The Principles of American Democracy's Stability
The dawn of the 2024 election season arrives as fears of democratic collapse build to a fever pitch. As voters head to primary polls today, as Trump’s trials move through the courts, as state courts weigh in on electoral legitimacy, three in every four Americans across the political spectrum fears “losing American Democracy.” Most of them are very worried, anxious that forces – and voters – beyond their control will destroy their free government.
This powerlessness, however, could not be farther from the truth. The average American possesses the agency needed to anchor their democracy.
A major problem driving today’s pessimism is that most news coverage about American democracy’s challenges focuses on breakdowns in American democratic institutions: state electoral boards, presidential subversion of federal agencies, political party nominating rules, mass media manipulation, the role of the courts.
These are all problems, but they are symptoms not causes. Donald Trump didn’t force his way into the presidency; he was welcomed because American democracy’s culture has already broken down. One example: significant American distrust in the fairness of elections did not begin with Trump’s prevarications in 2020 or even 2016; it is evident at least as far back as 2004 when 49% of Democrats suspected their votes were not properly counted.
Social entrepreneurs know that the solutions to complex problems lie not in monolithic approaches that haven’t worked, but in interdisciplinary efforts. For example, the practical solutions that have created a huge boom in sustainable energy sources came from combining best practices in marketing, psychology, business operations, and lean software startups. The protection of fisheries has been best tackled by combining expertise from game theory, sociology, anthropology, and political science.
Ensuring American democracy’s stability similarly requires interdisciplinary approaches not a singular focus on our political institutions. For the greatest danger to American democracy today is simple: rival groups and leaders within America stoking fear of fellow citizens. But the solution lies in something complex: the minds of the American people. For each American has a personal decision to make whether to remain committed to America’s democratic endeavor. Understanding how to strengthen American democracy requires understanding the American people’s thoughts, words, and actions – the democratic culture – the daily customs that sustain or erode American democracy. This demands an interdisciplinary analysis of political philosophy, history, sociology, and psychology.
Studying Thucydides to Levitsky, Aristotle to Sandel, Maslow to Kahneman, Tocqueville to Applebaum, and many experts from a diversity of fields, reveals three cultural norms at the core of American democracy’s stability, norms that 80% of Americans share: an Equality of Dignity, the Agency of the Free Individual, and an Effective Association. History, psychology, and political philosophy testify that when Americans practice these values – what I call “Foundations Upholding the Nation’s Democracy” or FUNDs – they strengthen the common ground upon which their republic stands no matter what a President, supreme court justice, or party boss may attempt.
The first FUND, an Equality of Dignity, begins with French political philosopher Charles de Montesquieu whose study of history led him to conclude that equality is democracy’s most important “virtue.” Types of equality abound – economic, racial, based on outcomes or based on opportunities, etc. – but for American democracy in particular, the equality that matters most is an Equality of Dignity. This means respect for every fellow citizen’s right to be free from poverty and violence, to have work, and to choose their own beliefs.
Equality is often presented as opposed to liberty, but in America’s context, they are two sides of the same coin, rooted in each individual’s worth. The second FUND, The Agency of the Free Individual, stems from two sources. The first is America’s ideological allegiance to English philosopher John Locke and his belief in the supremacy of human liberty. The second is Americans’ belief in free enterprise—small businesses remain the most trusted institution in America today. The belief in free enterprise combined with Locke’s ideas about liberty fosters American’s lionization of individual agency. Every American needs to feel they have the right and the capacity to shape their own life story, to pursue their own goals.
Finally, a society that consists only of individuals with agency and equal dignity will nonetheless perish without cooperation. This interdependence is at the core of the third FUND, an Effective Association. French sociologist Alexis de Tocqueville, in his 1831 visit to America, shared the enduring insight that democracy demands citizens come together and solve problems. Americans struggle to listen to each other historically and today, but they also have a long history of solving problems.
Succeeding in these three FUNDs happens first and foremost in our own minds. Each American has to deny rage-inducing leaders and media the profits they earn from manipulating our emotions into clicking, watching, doom scrolling, and following. Instead, each American must treat each other as a sacred individual, of inherent dignity and agency, and not as a member of a group.
After mastering one’s own mind, the next most valuable action is listening to the life story of a single individual, seeking to understand why they believe what they do and what they have experienced, and be willing to learn from their ideas. Physicist and philosopher David Bohm pioneered the framework of “suspending” ideas we don’t like in front of us: we don’t accept an upsetting idea, but we don’t reject either. We simply suspend it in front of us, and consider it. In doing this, we affirm our fellow citizen’s equal dignity and agency, and they in turn feel affirmed. By practicing their common values, Americans make their democracy stable.
The copper patina Statue of Liberty was a gift from France, a nation that admired America’s ideals but struggled to sustain those values themselves. By contrast, the statue’s simple, American-made pedestal is pedestrian. Due to budget cuts, the pedestal is shorter than designed and made mostly of concrete instead of granite. But it is sturdy. And it exists because individual Americans pitched in together to make real the foundations that have endured. The power to keep it standing is entirely our own.