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These are admirable sentiments and initiatives. But “democracy” is becoming a buzzword. It’s invoked too often and in imprecise ways, essentially as a synonym for “good” or “things I agree with.” We need less general talk about “saving democracy” and more about specific policies and principles that we want to defend and promote.
While democracy has been debated for centuries, Donald Trump’s first campaign inspired a renewed focus on it. Debates about the state of democracy in America and around the world increased dramatically after Trump’s election and remained prevalent even after he left office. That makes sense. Trump’s 2016 campaign suggested he would not abide by traditional norms of democratic government — such as conceding defeat and leaving power without incident after losing an election — and that turned out to be true. Since Trump remains on the political scene (and could become president again), it’s entirely appropriate to continue talking about democracy.
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But our conversations about democracy have moved well beyond Trump. Activists and even some experts increasingly describe the electoral college, the Senate and the Supreme Court as either undemocratic institutions or at least barriers to the United States becoming more democratic. Practices that long predated Trump, such as gerrymandering and billionaires spending heavily to fund campaigns and buy media organizations, are cast as threats to democracy. So are many Republican politicians standing beside the former president and conservative ideologies such as Christian nationalism.
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I’ve been part of this trend myself. I use the terms “democratic” and “anti-democratic” now way more than I did pre-Trump. I don’t think we have been wrong to use these terms so often the past eight years. And I firmly reject the idea that this democracy discourse is flawed simply because it has led to more criticisms of Republicans than Democrats. Political violence, rejection of election results and other extreme behavior are all coming more from the right than the left.
But I worry we now have too much vague democracy talk. Part of the problem is that there’s not a universally agreed-upon definition of democracy. It’s fair to say that democratic nations generally have regularly scheduled elections in which most adults can participate; basic individual rights such as freedom of speech; and a broader ethos that political power ultimately rests with the public.
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That leaves a lot undefined. For example, Black Americans faced many barriers to their voting and political rights before the passage of the Voting Rights Act. So does that mean the United States has only been a democracy for 58 years? Is it undemocratic if a candidate is elected president based on winning the electoral college count if he or she lost the popular vote?
If “democracy” isn’t clear-cut, what should we do? One useful approach is to define democracy more precisely. Many experts think about democracy as a continuum, not a binary. So not, “Will America continue to be a democracy?” but rather, “Is America becoming more or less democratic?” Freedom House, which studies governments around the world, has a list of standards by which it evaluates countries. It still ranks the United States as “free” (not “partly free” or “not free”) but the insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021, and other events have caused the organization to lower the United States’ freedom score from 89 in 2017 (on a 100-point scale) to 83 today.
Thomas Zimmer, a professor of history at Georgetown University, argues that what America is really debating — and has been throughout its history — is, “How much democracy and for whom?” Our tensions aren’t really about whether to hold elections, but whether Black people in previous eras and transgender people today should have the same rights as others.
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Two leading voices in today’s democracy debates, Harvard University professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, argue in their new book “Tyranny of the Minority” that “either America will be a multiracial democracy or it will not be a democracy at all.” “Multiracial” is an important modifier; neither the United States before 1965 nor many democracies around the world today have shared political power among more than one ethnic or racial group.
I often adopt this approach — more fluid, nuanced discussions about democracy. But I am shifting to think that people should just articulate their actual goals instead of invoking the term “democracy.”
For example, I want greater majority rule. The United States should elect presidents by popular vote, not the electoral college. The Senate should get rid of the filibuster, which allows lawmakers representing a minority of Americans to regularly thwart the views of the majority.
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I want an election system that increases voters’ power and options. Moving to proportional representation would likely lead to more political parties. Limiting gerrymandering would make our votes more meaningful.
I want a political media that prioritizes truth and accuracy over neutrality between the two parties. I also want a press that openly advocates for some principles, such as trying to make it easier not harder to vote.
