Democracy, What Democracy?

NEW YORK – Nearly everyone agrees that US President Joe Biden’s awful performance in his debate with Donald Trump has increased the chances of a Republican victory in November’s presidential election. Trump lied and ranted, but he did so with vigor. While Biden made some good points, he spoke and looked like a bewildered old man.

In the end, those good points may mean little. As Frank Luntz, an old hand in Republican electoral politics, wrote in The New York Times, it’s not “the facts, the policies, or even the one-upmanship,” by Biden and Trump that matters, it’s “how they make voters feel.” There is no doubt that Democratic voters felt bad after watching the disaster unfold.

Biden has acknowledged his stumble but continues to make the case that a second Trump administration poses an existential threat to democracy in the United States. A liberal democracy cannot function without an independent judiciary, a free press, and a non-partisan government bureaucracy. Biden believes in these key democratic pillars. Trump, for his part, plans to stack the civil service with loyalists, wants to use the judiciary and the Department of Justice as a political tool against his enemies, hates the press, and flirts with mob violence.

So, if Trump’s threat to democracy is real, which I believe it is, Americans who care about their system of government would surely prefer a doddery old democrat to an authoritarian rabble-rouser. Even if Biden drops out of the campaign, the danger of a destructive second Trump administration remains as strong as ever.

Many people, especially those drawn to Trump’s demagogy, may regard American democracy as a spent force anyway, a corrupt system governed by selfish elites who only pretend to care about ordinary people. Such feelings are prevalent among the middle-aged white people in red MAGA hats who attend Trump’s rallies. But some Black and Latino people, as well as disaffected young voters, hold a similar view. They feel betrayed by Democrats who failed to keep their promises.

But a recent poll of swing-state voters suggests that Americans do, in fact, care about democracy: 61% see threats to US democracy as extremely important. Astonishingly, 44% of all these voters believe that Trump would do a better job of handling these threats, compared to 33% who trust Biden more.

This raises the question of what people mean by democracy. In a properly functioning liberal democracy, voters elect politicians who represent their interests. Winners are entitled to govern, but not to dictate from on high. That means political leaders should consider the welfare of people who voted for the losing parties, or who didn’t vote at all, and resolve conflicting interests with debate and compromise. Biden is of the old school: he still believes in negotiation and is willing to slap the odd back, whisper in the right ear, and even twist an arm when necessary to reach some sort of agreement.

To people with a different idea of democracy, this can seem like the way corrupt elites typically do their business. They feel that the voice of the people is not heard; that political leaders can’t make decisions; that promises can’t be kept; and that radical change is impossible. What they want is “direct democracy,” whereby a strong leader, unencumbered by those selfish elected representatives in Congress, speaks for the people.

Fascism is one example of direct democracy. “Decisionism” – the leader decides – was the phrase used in Nazi Germany and Mussolini’s Italy. This was considered democratic because the leader is the direct and sole representative of the people. He is, in a very real sense, above the law. Carl Schmitt, the German jurist who justified this type of rule, wroteabout Hitler that the Führer “creates law by virtue of his leadership as the supreme judge.”

Communism, which positioned itself as the unyielding enemy of fascism, was another variant of direct democracy. The party, and especially its leader, was the voice of the people, or the proletariat. Both fascism and communism wished to abolish political conflict through the violent imposition of a monolithic state, rather than by negotiation. Communists called for eliminating class enemies, so that only the proletariat remains, whereas the Nazis aimed to create a “racially pure” society.

Most American voters who believe that Trump is the best defender of democracy are not fascists, much less communists. The very thought would horrify them. But they almost surely have a strong opinion on who constitutes the true American people: God-fearing, hard-working, and most probably white. And they worry that these ordinary Americans are being displaced by illegal immigrants, and that their way of life is being threatened by new ideas about gender, race, and sexuality emerging from elite universities.

Trump is stoking these fears and exaggerating these threats. His line that the US courts are attacking not only him, but every right-thinking American is horribly effective. Since he is heard as the true voice of the people, he is the purest democrat. As a result, liberal democracy might not withstand another four years of his rule.

Ian Buruma is the author, most recently, of Spinoza: Freedom’s Messiah (Yale University Press, 2024).

Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2024.
www.project-syndicate.org