Does American Democracy Still Work?

Does American Democracy Still Work? Does American Democracy Still Work? ?ALAN WOLFE Yale University Press New Haven and London The Future of American Democracy series aims to examine, sustain, and renew the historic vision of American democracy in a series of books by some of America’s foremost thinkers. The books in the series present a new, balanced, centrist approach to examining the challenges American democracy has faced in the past and must overcome in the years ahead. Series editor: Norton Garfinkle. Copyright © 2006 by Alan Wolfe. All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without written permission from the publishers. Set in Minion type by Integrated Publishing Solutions, Grand Rapids, Michigan. Printed in the United States of America by R. R. Donnelley, Harrisonburg, Virginia. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Wolfe, Alan, 1942– Does American democracy still work? / Alan Wolfe. p. cm.—(The future of American democracy) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-300-10859-0 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-300-10859-1 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Democracy—United States. 2. United States—Politics and government. I. Title. II. Series JK1726.W65 2006 320.973—dc22 2006008116 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources. 10987654321 Contents Acknowledgments vii ONE The New Politics of Democracy 1 TWO Democracy Without Information 24 THREE Democracy Without Accountability 50 FOUR Democracy Without Institutions 75 FIVE Democracy Without Disinterest 106 SIX Democracy Without Justice 137 SEVEN The Rise of Conservative Democracy 166 Notes 191 Index 204 Acknowledgments Jonathan Brent of Yale University Press was an enthusiastic backer of this book from the moment I proposed it to him. Along with his assistant Sarah Miller, he made Yale a wonder- ful partner for this venture. I am also grateful to my literary agent Fredi Friedman for making the match. Three anonymous readers for the Press offered helpful suggestions, as did one who revealed his name. Since this last one was someone I have long admired and welcomed as a friend, I want to extend special thanks to Sandy Levinson for his advice over many decades—yes, decades. Norton Garfinkle and Patrick Glynn of the Future of American Democracy Foundation have been strong supporters of this book, as has been Amitai Etzioni. My thanks to them all. As usual, my family makes it all possible. I The New Politics of Democracy truggles over American democracy were easier to un- derstand in the nineteenth and twentieth century than they have become in the twenty-first. Then, privileged elites—would-be aristocrats in the North, slaveholders in the South, the wealthy everywhere—opposed democracy, and for the simplest of motivations: the more restricted the franchise, the greater the likelihood these elites would hold on to their unfairly gained advantages. For the same reason, if in reverse, groups marginalized by the priorities of their era— working people, women, racial minorities—wished democracy expanded to shift the benefits provided by government in their direction. In the old politics of democracy, the left spoke on behalf of the people, while the right tended to the business of the powerful.1 The differences between them were many, but they were mostly economic. Those who wanted to restrict the scope of politics, as E. E. Schattschneider pointed out in 1960, emphasized “individualism, free private enterprise, lo- calism, privacy, and economy in government,” while those in- tent on expanding it insisted on “equal protection of the laws, 2 The New Politics of Democracy justice, liberty, freedom of movement, freedom of speech and association, and civil rights.”2 One can still find traces of the old politics of democracy in American life. Liberals frequently insist that America is not democratic enough: many convicted felons are denied the suf- frage; difficulties in obtaining citizenship render numerous immigrants unable to vote on matters affecting their lives; too many Americans who have the right to vote fail to exercise it; voting machines, let alone supposedly nonpartisan state offi- cials, do not always work, especially in minority communities; some states—including Georgia, which recently passed a law requiring a driver’s license or its equivalent in order to vote— hark back to the days when voting was more of a privilege than a right; the U.S. Constitution guarantees disproportionate numbers of U.S. Senate seats to states with small populations; and the electoral college has chosen the popular-vote loser too many times for anyone’s comfort.3 Clearly there is some justice in these claims; democratic institutions, for all their wide- spread appeal to contemporary Americans, rarely live up to the standard of one person, one vote. In contrast to liberals, who traditionally have held to the conviction that more democracy is better democracy, the charge is sometimes launched by conservatives that America is too democratic for its own good; what is popular is not always what is right, they from time to time remind us, and a society that bases its most important decisions on what appeals to the lowest common denominator is likely to reach the wrong ones.4 For these traditionalists, democracy is inappropriate in any area of life, such as culture or religion, but it is especially wrong-headed in politics; in the extreme case, totalitarianism is not the opposite of democracy but the logical extension of populist instincts run wild.5 Conservative skeptics of democ- The New Politics of Democracy 3 racy are unlikely to get much of a mass hearing for their claims; most media, including most forms of book publishing, appeal to the very popular taste that curmudgeons of this sort disdain. Still, no matter how democratic America’s institutions have become, skepticism on the right end of the political spectrum has not completely disappeared. For all the talk of expanding democracy on one side and curtailing it on the other, however, the old politics of democracy no longer inspires much passion. Hindering the left’s case is the fact that democracy has gone about as far as it can go; now that nearly all adults have the right to vote, it is no longer possible to alter significantly today’s political balance of power by trying to bring tomorrow’s new groups of players into the contest.6 Any proposed changes to make the Constitution more democratic, moreover, run up against the resistance of small states, which would lose power; even as committed an enthu- siast of democracy as Robert A. Dahl concedes his “measured pessimism” when it comes to formal reforms that would make the United States a more democratic society.7 Denying those who wish to vote their right to do so is reason for indignation, but such incidents, even in today’s highly polarized electoral climate, are more the exception than the rule. It can hardly be a coincidence that the left so often comes across as tired and defensive; it threw so much of its energy into gaining the right to vote that it does not know where to turn once the vote has been gained. Conservatives, as it happens, no longer speak in the old language of democracy either. In sharp contrast to their pre- vious skepticism toward the masses, conservatives today are engaged in a love fest of praise for ordinary people. For this, they can hardly be blamed; there are—and for some time have been—more conservatives than liberals in America, and even 4 The New Politics of Democracy if it is also true that there are more moderates than both of them, the right-leaning political instincts of the American public constitute a brute fact that American liberals, perhaps for understandable reasons, have been reluctant to accept.8 Amer- ican conservatives are not happy campers: looking out on the society in which they live, they see decadence all around them and, quick to identify themselves as victims, they claim, with greater and greater implausibility, that liberals still run the United States of America. But on the issue of democracy, the state of American public opinion offers them undeniable advantages; American political history and culture are rich in democratic rhetoric, and the side that appeals convincingly to ordinary people will always have an advantage compared with the side that appeals to elites, tradition, leadership, habit, defer- ence, restraint, rules, judges, or wisdom. Why, if you are a contemporary conservative, bite the hand that feeds you? Expand- ing the scope of the electorate once seemed a threat to your interests; now it seems the perfect way to get what you want. The United States, in short, has entered into a new politics of democracy. Two features make the new politics of democracy different from earlier struggles over the extension of the franchise or debates over the purposes and reach of government. The first is that the major divisions between left and right are not over economics but, as the frequently used term “culture war”implies, over moral and religious issues. The sec- ond is that the side that wins—most frequently in contemporary politics, the right side—is the one that best frames its appeals in the language of populism. Neither moralism nor populism is new in American public life; if anything, both of them have been prominent features of American politics since the nineteenth century.

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