I want more economic and political equality. We should raise taxes on the super-rich because no one needs a billion dollars and also because such wealth inevitably ends up warping politics, such as Elon Musk buying Twitter and making the platform harder to use.
And to get precise about what I don’t want, the problem with Trump is that, as president, he tried to stop independent investigations of himself while pushing for probes of his political rivals; refused to concede his electoral defeat and instead tried to overturn the results; and, in a second term, is planning to fire nonpartisan government officials and replace them with people loyal to him.
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The list of reforms and policies I favor are the kinds of things that democracy experts would say make America “more democratic.” And Trump’s behavior, they would argue, is “anti-democratic.”
I don’t disagree with that framing. But I fear that many in the anti-Trump camp invoke “democracy” because that term positions them as automatically right and their political rivals as wrong. It shifts the discussion away from real-world policies and practices and toward an abstract and broadly supported ideal (democracy).
We are better off being very specific about the policies and principles that we support and oppose. For example, I am generally wary of banning any kind of information. But the problem with recent Republican attempts to ban books is not that they are “anti-democratic”; it’s that they are trying to stop people from learning evidence-based, morally right concepts. Many GOP elected officials don’t want children to learn that racism is often systemic, not just individualized bias, or that some people don’t feel comfortable living according to the gender they were assigned at birth.
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We should be discussing these ideas and whether limiting their dissemination is appropriate, not deferring to some generalized conversation about democracy.
Moving from generalities about “democracy” to details makes for a more honest debate. It’s also probably a better political strategy. It’s not clear whether voters care about democracy in the abstract. But the election results this year and last suggest Americans are strongly opposed to banning books, limiting abortion and denying election results.
If Trump-aligned Republicans win control of the presidency and both houses of Congress next year, you could say they would end American democracy as we know it. But it’s simpler and probably more effective to just say they would end America as we know it — and therefore must be stopped.
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President Biden recently described “preservation of American democracy” as the “central issue” of his presidency. In September, the foundations for 13 recent U.S. presidents from both parties released a joint statement to “reaffirm our commitment to the principles of democracy.” Press critics say the news media should take a “pro-democracy” approach to covering politics. Even this newspaper has adopted the slogan “Democracy Dies in Darkness.”
These are admirable sentiments and initiatives. But “democracy” is becoming a buzzword. It’s invoked too often and in imprecise ways, essentially as a synonym for “good” or “things I agree with.” We need less general talk about “saving democracy” and more about specific policies and principles that we want to defend and promote.
While democracy has been debated for centuries, Donald Trump’s first campaign inspired a renewed focus on it. Debates about the state of democracy in America and around the world increased dramatically after Trump’s election and remained prevalent even after he left office. That makes sense. Trump’s 2016 campaign suggested he would not abide by traditional norms of democratic government — such as conceding defeat and leaving power without incident after losing an election — and that turned out to be true. Since Trump remains on the political scene (and could become president again), it’s entirely appropriate to continue talking about democracy.
But our conversations about democracy have moved well beyond Trump. Activists and even some experts increasingly describe the electoral college, the Senate and the Supreme Court as either undemocratic institutions or at least barriers to the United States becoming more democratic. Practices that long predated Trump, such as gerrymandering and billionaires spending heavily to fund campaigns and buy media organizations, are cast as threats to democracy. So are many Republican politicians standing beside the former president and conservative ideologies such as Christian nationalism.
I’ve been part of this trend myself. I use the terms “democratic” and “anti-democratic” now way more than I did pre-Trump. I don’t think we have been wrong to use these terms so often the past eight years. And I firmly reject the idea that this democracy discourse is flawed simply because it has led to more criticisms of Republicans than Democrats. Political violence, rejection of election results and other extreme behavior are all coming more from the right than the left.
But I worry we now have too much vague democracy talk. Part of the problem is that there’s not a universally agreed-upon definition of democracy. It’s fair to say that democratic nations generally have regularly scheduled elections in which most adults can participate; basic individual rights such as freedom of speech; and a broader ethos that political power ultimately rests with the public.
