Democracy

 The GOP's has consistently attacked voting rights and irrationally rejected election results they don't like. This has lead many to lament the passing of democracy in the US. It' certainly under attack in many other places around the world.

Let's look a little deeper into this question.

It seems plain that authoritarianism is the opposite of democracy, which we take as rule of the people, by the people, for the people. Trump's spectacular pardon of his convicted criminal friends on the way out gives a clear idea of who was running the US and who benefitted. It's a much bigger problem than Trump - as we have seen in the days since he has run away to sulk in Florida.

We can see that "populism" played a role in the rise of Trump. Paradoxically, populism (giving the people what they want or at least promising to do so) should be a force for democracy. In practice, it never is. It's a device to make the dictator seem like a "man of the people" so he can grab power and all the riches associate with it. Modern dictators, such as Putin and Bolsonaro lean heavily on populist rhetoric. In practice, they bring great suffering and little of value to the people they rule.

These considerations may lead us away from addressing the basic question: Is democracy workable at all?

We are always talking about "working toward" a better society, assuming that democracy is the light at the end of the tunnel. But is it? Is the ideal democracy possible, given what we know about real people?

Let's consider an example - South of the border so we can blame it all on other people. In that country, the majority wants single-payer health care, unrestricted abortion rights, more gun control, and many other things they never seem to get. Why is that?

One reason is that the US system is not "by the people". People elect representatives who are then, in practice, free to do and vote as they like. At this point, the system is "for the representatives". It's no small change. To get to be a representative, you really need to identify with a party, who provides major support for your candidacy (more precisely, they allow you to run in place of some other party member). They can provide funding or withdraw it. Why is funding important? It's to convince people that you "stand for" what they want. You need to signal that somehow. Choice of a party is signal #1 and often all it takes. In most cases, what you need to signal is outrage over some carefully selected fault of your opponent. This is where the actual wants and needs of the voter get tossed aside. You need to pick a "wedge issue" and trust (with good reason) that voters will throw aside all other concerns. Perhaps your opponent is gay or "soft on crime" or a "big spender" or "in the pocket of the powerful". No proof is required - just the signal. If nothing else comes to mind, claim to want to eliminate wasteful spending - everybody is against paying taxes. You can even promise major new programs while denying the need to pay for them (just reduce wasteful spending).

So, right off the bat, we see that the idea of a government of the people, for the people is actually designed out of our current system. This applies to "democracies" everywhere. It is well known that the party system is poison to any "deliberative" process (the hypothetical process that justifies representative democracy in the first place). But that doesn't seem to be fundamental. The framers of the US Constitution saw danger in "factionalism". The party system is factionalism on steroids. A "faction" is simply a voting block where individuals in the faction are influenced by whatever means to vote with the faction instead of voting for the interests of their constituents.

But suppose we could actually wish all of these problems aside. There remains the nasty issue of the "tyranny of the majority" - famously discussed in "On Liberty".  On what basis does the majority have the right to compel the minority to sacrifice anything at all for measures that benefit the majority but punish the minority? This touches on a wider issue: On what basis can anyone claim legitimate authority?

The anarchist answer seems to be the only conceivable one: we need to consent somehow to recognize the legitimacy of our government. This has always been a convenient fiction but, in the US, even this fiction is being abandoned. Millions have rejected the election results which, imperfect as they are, are the only basis for legitimate power. Underlying this is a more basic challenge: that even the "majority" is not the legitimate source of power. Just those we chose to count. The bottom line, it is "we" or people like us who hold legitimate power. This boils down to tyranny backed up by lethal force. Even those who succeed in holding power for "us" find out that their needs are irrelevant to those whose only interest is holding on to power by whatever means, including by persuading as many people as possible to quietly submit to the "legitimate" power of those who win the game. And criminalize those who withhold "consent".

It's not the fault of the "bad guys". It's the logic of the game.

It's a big fucking mess. There are ways to kluge our way out of the worst of it, but we need to accept that democracy is not a great word for what we are trying to achieve. We should not be basing our strategy on an idea that is impossible even in theory. I will toss out "social justice" as an idea that may work better. We all have some concept of justice - however, tainted it may be. The difference is that this is a concept that we are constantly addressing in practical detail. We can gripe about how the government is not democratic or legitimate but when someone takes our land, justice becomes absolutely real and meaningful. That gives us a picture of a society that is quite different from any democratic utopia. It's an endless battle to define and best achieve justice - short of civil war. Perhaps the subject of another blog.

We are ill-served by fundamental ideas that have no basis in practical reality. The problem is not confined to our political fantasies. It applies to all our dreams and fears about the future, most notably to poverty, justice, climate change, and the pandemic. I will leave democracy smoking in the ditch and take a hard look at those other issues.