Deconstructing Democracy: The Fragility of The Democratic Myth
Kamala Harris set out to save democracy but ended up revealing the limitations of democracy as a modern political narrative.
Trump Supporter: “Trump is the most pro-democracy candidate.”
Trump Skeptic: “What about January 6th? Wasn’t that an un-democratic attempt to steal the election?”
Trump Supporter: “That was people exercising their First Amendment right. That was the people speaking out. That is democracy.”
Ronald Reagan once said, “Democracy is worth dying for, because it's the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised.” Indeed, for over a century, democracy stood as the antidote to oppression and human suffering. It represented freedom, equality, justice, and opportunity. It promised a better life, one in which your destiny is decided not by a king, emperor, dictator, or supreme leader, but by you and those around you. It meant that your voice mattered, would be heard, and could make a difference. This lofty fantasy has required defending from time to time, and legion is the number who gave their lives so that government of, by, and for the people might not perish from the earth.
Throughout the 20th century, democracy repeatedly proved itself the world’s most powerful political myth. Political myths, which Bruce Lincoln describes as ideologies in narrative form, inform how we see ourselves, our society, and our role in it. They express an ideological perspective and propagate that perspective through powerful narratives that serve as the story of a nation’s past, present, and future. In the United States, democracy has long been the central pillar in the story of our success. It defeated fascism in Nazi Germany. It outlasted the Soviet Union in the Cold War. It proved resilient in the face of tensions over race and suffrage, multiple armed conflicts, and the rise of consumerism and new media. It was able to accomplish all of this because only democracy, willed into existence by the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God, results in prosperity for all.
Or so the myth goes.
Vice President Kamala Harris made saving democracy a tentpole of her campaign, characterizing President-elect Trump as a threat to our system of government. In the end, most of the country didn’t care. Defending a highfalutin set of esoteric democratic principles was less important for most Americans than paying rent and putting food on the table. James Carville’s oft-quoted 1992 quip that “It’s the economy stupid" has been frequently repeated in the last couple of weeks. After all, a free, just, and equal land of opportunity seems a compelling proposition, but not if you and your family are struggling or starving, not if you feel like the perennially ephemeral promises of democracy are always beyond your reach.
While democracy’s champions would argue that democratic forms of government still produce the best outcomes for the most people, many Americans don’t feel like they’re seeing those outcomes. To be sure, by several important metrics, the economy is worse now than it was when President Trump left office 4 years ago
Inarguably, democracy has benefited some more than others. This is partly why older Americans (particularly those 65+ among whom Harris gained ground versus Democrats in prior elections), who have profited greatly under democracy since the end of the Cold War and control most of the nation’s wealth, found the appeal to democratic ideals more compelling than younger voters who have not seen the same return on their ideological investment. It’s also partially why Harris outperformed among educated white voters, one of her few demographics of strength. These are groups for whom democracy has worked. But, unfortunately for Harris, these groups alone weren’t enough. Interestingly, democratic ideals frequently wax and wane with the economy. Most people aren’t trying to crusade for democracy; they’re just trying to make it in America. Democracy has value, but only inasmuch as it creates value for people.
The periods in history when the democratic myth has been the strongest are those in which rival systems of government (think Communism) have threatened American identity and security. Democracy, frequently the most visible and venerable ideology in these times, becomes emblematic of all American identity myths. It is in these times that people fight for democracy. But are they really fighting for democracy or just against the existential threat of the Other? Enemies provide contrast for a community’s identity, fostering in-group bias and inspiring groups to double down on their own myths.
The Harris campaign attempted to make Donald Trump the enemy, but enemies are only frightening when accompanied by a sense of uncertainty and dread. But we have all lived through a Trump presidency previously and, while it was tumultuous in many ways, it did not result in the same widespread sense of impending doom evoked by Communism during the Cold War. If Trump is such a threat to democracy, then why did many voters feel like they were better off under his administration? Of course, there are a lot of potential socioeconomic answers to this question, but none that are strong enough or clear enough to counter the lived experience of hundreds of millions of Americans who feel they are worse off now than during Trump’s first term.
To hold democracy up as good in and of itself, irrespective of the value it has created for people, is tantamount to humanist idolatry. It worships the wrong thing, placing democracy over people, a system of government over the governed. Democracy is a means to an end, not the end itself. Assuming that democracy is intrinsically valuable for everyone in every case, risks divinizing democracy. But it is not a divine institution handed down from god, despite the frequent appeals to a higher power scattered throughout our nation’s historical documents. No. Democracy was conceived of by the people to serve the people, not the other way around. The myth forgets itself.
If the pollyannish democratic narrative does not correspond to people’s lived experience, those same people can and will ignore it, abandon it, or destroy it—and democracy as an institution allows them to do so. As a system of governance that is determined by input from its citizens, democracy provides an internal mechanism for self-destruction. Add to this the economic VUCA created by political business cycles and you have a democratic institution that seems to invite its own destabilization every chance it gets.
All of this makes the democratic myth extremely fragile.
Evangelists of the democratic myth must acknowledge, particularly in light of the election, that democracy no longer imparts the same gravity of meaning, identity, and purpose that it once did. In the last decade, the democratic myth has been entirely unable to provide sufficient explanation for people’s struggles, sufficient meaning to people’s lives, and sufficient common purpose to the nation’s disparate factions. Today, the democratic myth seems weaker than ever, subordinated by a panoply of seemingly more urgent social and economic narratives. If it ever hopes to reclaim its place as the centerpiece of the American collective consciousness, it will have to find a way of conquering or perhaps co-opting the new myths that have emerged in the 21st century, myths that speak more directly, more palpably, and more profoundly to the aspirations and anxieties of our times.
This is the first of three posts on myths that influenced the 2024 U.S. Presidential Election. The next two will be on the Myth of Manhood and the Myth of the Migrant. All observations are intended to be apolitical. I take no normative stance on the outcome of the election.
“Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.”
-John Adams