That leaves a lot undefined. For example, Black Americans faced many barriers to their voting and political rights before the passage of the Voting Rights Act. So does that mean the United States has only been a democracy for 58 years? Is it undemocratic if a candidate is elected president based on winning the electoral college count if he or she lost the popular vote?
If “democracy” isn’t clear-cut, what should we do? One useful approach is to define democracy more precisely. Many experts think about democracy as a continuum, not a binary. So not, “Will America continue to be a democracy?” but rather, “Is America becoming more or less democratic?” Freedom House, which studies governments around the world, has a list of standards by which it evaluates countries. It still ranks the United States as “free” (not “partly free” or “not free”) but the insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021, and other events have caused the organization to lower the United States’ freedom score from 89 in 2017 (on a 100-point scale) to 83 today.
Thomas Zimmer, a professor of history at Georgetown University, argues that what America is really debating — and has been throughout its history — is, “How much democracy and for whom?” Our tensions aren’t really about whether to hold elections, but whether Black people in previous eras and transgender people today should have the same rights as others.
Two leading voices in today’s democracy debates, Harvard University professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, argue in their new book “Tyranny of the Minority” that “either America will be a multiracial democracy or it will not be a democracy at all.” “Multiracial” is an important modifier; neither the United States before 1965 nor many democracies around the world today have shared political power among more than one ethnic or racial group.
I often adopt this approach — more fluid, nuanced discussions about democracy. But I am shifting to think that people should just articulate their actual goals instead of invoking the term “democracy.”
For example, I want greater majority rule. The United States should elect presidents by popular vote, not the electoral college. The Senate should get rid of the filibuster, which allows lawmakers representing a minority of Americans to regularly thwart the views of the majority.
I want an election system that increases voters’ power and options. Moving to proportional representation would likely lead to more political parties. Limiting gerrymandering would make our votes more meaningful.
I want a political media that prioritizes truth and accuracy over neutrality between the two parties. I also want a press that openly advocates for some principles, such as trying to make it easier not harder to vote.
I want more economic and political equality. We should raise taxes on the super-rich because no one needs a billion dollars and also because such wealth inevitably ends up warping politics, such as Elon Musk buying Twitter and making the platform harder to use.
And to get precise about what I don’t want, the problem with Trump is that, as president, he tried to stop independent investigations of himself while pushing for probes of his political rivals; refused to concede his electoral defeat and instead tried to overturn the results; and, in a second term, is planning to fire nonpartisan government officials and replace them with people loyal to him.
The list of reforms and policies I favor are the kinds of things that democracy experts would say make America “more democratic.” And Trump’s behavior, they would argue, is “anti-democratic.”
I don’t disagree with that framing. But I fear that many in the anti-Trump camp invoke “democracy” because that term positions them as automatically right and their political rivals as wrong. It shifts the discussion away from real-world policies and practices and toward an abstract and broadly supported ideal (democracy).
We are better off being very specific about the policies and principles that we support and oppose. For example, I am generally wary of banning any kind of information. But the problem with recent Republican attempts to ban books is not that they are “anti-democratic”; it’s that they are trying to stop people from learning evidence-based, morally right concepts. Many GOP elected officials don’t want children to learn that racism is often systemic, not just individualized bias, or that some people don’t feel comfortable living according to the gender they were assigned at birth.
We should be discussing these ideas and whether limiting their dissemination is appropriate, not deferring to some generalized conversation about democracy.
Moving from generalities about “democracy” to details makes for a more honest debate. It’s also probably a better political strategy. It’s not clear whether voters care about democracy in the abstract. But the election results this year and last suggest Americans are strongly opposed to banning books, limiting abortion and denying election results.
If Trump-aligned Republicans win control of the presidency and both houses of Congress next year, you could say they would end American democracy as we know it. But it’s simpler and probably more effective to just say they would end America as we know it — and therefore must be stopped.
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