Trust in the Body Politic

photo via Giphy

One of the more obnoxious phrases that gets tossed around by thoughtless people in conversations about politics is that "America isn't a democracy... it's a republic."  Setting aside the revoltingly pedantic tone of comments in this vain (the top dictionary entries for "democracy" and "republic" are functionally identical), the implication thrust proudly forward by this phrase is that although the American people have some influence over its governmental processes, there are many elements of the political system designed to prevent the exercise of the will of the majority.

Is this the case?  Undeniably yes (see: electoral college, two-party system, gerrymandering, et cetera).   I really hope this doesn't seem controversial to anyone out there - even the structure of the Senate is anti-democratic, because Senate representation isn't proportionalized to population (if you live in Wyoming, your vote for your local senator wields sixty-six times more influence than a Californian's vote for their senator; each senator from Wyoming represents about 300,000 people, and each California senator represents 29 million people... that's fair, right?)

Asking Hard Questions

Should this be the case?  I think each and every person, certainly each and every American citizen at least, should take a long, hard moment to ask themselves this question and interrogate the answer, because if you don't, then the honest truth is you don't really believe in democracy.

As mentioned in Monday's post Complacent Victims, the rich, wise old white men that crafted the skeleton of the American state didn't really believe in democracy either; they feared the "tyranny of the majority", the power the mob might wield against vulnerable minority populations.

It's a fair concern - it's a concern that's been realized countless times throughout human history.

But maybe we should at least consider the other side of this question, right?  I mean, let's just think this through logically.  The argument for incorporating anti-democratic elements into our system of governance goes something like this:

1. People can't be trusted.
2. We need people to regulate our political decision-making.

Alright, that's basically incoherent, because if people can't be trusted, how can we trust people to regulate the political process.  I must be over-simplifying... let's try this again:

1. Some people can't be trusted
2. We need other people to regulate our political decision-making.

Feels a little bit more like a cogent thought, so I must be on the right track, but this line of reasoning still doesn't make sense unless we can somehow differentiate between some people and other people.  Here's one more stab at fleshing out the argument for why America shouldn't really be a democracy:

1. Some people can't be trusted (because they'll act selfishly, at the expense of people that are different than them)
2. We need other people to regulate our political decision-making (people who will be totally selfless and only think about the greater good).

Those other people mentioned in Premise (2) are supposed to be our political leaders and the institutions they've built - does Premise (2) describe most people that you know?

We're all tacitly endorsing a system that divides the American polis into groups and explicitly incorporates the idea that we'll be vicious towards each other, so we need the smart, responsible political leaders to keep us in line.  I don't know about you, but to me, this whole arrangement feels very, very broken.

For now we end on a cliffhanger, but come back for a deeper dive into two important aspects of this debate: how the safeguards designed to protect minorities are used to protect the interests of ruling elites (Friday), and how we need to change the discourse of American politics if we ever want things to be different (Monday).

Happy Hump Day America.