Donald Trump’s drive to undermine American democracy has proved strikingly successful.
Take the most recent analysis by Varieties of Democracy, better known as V-Dem, an international organization founded in 2014 to track trends in democratization:
While the United States remains a liberal democracy, V-Dem data shows that it is only a fraction away from losing this status after substantial autocratization. The U.S. Liberal Democratic Index score dropped from 0.85 in 2015 to 0.72 in 2020, driven by weakening constraints on the executive under the Trump administration.
Of 179 countries surveyed, V-Dem found that the United States was one of 33 to have moved substantially toward “autocratization.” From 2016, when Trump won the presidency, to 2021, when he involuntarily left office, the United States fell from 17th to 29th in the global V-Dem democracy rankings:
Liberal democracy remains significantly lower than before Trump came to power. Government misinformation declined last year but did not return to previous levels. Toxic levels of polarization continue to increase. Democracy survives in the United States, but it remains under threat. Of all the forces undermining democratic traditions in elections and policymaking — Donald Trump’s big lie, the politicization of ballot counting by Republican state legislatures, the attempt to disenfranchise segments of the population — one that has devastating potential is operating under the radar: the growing cynicism of younger voters.
Daron Acemoglu, a professor of economics at M.I.T., contends that the decline in popular support for democracy is greater in the United States than elsewhere, especially among the young:
“In our data younger people are less supportive of democracy,” Acemoglu wrote in an email. “In the U.S., this age gradient is particularly visible. Moreover, in the U.S., you see a large, across-the-board decline in support for democracy between 2011 and 2017. Is that the financial crisis? The beginning of Trumpism? Not sure.”
In other respects, the adverse trends in the United States, Acemoglu points out, “are not unique to Trump. Look at it from an international perspective, Trumpism is no exception. You see similar dynamics in Brazil, Turkey, the Philippines, Hungary, Russia and somewhat less successfully in the U.K., France, Chile and Colombia. Trump is a particularly mendacious and noxious version, but he is not unique.”
The United States does stand out, however, among developed countries with established democracies. Acemoglu added that “Other developed economies show some weakness, but the U.S., is distinctive in the degree to which its democracy has become weaker.”
Why the United States?
In his email Acemoglu suggested that
Both center-right and center-left politicians promised huge gains from globalization and technology for everybody and aspirations rose. And many groups were disappointed and frustrated with either slow or sometimes no economic progress. In many cases, they also felt completely unheard and ignored by technocratic-sounding politicians using globalist language and proclaiming values that did not jibe so well with their preoccupations. All of these have been lived much more strongly in the U.S., where workers without a college degree have seen their real earnings fall significantly and their communities depressed. They have also come to believe that center-left and center-right governing parties were pushing different values than theirs and not listening to their concerns. The financial crisis much amplified these worries and of course the economic tensions.
The widespread acceptance among Republican voters of Trump’s claim that the 2020 presidential election was stolen is, in Acemoglu’s view,
a “signal.” You are signaling to the rest of the population and especially to the media that you are highly discontented, and you are distinct from the well-educated elites benefiting from the current system. If so, the more outrageous this signal sounds, the more effective it may be to some of the people who are trying to send the signal.
Acemoglu acknowledged that this
is just a hypothesis, but if it were true, it would imply that demonizing Trump supporters would make things worse for Democrats. It may not be so much that they are completely delusional, but they are angry and feel outside of the mainstream. If so, finding ways of broadening the mainstream coalition may be a much more effective response.
Herbert Kitschelt, a political scientist at Duke, noted in an email that the United States stands apart from most other developed nations in ways that may make this country especially vulnerable in the universe of democratic states to authoritarian appeals and democratic backsliding:
There are two unique American afflictions on which Trump could thrive and that are not shared by any other advanced Western O.E.C.D. country: the legacy of slavery and racism, and the presence of fundamentalist Evangelicalism, magnifying racial and class divisions. There is no social organization in America that is as segregated as churches.
In this context, Kitschelt wrote,
a critical element of Trumpist support is trying to establish in all of the United States a geographical generalization of what prevailed in the American South until the 1960s Civil Rights movement: a white Evangelical oligarchy with repression — jailtime, physical violence and death — inflicted on those who will not succumb to this oligarchy. It’s a form of clero-fascism. A declining minority — defined in economic and religious terms — is fighting tooth and nail to assert its supremacy.
Underlying the racial motivations, in Kitschelt’s view, are
changes in political economy and family structure, strongly related also to a decline of religion and religiosity. Religions, for the most part, are ideological codifications of traditional paternalist family kinship structures. Postindustrial libertarianism and intellectualism oppose those paternalisms. This explains why right-wing populists around the world draw on religion as their ultimate ideological defense, even if their religious doctrines are seemingly different: Trump (white Protestant Evangelicalism and Catholic ultramontanism), Putin (Orthodoxy), Modi (Hinduism), Erdogan (Islam), Xi (Confucianism).
