The Common Good of Democracy

America in One Room: a demographically representative sample of the voting electorate assembled to discuss policy issues. (Credit: ritvsihu45 / Wikimedia Commons)

“A nation is formed by the willingness of each of us to share in the responsibility for upholding the common good.” Barbara Jordon

“In a politically diverse nation, only by finding … common ground can we achieve results for the common good.” Olympia Snowe

“Democratic politics should serve the common good.” Amy Gutmann & Dennis Thompson

These are fractured times that imperil democracy in the Western world and beyond. The authoritarian surge of Donald Trump’s MAGA movement is the imminent menace in the US. His notorious plans for a second term in the White House are flagrant and wholly antidemocratic. There is no provision for the common good in Trump’s autocratic scheme nor any corresponding sense of common ground, and compromise is out of reach. Perhaps more importantly, we the people are at risk of forgetting democracy’s contribution to the common good.

Reassembling the Scattered Majority

U.S. House of Representatives Voting to Impeach President Donald Trump for Incitement of Insurrection, January 13, 2021. (Photo credit: U.S. House of Representatives / Wikimedia Commons)

Donald Trump’s authoritarian MAGA movement is “an existential threat to American democracy,” writes Salon’s Chauncey Devega. That is not news, but it is an important reminder as we enter a general election year.

The dark force of Trump’s demagoguery, his dictatorial aspirations, his dishonesty, and his incendiary proclivities are notorious. His political base for ruling the Republican Party—what Devega calls his “diehard followers”—consists largely of (ultra)conservative white Christians. His rallying cry is tailored to their sense of divine favor, fear of displacement, and vision of apocalyptic salvation.

All of this is well known by now but perhaps not sufficiently assessed for its repercussions. Trump’s harangue to his diehard followers is more than just an angry lament. It is a recipe for violence that typifies his authoritarian cant and culminates in the destruction of democratic institutions.

Biden’s Vexed Support of Netanyahu’s War

War Damage in Gaza, October 2023. (Photo credit: Naaman Omar, Palestinian News and Information Agency, Wikimedia Commons)

Gaza’s ruin is appalling. The public’s growing disenchantment with Israel’s scorched-earth retaliation for Hamas’s deadly attack is evident. Yet President Biden has stood firmly behind Netanyahu. Biden’s reticence to stop the slaughter is troubling, but it is also a source of morbid curiosity. How can he abide the carnage and for how long? What are his motives?

Motives are difficult to discern. They must be inferred from what is done and what is said. They are complex and intermixed rather than separate and distinct. They can be inhibited in some degree by countervailing circumstances, and they can be modified over time. Biden’s evident motives for supporting Netanyahu’s war are no exception. They are a troubled intermixture of a long-term commitment and competing concerns, and they are subject to revision.

Profile #5: Speaking Hopefully for Democracy’s Future

Elzbieta Matynia (with her permission)

It is tempting to despair when politics are torn with acrimony and polarized to dysfunction—when democracy itself is menaced by an authoritarian force from within the body politic. Despair runs deeper than pessimism. Pessimism expects the worst of possible outcomes, yes, but without giving up entirely. Despair is a loss of all hope for the future.

Hope prompts and sustains action through dark times. It gives meaning to life lived under the cloud of adversity.

Should we abandon all hope of repairing our politics? Is democracy doomed? Elzbieta Matynia says no to despair and yes to hope, at least for now. It is up to us to use our imagination to overcome indifference, bridge our differences, and revive democracy.

Turning War Rhetoric on its Head

Fighting in Bakhmut, Donetsk Region of Ukraine, April 5, 2023. (Photo by State Border Guard of Ukraine / Wikimedia Commons)

Two wars are burning intensely before our eyes, each engaging the US as an ally, arms supplier, and global power. The war in Gaza has drawn attention away from the war in Ukraine momentarily, but we have witnessed in both places appalling loss of life and staggering destruction in cities large and small.

