Our Solution to the Crisis of Democracy
Remember the 1990s, when everybody thought liberal democracy was the only game in town and the end of history was upon us?
The near-assassination of former President Donald Trump has buttressed, instead, a feeling that crisis is upon us. Both Democrats and Republicans hold dangerously unfavorable opinions of each other. Trust in institutions is decaying. According to the most recent Gallup poll, only 30 percent of Americans say they have quite a lot or a great deal of confidence in the Supreme Court, fewer have confidence in the presidency, and a measly 9 percent have quite a lot or a great deal of confidence in Congress. Trust in public schools, banks, large firms, the news media and even religious organizations have similarly plummeted since the 1970s.
Americans also support democracy at much lower levels than they used to, and politics appears a zero-sum game to people on both sides of the great divide. Add to this the flare-up of political violence, and the sense of imminent danger is intensified.
But do not despair — yet. There are solutions, if we are bold enough to grasp them. We need a new democratic social contract that people can believe in, which is most likely to come from the Democratic Party. Such a proposal must start with a commitment to more pro-worker policies. It must involve a believable manifesto that moves away from the party’s ties with global business, including the tech sector, and a clear, workable plan of how economic growth and low inequality can be combined. It must include a commitment to close the cultural chasm that has opened between the Democratic Party and many working-class Americans. These are among the root causes of our discontent, and they must be addressed.
If Americans fail to rise to the challenge, history has plenty of examples that ought to alarm us. In an environment in which institutions cannot mediate disagreement, there is a danger that a spark can ignite a cycle of extremism. There was a rise in political violence in Germany before the Nazis took power, with right-wing paramilitaries killing opponents, and Communists responding in kind. The situation in Italy, with violence led by Mussolini’s black shirts, was no different. In Japan, too, political violence spiked before the military took control in the 1930s.
To diagnose and redress democracy’s problems, we need to understand what made it work in the past and what ails it today. This isn’t just an American phenomenon. Democracy is in crisis around the world, including in Hungary, Poland, Sweden, India, Turkey, the Philippines and Brazil, and across sub-Saharan Africa. These crises appear to be rooted at least in part in a growing belief that democracy has failed to deliver on its promises since the end of the Cold War.
