Over the past ten years democracy’s legitimacy has been questioned in America countless times. The country is more divided as ever, and many things that were once considered “status quo” are being overthrown. It seems that the United States is reaching a crescendo of mayhem, and it’s only about time until the rules and norms of democracy “as we know it” snap. As a country, we are in political uproar and confusion. The past two presidents, President Obama and President Trump have enlightened many of us to the deeply rooted problems in our governing system. President Obama’s terms have uncovered how easy it is to gridlock, while so far President Trump threatens our liberal democratic culture, forcing us be disillusioned with democracy.

However, it is not democracy that is endangered. What is troubling most of us, is a shift from liberal democracy to illiberal democracy. As highlighted in article, “Fareed Zakaria made a scary prediction about democracy in 1997- and it’s coming true” by Sean Illing, democracy and liberalism are not synonymous with each other. Many confuse liberalism with democracy.

Liberal democracy isn’t broken, but maybe we are. The most current shift in culture pushes towards a self-interested society. Civic societies (referenced in Tocqueville’s Democracy in America) are losing their hold on American culture. Many of us are more concerned with ourselves than the person next to us. These attitudes are not compatible with liberal democracy. As pointed out by Zakaria, “The whole point of liberal democracy is to create a system that reflects and addresses popular passions…” It is important for all of us to engage with politics and create civil associations to reflect popular passions. One of the reasons why President Trump is so problematic is because he doesn’t adhere to popular passions. His election to President is another example of how the population’s preferences do not represent the outcome.  

For liberal democracy to thrive we need to confront this shift to illiberal democracy and act accordingly, this may mean changing the current political system that we have in place. Maybe it’s time to consider other forms of government as options.

In his interview with Sean Illing, Fareed Zakaria makes a very important distinction between a democratic society and a liberal society. While the two very often coexist, they are not codependent. For example, Vladimir Putin is technically a democratically elected official, Putin’s Russia is not exactly the quintessence of a liberal society. Zakaria argues that the United States, a nation founded more on the ideal of liberty than democracy, is experiencing an increasing shift towards illiberality; a phenomenon that is threatening the democracy of the United States. One of the trends Zakaria points to is the erosion of what Tocqueville called “intermediary associations,” which are what Zakaria describes as “groups in between the government and the family that exist as arbiters and regulators of society.” These associations, which Tocqueville observed in US society and which are so crucial to a liberal democratic society, have become highly competitive businesses managed by entrepreneurs. This leaves no institutions to serve as the vital intermediaries between the family and the government, which in turn has given Congress much more free reign to do as they please, and leaves no one to look out for the long-term interests of society.

The distrust of the people in Congress observed by Foa and Mounk also display more disturbing signs regarding the strength of democracy. The article offers a glimpse into the minds of the citizens. They note that faith in Congress is at an all-time low, with numbers sitting in single-digits. They also observe that more people than ever are becoming warm to a system where a single strong president can make decisions without having to worry about Congress, which sounds more like a monarchy than a liberal democracy. The increased polarization and perceived ineffectiveness of the government is causing people to reexamine the merits of democracy, and begin to seek better alternatives.

While the readings of Linz, Zakaria, Foa and Mounk, and Yglesias might be scary and eye-opening, it is important to note that the United States is not exactly on the brink of collapse. The country is no doubt going through a trying and stressful time. However, it has been tested before, and it will be tested again. While people are becoming increasingly weary of the government, a majority of Americans still believe democracy is the best form of government. It is also critical to take into account the role the media plays in the polarization of society, as well as the over dramatization of the country’s current issues. As Zakaria notes, everyone is competing for eyeballs, and a little bit of over exaggeration often provides exactly that.