The Continuous Loop of Belligerence

These are different wars under different circumstances, but they share a similar fate: each is caught in a recurring cycle of violence, a continuous loop without a terminating condition and with the potential of escalation. Chronic fighting reflects and compounds historical hostilities constituting a “cycle of unresolved conflict that makes military force the strongest currency on both sides,” writes Israeli political scientist Dahlia Scheindlin (Time, 1/22/2024, p. 60).

Profile #4: A Citizen’s Dissent from War

Wendell Berry speaking in Frankfort, Indiana July 27, 2007. (Photo by David Marshall / Wikimedia Commons)

Wendell Berry, cultural critic and political activist, advanced an argument at the beginning of the 21^st century against industrial warfare. His warning speaks to the carnage we are witnessing in Ukraine and Israel-Palestine today.

These present-day wars implicate the United States, the interests it advances and those it overlooks, and the undemocratic investment of unchecked power in the US presidency. How we rationalize such carnage is a carryover of the rationale advanced in the Bush administration’s 2002 National Security Strategy, a doctrine that institutionalized a global war on terrorism.

Profile #3: Dissenting for Democracy

(Photo by Jason Wilson / Wikimedia Commons)

What does it mean to say dissent develops democracy, especially when we are menaced by homegrown authoritarianism?

Bolstering democracy against authoritarianism surely requires more than dissent. Needed reforms of our political institutions and procedures already have been discussed here in Profile #1 and Profile #2. But the ways and means of dissent also are key to resisting tyranny. Just as demagoguery usurps deliberation, dissent revitalizes political discussion and debate.

Democracy is a politics of contesting differences of perspective. Agreements, when reached, are provisional. Unity is partial and impermanent and is more a matter of bridging differences than dissolving them. The process is vulnerable to frustration and thus to the authoritarian undertow of demagoguery.

Profile #2: Danielle Allen on Renovating Democracy

South Wing of the U.S. Capitol – House of the People. (Credit: USCapitol / Wikimedia Commons)

Danielle Allen, a political philosophy professor at Harvard University, is actively advocating for an overhaul of democracy to meet the challenges of the 21^st century, specifically to share power more broadly. Her premise is that a political system cannot serve the good of all without power being shared by all.

The country is pulling apart and needs to find ways of pulling together, Allen insists. Polarization, toxicity, and governmental dysfunction reflect the problem at hand. More democracy, not authoritarianism, is the solution to our predicament.

Profile in Democratic Dissent from Authoritarianism: Steven Levitsky & Daniel Ziblatt on Saving Democracy

Photo by Marc Nozell / Wikimedia Commons

What does it mean to dissent democratically from authoritarianism? This is a question for our troubled times, a question that calls for answers specific to current challenges. It is a matter of some urgency.

Accordingly, I offer an initial profile in democratic dissent from authoritarianism, a profile that features two Harvard University professors of government, Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, who write about how to resist tyranny of the minority.[1] One of their key contributions is a description of what is democratic in principle and practice and what is not. They impart a guideline for what to defend, how to defend democracy democratically, and what to resist because it is antidemocratic. They do this with reference to the scourge of authoritarianism presently threatening liberal democracy. They do it having already written about how democracies die.[2]

Answers to three questions capture much of what we can learn from Levitsky and Ziblatt about resisting authoritarianism democratically.

Disregarding Authoritarian Demagoguery is a Mistake

Crowd of Trump supporters marching on the US Capitol on 6 January 2021. (Credit: TapTheForwardAssist / Wikimedia Commons)

Donald Trump’s non-stop demagoguery is a mark of his presidency and his election campaigns, including his current run for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination. He is presently the most likely candidate by far to win the nomination again, largely because of his authoritarian demagoguery. It would be a serious mistake to disregard what he says as mere rhetoric. Words matter a lot. They convey and structure attitudes that function as motives and influence actions.

In a recent New York Times guest essay, Matthew Schmitz, a cofounder and editor of the American online magazine Compact, argued that Trump’s incendiary words, or what he calls Trump’s “rhetorical excesses,” should be discounted because he is actually a political moderate despite what he says and how he says it. Trump is attractive to voters, Schmitz claims, because of his moderation, not for his authoritarian and racist rhetoric.

Don’t take Trump’s authoritarian rhetoric seriously? That’s a lot to ask.