The Perils of Democracy in America Today

We all know that our country has been increasingly suffering for more than three decades from the growth of extreme political polarization and the desire of political parties to exercise dominant political power. Some of this polarization has been with us for some time due simply to our two-party political system- the incessant Congressional and Presidential gridlock over any party sponsored legislation, the political gerrymandering of voting districts to tilt elections in favor of their party’s candidates, the competitive and corrosive influence of campaign money in our political system, etc. What is more troubling and dangerous to our form of democracy today is the growing ideological divide in American politics that has been accentuated by intractable culture wars, rigid identity politics, the rise of misinformation and disinformation, and the attempts to undermine our nation’s election process in the name of fraudulent voting and stolen elections.
As columnist Michael Grierson has pointed out, our nation’s history is filled with times when occasional political upheaval and strident civil clashes over government power have occurred with some erupting into violence, the Civil War being the worse of these occasions.
It is worth noting that political violence, while relatively rare during the past 50 years, is not uncommon in American history. But when insurrections do occur, we should be alert to the potential dangers that our form of democracy faces. These should be serious inflection points demanding our attention.

When we consider that “the general welfare” of all has been a foundational principle of this nation, the pandemic resistance to vaccinations and mask mandates, the political attacks on public education, and the Trumped-up distrust of our electoral system suggest an ominous future for us unless we can rebalance the common good with individual freedom and liberty. I am among those who believe that a healthy democracy is under a real threat when a delusional mob attacks our nation’s Capital when an election is being authorized, when a congressman posts a violent attack on social media against another congressional member without unified outrage and sanctions within Congress, when parents or school boards want to protect children from the history of white racism or to include alternative views of the Holocaust,

The ideological warfare going within our nation’s government at both the state and federal levels reveals the dangers inherent in the growing segments of the country where distrust of government runs high. This can be easily seen in the heated reactions of many supporters of ex-President Trump who have bought into and have perpetuated the unsubstantiated claim that the 2020 election was stolen due to voter fraud and election manipulations. The dangers of this antagonism towards government officials who do not support conspiracy theories or conservative ideological agendas can be seen too in the unfounded attacks on their integrity and leadership. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health and Fauci’s boss, said the vitriol generated by the White Coat Waste campaign against Dr. Antony Fauci over alleged support of experiments on beagles reflects the prevalence of misinformation during the pandemic. Health officials have had to beat back bogus claims that masks cause health problems and that vaccines contain microchips for government data collection.
“What’s happening to Dr. Fauci is a very bright, blazing warning sign that we are, as a culture, in a dangerous place, that we have decided that those figures who are highly visible, who are saying things we don’t like, have to be taken down,” Collins said in an interview. “And even more troubling, that that seems to be working. It’s not a fringe activity anymore.”

The political landscape in America today reflects for the most part a partisan tug-of-war between competing visions of what is best for our nation and its future. Republicans accuse Democrats of advocating socialist policies and agendas while Democrats bemoan Republican favoritism towards the rich and perpetuating xenophobia, militarism, and white racism. Instead of constructive discourse and policy-making, both federal and state governments have become arenas for grievance politics and obstructive measures.

As a recent article in Foreign Affairs has noted, the loss of corporate responsibility with regard to social and environmental issues that we are facing today also adds to this malaise. This political observer suggests that “Despite purportedly having good intentions, many corporations are not genuinely interested in bettering the world, and some use ESG metrics or other sustainability measures mainly to launder their reputations. Fixing some of the world’s most vexing problems will require that businesses dramatically alter their own practices, and it makes little sense to entrust systemic reform to the very institutions that themselves require change. Countering the corrosive effects of corporate greed on the public good is exacerbated by the distortions of money in politics.
Instead, action must come from elsewhere: namely, governments. States must impose new regulations on the market economy to ensure that businesses are delivering shared productivity and social progress. Politicians will need to create laws that make markets work well and embed values—such as environmental sustainability or higher wages for low-income workers—that reflect the mainstream views of society. Renewed regulatory activism must include restoring competition through effective antitrust enforcement, legislating for the national interest over global profits, and tilting the balance of economic returns from older, wealthier generations to younger, poorer ones. It should also mean regulations to fight climate change, such as emission limits, mandates to end the sale of internal combustion engine vehicles or bans on the use of certain materials”.
Meanwhile, there are those who point to the extreme partisan divide in the US today and claim that the entire nation is caught up in a struggle between “demagoguery and moral vanity”.
As Adam Russell Taylor has suggested in A More Perfect Union, our nation would greatly benefit today from having a shared, positive narrative vision to unify us around and overcome the struggle between partisan ideals. My own proposal would be something like “Working together to build a better nation centered on freedom, equity, and the common good”.