Problems with American Democracy Gerry OShea
In 1831 Alexis
de Tocqueville came from France to America to examine the workings of the
prison system in what was the first country to revolt successfully against
colonial rule. He was intrigued by the experiment here in democracy and conceded
that the Republican form of self-government seemed to work while failing to get
traction anywhere in Europe.
Alexis came
from an aristocratic family and because his parents were viewed as hostile to
the French Revolution they were imprisoned in Paris during The Reign of Terror.
Still, he lauded the stress on equality in the United States but, true to his
family origins, he worried how all this democratic power in the hands of
commoners would work out for the prosperous aristocracy, which he felt was
still essential for a stable political system.
De
Tocqueville worried about what he called “the tyranny of the majority.” He
imagined that the mass of poor people could overwhelm the Establishment and
lead the country in revolutionary directions. He needn’t have worried because
the people at the top then and now are well entrenched in the power structure
in America, and they have no intention of giving up their control of the
economic system.
Ironically, in
the recent presidential election, it was white voters from the lower end of the
socio-economic scale who were Trump’s loudest supporters, espousing the
conservative status quo and getting very agitated at the possibility of imaginary
socialists taking over.
However,
there is widespread concern about “a tyranny of the minority”, words that mimic
De Tocqueville’s famous expression two hundred plus years ago. There is
widespread concern about how majority beliefs and preferences are rarely acted
on. Why are policies that benefit most families almost never implemented?
The lack of
gun control in the United States provides an excellent example of why people
are so frustrated with the democratic system. Every poll or survey of popular
opinion points clearly to overwhelming agreement that anybody buying or indeed
possessing a gun should have a license issued by a law enforcement authority. Another
basic demand by sensible Americans concerns forbidding the purchase by any
citizen of semi-automatic weapons developed for soldiers engaged in warfare.
These rules
for gun ownership apply in all Western countries, but because of a liberal
interpretation of a clause in the United States constitution allowing local
militias to carry arms, Americans have little problem purchasing weapons of all
kinds, especially at gun shows.
Forceful lobbying by the National Rifle
Association (NRA), which pours big sums of money into political campaigns, prevents
the passage in Washington of almost any measures regulating the purchase or use
of firearms. Militias in Pennsylvania
and Michigan feel fully entitled to show up in voting locations wearing MAGA
caps and carrying military-style weapons in a clear effort at intimidation. Allowing
these antics by extremists in a mature democracy is contrary to common sense
but it passes as lawful behavior in some
parts of America.
Proponents
of change argue convincingly that limiting access to weapons will reduce the
gun killings in the US which, proportionate to size, far exceed the number of
civilian deaths from weapons in, for instance, neighboring Canada; opponents of
any movement forward in this area, led by the powerful NRA, always make the
case that such legal restrictions would only prevent citizens from defending
themselves.
The official
reaction to the nightclub massacre in Orlando in 2016 and to multiple school
shootings in recent years is instructive. The initial community outrage and
demand for strong new legislation was at first supported by President Trump but
after meeting with Wayne LaPierre, the top man in the NRA, even minimal changes
were put on the long finger, and instead the need for better mental health
treatment was trotted out as a sop to a burgeoning constituency for change.
Another
example of unfulfilled preferences by a majority of the citizens centers on the
provision of healthcare in American society. Pew Research, which provides
valuable insights on the feelings of people on a variety of important civic and
political matters, recently surveyed a representative sample of Americans on
this issue. The results confirmed previous studies showing that 63% of
respondents believe that all legal residents of the country should be covered
for their medical needs in order to live a healthy life.
This accords
with prevailing practices in all other developed countries. The current system
in America excludes millions of people but still costs far more per capita than
comparable economies in Europe.
These two
areas, gun control and healthcare, exemplify a major problem with democracy in the
United States. In both cases a big majority of citizens want progressive
change, but after four years of President Trump no proposal was even brought
forward to deal with either area.
The Democrats are not blameless as far as gun
control is concerned. However, they can’t be faulted for the Affordable Care
Act which greatly expanded the availability of hospital care and doctor
treatment for families, but it was venomously opposed by Republicans who have
an important case before the Supreme Court which seeks to overturn the ACA with
no proposal to replace it.
Given the
prevalence of slavery and the exclusion of women in ancient Athens, the
earliest home of democracy, we should tread slowly in praising their system.
However, it is noteworthy that Plato and Aristotle, both still on the
curriculum in most universities worldwide, warned that their democracy would be
futile if it excluded poor people from their legislature. Men who lost a day’s
wages to participate in the Assembly in Athens were compensated to allow them
to take time away from their jobs to perform their civic duties.
If one of
those Athenian statesmen visited Washington today and saw a bunch of affluent
people, most of them millionaires, make laws prompted by lobbyists with deep
pockets, he would not be impressed.
Today, three
billionaires – Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and Warren Buffett – have more wealth
combined than about half of the total population of the United States. Even
during the present pandemic the super-affluent class accumulate billions while
workers in hospitals and supermarkets endanger their health every day to
provide a critical service for the community with low remuneration in many
cases. It is the way the system works.
In his
recent encyclical Fratelli Tutti (Brothers All) Pope Francis hones in on
this abuse of political power. He re-affirms church teaching since the Middle
Ages that the goods in the world belong to all the people and not, as applies
in our present capitalist system, to a few owning and controlling much of the
wealth while many millions get the crumbs from the table. When last did you
hear a sermon dealing with that theme?
With
disproportionate wealth comes abundant power at all government levels. The
richest people purchase influence while everyone else struggles to be heard.
And, true to form, the affluent successfully pushed the propaganda that estate
taxes, in their words, “taxed the dead,” and people fell for that bit of fast
talk so they reduced these taxes to meaningless amounts and now we have a
full-blown hereditary aristocratic class and a reduced national treasury that
somebody else has to replenish.
American
democracy is crying out for renewal especially by incorporating a meaningful
economic dimension. What does democracy mean to a man earning $12 an hour and
trying to raise a family? The Democrats promise a modest increase in the
minimum wage to $!5 an hour, but even that is being fiercely resisted by most
of the plutocrats. What meaningful definition of democracy covers a worker who
has no health insurance for herself or her children?
America at
its best provides help for movements in Third-World countries aspiring to a
democratic system. It is a real challenge to explain why in America the
candidate who got three million fewer votes than his opponent actually won the
election. Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination to the Supreme Court was rammed
through by 52 senators representing 12 million fewer people than the 48
senators who voted against. Experts tell us that by 2040, with the expected
growth in the population of the cities, 70% of the senators will represent just
30% of the American population.
The Economist magazine, hardly a revolutionary
publication, in its 2018 annual Democracy Index demoted the United States from
a “full democracy” to a “flawed” one. There are indeed serious questions about
the future of democracy in America.
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