In the long run, my own gut reaction is that “democracy” will survive. In the short-term, I think the answer is much more ambiguous. To be clear, in the context of the U.S. I refer to democracy as “democracy,” because full democracy (rule by the majority) has never been implemented in the U.S. until (tentatively) now. If this were the case, the U.S. would have suffered much the same fate as almost every other presidential democracy in the world. As the Fareed Zakaria and Tocqueville suggest, societal institutions and different checks and balances between the government and the people have moderated democracy. While this has prevented “tyranny be the majority” in the past, the rise of populism and partisanship are threatening to overthrow this ideal in the present and the future. Both sides of the political spectrum have contributed to this (Trump for often representing only his constituents in his policies, and the left for attempting to block most of Trump/ Republicans’ proposals, including those similar to previous Republican presidents’). Under the idealized view of the U.S., political parties do not vote along party lines, as their constituents may have wanted, but instead turn to the middle and focus on the long run good of the nation. However, as the stakes of elections have increased (if we don’t win the world is going to end!!!), and the public has become more polarized (as the 6 charts article by Vox showed) the system of moderated democracy in the U.S. is being pushed to its limits. “Democracy” in the U.S. was never meant to and cannot appease two equally vocal, polarized, and fairly large segments of the population. Therefore, if democracy—defined as rule by the majority within moderation—is to survive in the U.S., a shift to the middle must occur, by both politicians and the public. In the long run, I have faith that a moderate, strong leader will be elected to restore the status quo in the U.S., but how long we must wait, I do not know.

Fareed Zakaria’s observation of the proliferation of illiberal democracies is concerning. The push for democracy by the Western world on developing nations during the latter half of the twentieth century failed in many cases because the requisite political culture for democracy was not in place. Fareed notes that liberal values existed under the 19th century monarchies a century before the establishment of full democratic governance, is this is crucial to their success in the Western world. Forcing underdeveloped nations with different cultural values to follow a system they aren’t ready for is a recipe for disaster.
How, then, is democracy supposed to spread if not through shock therapy? The approach taken by certain Eastern Asian countries is much more sensical. Looking at Singapore, a country that has long been ruled by a dictatorship, liberal values slowly but surely have been developing under the regime, and with the recent death of Lee Kuan Yew, dictator of Singapore since the end of World War II, the strict one-party control of the country is loosening, allowing for outsider parties to participate for the first time. Singapore has remained exceptionally stable throughout this development, and the gradual changes that have been made do not result in military coups or armed revolts. Democracy should only be instituted if the people within a country truly desire that form of governance, and if this is the case, a slow democratization will occur. Otherwise, more authoritarian systems should not be detested if they succeed in allowing for their citizens a good quality of life and do not heavily infringe on personal freedoms, they should only be forcibly disrupted when a regime systematically perpetrates significant abuses of human rights.

Democracies can only be stable when the majority of the population believes that it is the only legitimate form of government. Although this seems intuitive, democracy has slowly been eroding. Roberto For and Yascha Mounk say that even though Americans still have emotional attachment to the Constitution, the norms that have kept the system stable are being disregarded. A main influence on this erosion is wealth and prosperity. Politics has become more of a business, with those who can pay their way to the top leading. As mentioned last class, candidates are not chosen freely, but rather are part of a larger system. Candidates who can afford to make campaigns and who have a large social backing can make their way into power, while those who may have better intentions and more “democratic” values are left in the dust. This article touches on how the rich are more likely to be critical of democracy than the poor, yet in majority of the situations, the rich are funding democracy. I don’t quite understand this statement, or maybe it was just a generalization. I think that since the wealthy are more skeptical, they are more willing to pay legislators and politicians in order to influence their decisions. One of the most important sentences in this article was, “Economic elites and narrow interest groups were very influential, while the views of the ordinary citizens and mass based interest groups had virtually no impact.” This reveals that the majority does not rule. Because of this, democracy cannot function properly, as it is led by self interested leaders with their eye on the bank accounts. In order to fix this situation, there needs to be reform between the government and Wall Street/economy, somehow blocking leaders from being influenced by outside sources.