, crude realities intrude on my romantic vision of our civic process. Last spring, when my Olympic Club friend Jerry Carlson asked me what grade I would give our democracy, I started out thinking around a “C+” and wound up, upon reflection, giving us a “D” (see Grading Our Democracy, May 20, 2011.) In these last few months, my assessment and mood have only become bleaker. Sliding into a D-. Consider, in no particular order:
• That citizens of capability and potential as leaders – city, county, state, national – recoil from any suggestion that they run for office rather than submit themselves and their families to the grinder we now put candidates through. Only aberrant wanna-be’s offer themselves to us.
• That 30% of people under 30 in a recent study cannot name two nations we fought against in WWII.
• That in a 2006 poll of Americans under 30, 63% could not locate Iraq on a map of the middle east, 75% couldn’t find Iran, and 88% couldn’t find Afghanistan.
• That a tiny, unrepresentative handful of Americans (white, ultra-conservative, older) in primaries and caucuses are selecting one of the two major candidates between whom some 130mm of us will select our next President.
• That while our roads, bridges, rails and airports rot away to third-world standards, we argue about gay marriage and contraceptive pills.
• That one candidate accuses his opponent of speaking French – and is applauded for it.
• Anonymous voices, through super-PACs, have pre-empted candidates and parties in articulating political views and ideas to the public.
• That 40% of social security recipients answer “no” when asked if they receive any support from the government.
• That candidates for legislative offices proudly proclaim that “compromise” is a sin they will never commit.
And you can make up your own list, I’m sure.

Those Founding Fathers about whom Sarah Palin loves to prattle distrusted democracy. They established a system of limited enfranchisement, sequential layers of representation, and counter-balances between political bodies. Responsible judgment was what they sought; they did not share my naïve faith in communal wisdom, but sought to winnow out popular passion and protect the minority from excesses of an enflamed majority. Throughout the first half of the 19th century, we gradually replaced representative government with direct democratic participation, eventually enfranchising all citizens regardless of sex, material stake in society, education, whatever.

On paper that looks good. But, if, as it appears to me, we are becoming more narrow, more stupid, more malleable to populist crap, more polarized, are we not unworthy of the gift of democratic participation? Is this how we ought to govern ourselves?

We attempt to prohibit the mentally ill from owning guns. We demand drivers be licensed after demonstrating that they can operate a car with some prospect of not harming fellow citizens. But what of voting? Is not the vote a powerful weapon with which to inflict damage on fellow citizens? We entrust young people with the vote before we trust them to drink wine. Any citizen has access to this weapon – with no qualifications re thoughtfulness, sense of history, judgment, values or anything other than having attained the age of 18 and having been fated to be born of an American parent.

Or, of course, having been naturalized; a strong argument can be made that the naturalized American is likely a more thoughtful and qualified voter than their by-birthright fellow; at least they studied and were examined on our history, structure of government, constitution, and the like.

We register to vote. Why not impose a voter qualification test at the same time? Ten or so simple questions about our history, government structure, constitutional rights and obligations, party systems, world affairs and so on might underscore that this voting is serious business, that the right is precious, and at the same time screen out those whose ignorance and thoughtlessness should disqualify them from the right to a ballot.

That’s only a part of revitalizing our political process, of course; we need constitutional constraints on super-PACs, equitably affordable campaigns, limits on non-constituent contributions, maybe even a return to more brokered party conventions which balance party leaders’ assessments with popular support for candidates. Undemocratic? To be sure -- but then, so was the Golden Age of Athens, the Roman Republic, and the societies that produced the Enlightenment thinkers who so influenced the works of our Founding Fathers.

Zbigniew Brzezinski, in his new (and recommended!) book, Strategic Vision; America and the Crisis of Global Power, argues against the inevitability of American decline, citing six inherent assets that we can marshal to meet our domestic and global challenges. But to capitalize on any of these six requires a leadership to energize us and marshal national will. To develop such leaders, it seems to me, we need to look with fresh, realistic eyes at our entire system of democracy, and not take on faith my fifth grade civics belief that “democracy” is the panacea that inevitably generates progress.

Is a voting test a good idea? Probably not. It would be highly divisive, subject to abuse, take a constitutional amendment to establish, and so on. But it galls me to realize that my vote counts just the same as some yahoo’s who believes the world was created 6,000 years ago, that dinosaurs and humans co-existed, who thinks France is our enemy, who doesn’t know who fought whom in Korea, and whose answer to foreign frustrations is to bomb the bastards back into the stone age. D- for democracy.