Democracy used and abused
When people use democracy to deconstruct democracy
I don’t know who is going to win the battle between progressives around the world and the current wave of fundamentalists, but it seems that the democrats are the ones relying most on their faith if they are to prevail.
Why the hell do Democrats seem so helpless?
Here is my thinking.
Progressive politics have goals, but they can often be described as freedom to, instead og an obligation. Civil rights, marriage equality, privacy: these are freedoms seen as the opportunity for humans to do as they see right. The purpose of society is meant to create a space for people to live their lives as they seem right.
This is all within reason, of course, but in general progressives define normative values in a consensual or pluralistic manner. Actions are acceptable if they are not popularly rejected.
In order to define the popular consensus, progressives rely on democracy. Democracy is meant here to be a barometer for what people think is right. Laws are formed by popularly elected officials, and if their laws are not popular, then the lawmakers are ejected and others who support the popular will take their place.
The best way of organizing society, then, is a process, not a destination. Democracy is intrinsically valuable because it allows for consensus that can change as circumstances require, and it is the process that creates the right society.
Republicans and fundamentalism
Not everyone agrees that what is right is shaped by time and circumstance. Instead, they say, we know what is the right thing to do. The purpose of governance is to help us achieve this utopia.
Why is this important? Well, for these people, the process is only instrumental. Democracy is only important to the degree that it allows them to achieve their other goals. As it appears now, democracy is not one of those goals, and its usefulness seems to have run out.
Why is democracy not very useful any more? Well, the GOP has successfully used their means of ascension in American society, elected positions, to gain control of the least democratic portion of the United States government: the courts.
The US government is infused with a romantic idea that powerful positions not only give their holders prestige, but that those who rise to elevated positions also must have, by their very success, especially noble and patrician qualities. The degree of executive power within government in the US, both at the federal and state level, reflects this hope, this belief, that people who are elected to these positions have exceptional abilities.
Elected officials do not have exceptional qualities. In fact, our government might better be run by randomly appointed citizens picked through a lottery (check out sortition)! But if we are honest, there is nothing exceptional about elected officials except perhaps a degree of charisma and ruthlessness.
This includes the courts. They courts were once seen, up until very very recently, as the home of intellectual and legal independence. They were the conservative home of caution, common sense, and a mediator for the sharp visions that intersect throughout the continent. The courts are given space, opaque and hidden processes, and often lifetime employment.
Their independence, like any independence, can be both a strength and a weakness. Today, for most Americans and for progressives around the world, it is an absolute weakness.
Why?
The GOP does not care about democracy. They care about getting what they want. Democracy was useful in that matter, but democracy is not important to them.
If the GOP does not give value to democracy, then it does not care about its preservation and can manipulate and degrade democracy to suit the party’s purposes.
Again, why is that a problem?
Because democrats value the process. Democrats see the system as valuable in its own right, and therefore are not willing to challenge it in order to stop the GOP. In order to stop the GOP, they would have to want something greater than democracy. However, they dont! As we hear so often, the GOP hasn’t wont a single popular vote for president since 1988, and that was GW Bush after 9/11. The people are progressive!
Unfortunately, that doesn’t matter. Gerrymandering and the electoral college has made the American representative system unbalanced. Republicans have purposely made it unbalanced, and the democrats have not done anything to reply-because for them, the process itself is sacred and not to be abused.
There is a strong tension between those who see the process as the goal and those who feel that the process is meant to reach a goal. Those who see the process as the point of it all will struggle, do struggle, when confronted with those who give the process no intrinsic value in its own right.
Democracy is voluntary
The problem is, I do not see how democracy wins if all those participating do not agree to try. Democracy requires opting in, otherwise it will be abused by those using it for their own means, not using democracy for the sake of democracy.
Those using democracy will resort to gerrymandering, to blocking court nominations, to racism, to violence, to sedition, and maybe even to a little treason. For those who dont care about the process, then the ends justify the means.
But for those whose means justify the means, because they are the end? Well, they are playing a game where they are the only ones using the rulebook. Democracy isn’t governance, it’s a value.
Democrats as martyrs
The US political system isn’t democratic, yes I know, it’s republican. It is also just not very democratic.
I honestly dont know if the Republicans have gotten more authoritarian, or the democrats have simply lost the plot of the political game in the US. Earlier democrats were no better than Republicans in using the system to their own ends. Roosevelt packed the court, Johnson was…was Johnson, but these were people whose goals existed outside of the democratic system. Like the Republican fundamentalists of today, their goal was power, and politics was a method of reaching that power. Everyone was on the same page. Win power, exclude the other and keep going until you got knocked over yourself.
The current democrats seem to have lost that drive. Is it a post-modern perspective that promotes democracy as a goal in its own right? I think to a degree, yes. There is chat about traditional working class political issues, but in all their years of power since 1990 the middle class has begun to disappear, purchasing power is diminishing, and the number of obscenely wealthy people is absurdly high.
Could it just be good old fashioned bloat and misalignment? Perhaps democrats are so reliant on their funders that their primary interest is to maintain the status quo, which in our excessively conservative momentum makes them appear leftist?Could they just be captured by their own comfort and interests? Probably a little of that as well.
Whatever the reason, it’s a depressing moment in politics. It’s a depressing moment in society, and it’s far too good of a moment for fundamentalism.
