When Everything Is a Threat to Democracy, Nothing Is
Normal political disagreements aren’t a threat to freedom. Attacks on the system are.
AS THE PRESIDENTIAL RACE HEATS UP, both major parties have claimed that American democracy is being attacked and undermined, and each side points to the other as the perpetrator. Most of the electorate seems to agree. A March poll sponsored by Georgetown University’s Institute of Politics and Public Service found that 81 percent of American voters believe democracy is threatened, with Republicans and Democrats each citing extremists in the opposite party as the source of the threat.
After years of democratic decline in the United States, voters are right to be concerned and vigilant, but likely not for the reasons they think. Voters, political activists, and politicians too often conflate normal contestation within the democratic process as a threat to the system, while normalizing—or ignoring—the real threats to democracy in America.
POLITICAL LEADERS ARE INCREASINGLY blurring the distinction between genuine threats to our democracy and policy positions that they oppose. It’s completely normal—even healthy—for people in a democratic society to have different, even radically divergent views on specific issues of public policy. Democracy’s great strength is that it’s the only political system that allows citizens to work out their differences peacefully and civilly.
But problems arise when leaders wrongly conflate these expected disagreements with systemic threats. If Americans believe that the prospect of losing an election or living with policies they oppose amounts to a “threat to democracy,” then the threat will feel very real, omnipresent, and perpetual. That sense of dread can be exploited to justify more extreme positions and actions that do in fact undermine democratic institutions.
Democracy is the system we have refined over centuries to guide the competition between opposing ideas, policies, and interests, to decide who will hold public office for a time, and to ensure that those officials remain accountable to the people and the law. It is in the common interest of all citizens to stand against anything that assails this system. Changes to tax rates, more publicly funded or market-based health care systems, tighter or looser environmental regulations—these are all matters to be addressed through the ordinary democratic process. Disagreement on these issues is not a threat to the system itself.
THE AMERICAN POLITICAL SYSTEM is under serious pressure. While the country is rated Free—with a score of 83 out of 100 in Freedom in the World, Freedom House’s annual assessment of political rights and civil liberties—over the past thirteen years, its score has dropped by 11 points. America prides itself on its longstanding and strong democracy, but another stretch of similar downgrades could bring it to the threshold of being demoted from Free to Partly Free. No democracy, including this one, can be taken for granted.
The major challenges associated with the recent declines—which have extended across multiple administrations of both parties—include increasing political polarization, rising political violence and threats, unfounded attacks on the integrity of elections, and reduced public trust in democratic institutions. Precipitating events have ranged from corruption scandals to highly politicized judicial appointments and ideological battles over academic freedom. American democracy watchers have correctly highlighted rhetoric and behavior from political leaders that directly exacerbates these problems. For example, some political leaders at all levels have refused to respect the results of free and fair elections and failed to denounce threatening or violent behavior when it comes from their political allies. Casual remarks about terminating the Constitution or ignoring term limits risk normalizing grossly antidemocratic ideas and actions.
Then there is the inflammatory language that dehumanizes political opponents as “vermin” or characterizes immigrants as “poisoning the blood of our country.” Such deep hostility runs counter to the principles enshrined in the country’s founding documents and corrodes the civil debate and compromise that allow democracy to function.
Equally pernicious are the false claims that elections are “rigged” even before votes are cast, or that smear the independent work of courts and juries as somehow part of a politicized “witch hunt.” These kinds of mischaracterizations do massive damage to public trust in our democratic institutions generally. Such fear is dangerous precisely because it can be self-fulfilling, generating more and more extreme responses.
There are very real threats to and reasons for concern about American democracy. But we must acknowledge that part of the problem stems from the misrepresentation of what are essentially policy differences as threats to democracy. There’s an old saw that there are no permanent victories and no permanent defeats. This, too, is one of democracy’s great strengths. Those who lose elections don’t get the chance to implement their policy agenda, but they can still seek compromise, work to gain more supporters, and prepare to win back power in the next election while enjoying the protections of the rule of law and the independent judiciary.
Conflating policy differences—even emotionally fraught and ideologically contentious ones—as threats to the fabric of the country adds to public misunderstanding about what democracy is, and confuses the key distinction we expect voters to make when assessing candidates on policy grounds and on their commitment to democratic rules.
THERE IS ALSO AMPLE REASON to hope that the recent years of deterioration can be reversed. The country has strong democratic institutions and processes, a robust civil society, and a citizenry that values democracy along with the liberties it guarantees. American history, while not a guarantee of future democracy, can provide inspiration that strong democratic civil society and courageous leaders can overcome democratic deficits and drive the strengthening of democracy and healthy reform of the political system. The United States has overcome enormous obstacles to freedom and potent challenges to its survival over the past two and a half centuries.
Democratic declines can be swift and dramatic, or they can be slow, as institutions and processes are eroded or dismantled by irresponsible leaders over time. While no one can predict the future with certainty, it is undeniable that this is an important moment in American history. It requires politicians from both major parties to protect democracy and democratic norms even as they advocate for their preferred policies and make their cases to voters. Once in office, leaders from across the political spectrum must negotiate in good faith and work together in the public interest, restoring citizens’ confidence that the democratic system can carry out its basic tasks. Voters in turn must choose not only the candidates who will enact their preferred policies, but also those who will safeguard and strengthen American democracy, so that future generations will have the same opportunity to freely debate their own policy differences.
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