If Democracy Is Not “a Struggle To Advance Particular and Controversial Political Ideas,” Then What Is It?

It’s sloppy thinking to keep framing the problems that face American politics as a crisis in democracy. We are not a democracy. We are a republic and the difference is profound. Both George W. Bush and Donald Trump won the presidency but lost the popular vote.

That would not have happened in a democracy, where the popular vote wins all contests

These were but two of five American presidents who failed the popularity contest, but both of them were controversial and both raised the question of whether a Republic matches our needs any longer. When asked what kind of government the Constitutional Congress had given us, a departing Benjamin Franklin replied, “A republic, madam, if you can keep it.”

Well, maybe we can and maybe it’s time for a change, but the Framers had quite a different question in mind

At the end of our revolutionary war, when decisions were made on such issues, the United States was essentially an aristocracy, much like the England it had defeated. Its Founding Fathers were landowning aristocrats, men whose wealth and position were bestowed by the British Crown and they were not of one voice as to how their new nation should be governed.

While they treasured certain freedoms that were denied in Europe’s monarchies, they mistrusted the common man, the new ‘farmer citizen’ to have either the education or long-term vision to hold the reins of power. Hence Franklins worrisome phrase, “if you can keep it.”

Hence a compromise was struck that may not be well recognized in these modern times

The definition of a republic is ‘a state in which supreme power is held by the people and their elected representatives, and which has an elected or nominated president rather than a monarch.’ And they were picky about ‘the people’ who held that supreme power.

Although ‘all men are created equal’ and that ‘that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,’ it quickly became obvious that certain of those rights were more alienable than others and life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness were goals rather than delivered goods.

Keep in mind that we were, at that time, a slave nation

All men may well be equal, but women wouldn’t be allowed the vote for another 146 years. A man, in order to vote, had to be white and own land. Slaves were considered owned property like a horse or a cow, so those who were allowed to vote were a pretty narrow bunch compared to those merchants, blacksmiths, carpenters, educators and others who actually cranked the wheels of daily life.

That already narrow minority was further diluted by their vote not being taken directly on issues, but decided by those who would actually argue and thrash out issues ‘on their behalf’

Each colony (now a state) would elect congressmen on the basis of population, along with two senators each and those dudes would undertake to keep your individual best interests in mind.

Good luck with that.

So Washington, Jefferson, Adams and Franklin, et al, who would not countenance a monarchy,  set up a government that was accountable to no actual citizen, but a kind of quasi-citizen who had the good health and prosperity of the landed (dare we call them gentry?) in mind. Those aforesaid merchants, blacksmiths, carpenters, educators and others who actually cranked the wheels of daily life need not apply.

And so it went, through ‘amber waves of grain’ and ‘crowned thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea’

Except, of course, when it didn’t.

There were potholes along the road to prosperity, a bit of Native American genocide here, a Civil War there, a slavery-by-other-means of those freed by that Civil War, wars of one kind or another in all but sixteen years of our history, a recession on average every 6-8 years, a few bank failures and land-grabs, decades of rich-man, poor-man, a really crippling depression in 1929 and two World Wars.

Along with that—and to balance it out-- we essentially invented the modern world, from Thomas Edison to Henry Ford, the telephone, internal combustion engine, contraceptives and the internet. We road the rails across a continent, flew the world from silk-winged planes to jet aircraft, built the cars, landed on the moon and computerized everything but toilet-paper.

But we’re in a world of hurt these days and it may just be that ‘being picky about the people who hold that supreme power’ is responsible

Is there anyone who doesn’t think they’d rather put the presidency in Stephen Colbert’s hands than Joe Biden or Donald Trump? Are we really willing to let the Electoral College decide another election or the Supreme Court seat another president?

When 87% of Americans want gun control, the Civil Rights Act garners 2 to 1 support and 61% of us want abortion rights for women, why are these issues shredded by a Supreme Court that harkens back to the Framers? Old white men in the House and Senate decide social support for young men and women of all colors and shades who are egregiously underrepresented in Washington and statewide.

We can’t keep our nation free of mass shootings, our students out of lifetime debt, can’t find a way to give 340 million Americans decent, affordable health care. Then we stand by, drop-jawed, as Republicans and Democrats play chicken with national solvency—not for any reason other than hatred of one another.

My Labrador retriever makes better decisions than that. She would never vote for a ‘representative’ who hadn’t enough sense to fill her food and water bowls…