Lynn Vavreck, a political scientist at U.C.L.A., takes a different, but not necessarily contradictory approach. She is co-author of the forthcoming book, “The Bitter End: The 2020 Presidential Campaign and the Challenge to American Democracy,” with John Sides and Chris Tausanovitch, political scientists at Vanderbilt and U.C.L.A.
In an email, Vavreck wrote that in their book,
We describe the current state of American politics as ‘calcified’ — calcification, like in the human body, makes politics rigid. It is born of four factors: 1) Increasing distance between the parties (we are farther apart than ever ideologically); 2) Increasing homogeneity across issue positions within each party (we are more like our fellow partisans than ever); 3) The displacement of the “New Deal” dimension of conflict (size and role of government, tax rates) with a new dimension of conflict based on identity-inflected issues; 4) Partisan parity within the electorate (there is near balance between people who call themselves Ds and Rs right now).
These four things make politics feel stuck and explosive. Here’s why: The stakes of election outcomes are very high because the other side is farther away than ever and victory is always within reach for both sides (due to the balance). The balance also means that instead of going back to the drawing board to rethink how they campaigned or what they offered, when one side loses, they don’t revamp their packages or strategies (they almost won!!), instead they try to change the rules of the game to advantage their side. This is the ultimate challenge to democracy — preventing parties from changing the rules to erode democratic principles.
From a different vantage point, Vavreck observes, another “part of democracy — the representational part, so to speak — seems quite healthy at the moment.” The parties
are unique and offer two very different visions of the world to voters. Voters see and understand those differences. More voters see important differences between the parties today than have at any point since the 1950s! Nearly everyone — 9 out of 10 people — say they see important differences between the two parties. That is remarkable.
For all of its faults, contemporary American democracy does perform the essential function of offering voters a choice, Vavreck continued:
People know what kind of world they want to live in — and they can match that to the party offerings to figure out where they belong (and who to vote for). That there is no confusion about which party is on which side isn’t normatively bad or problematic — in fact, it makes democracy work better if it assists people in voting for candidates who align with their preferences.
But the cost can be high, in Vavreck’s view, perhaps higher than the benefits:
When parties attempt to erode democratic institutions like voting, election certification, or election administration; or to bully elected leaders to change legitimate outcomes, we obviously have challenges to democracy, but the clarity with which voters see these parties and understand how to choose between them should not be overlooked as a strong element of democracy in America at the moment.
If polarization is a crucial aspect of democratic atrophy, all indications are that partisan hostility is entrenched in the social order.
In their May 2022 paper, “Learning to Dislike Your Opponents: Political Socialization in the Era of Polarization,” Matthew Tyler and Shanto Iyengar, political scientists at Stanford, find that polarization, including a strong dislike of members of the opposition party, has been growing rapidly among adolescents, a constituency previously more neutral in its political views:
We find that adolescents who identify as Republican or Democrat have become just as polarized as adults. The increased level of polarization in the youth sample occurs not because partisans became more positive in their evaluations of their own party but primarily because their distrust of the opposing party increased dramatically.
Today, Tyler and Iyengar write,
high levels of in-group favoritism and out-group distrust are in place well before early adulthood. In fact, the absence of age differences in our 2019 results suggests that the learning curve for polarization plateaus by the age of 11. This is very unlike the developmental pattern that held in the 1970s and 1980s, when early childhood was characterized by blanket positivity toward political leaders and partisanship gradually intruded into the political attitudes of adolescents before peaking in adulthood.
What are the consequences of this shift among the young?
“Fifty years ago,” Tyler and Iyengar report, “political socialization was thought to play a stabilizing role important to the perpetuation of democratic norms and institutions. In particular, children’s adoption of uncritical attitudes toward political leaders helped to legitimize the entire democratic regime.”
“In the current era, the two authors note pointedly,
it seems questionable whether the early acquisition of out-party animus fosters democratic norms and civic attitudes. Extreme polarization is now associated with rampant misinformation and, as indicated by the events that occurred in the aftermath of the 2020 election, with willingness to reject the outcome of free and fair electoral procedures.
In fact, there has been a steady falloff in key measures of the vitality and strength of American democracy.
Nicholas Valentino, a political scientist at the University of Michigan and a principal investigator on the American National Election Studies 2024 project, wrote by email that
We do have some long-term trends in the ANES data that are troubling. Principal among these is a steady decline in the public’s trust in government in general, and in many specific institutions that are considered pillars of democratic legitimacy.
This development includes an increase from 48 percent in 2002 to 64 percent in 2020 of people who say government operates “for the benefit of a few big interests” and a decline over the same period from 51 to 16 percent of people who say government operates “for the benefit of all.” Over the same 18-year period, a “trust in government” measure fell from 43 to 17 percent.
Such downward trendlines are particularly worrisome, according to Valentino, because “the cornerstone of democratic stability lies in strong institutional legitimacy among the governed, regardless of which party is in charge.”
Two types of events in upcoming elections, Valentino writes, “indicate that the U.S. has broken from mainstream democratic systems”:
First, widespread refusal among losing candidates and members of their party to accept their losses in these elections; and second, state officials in certain states refusing to certify elections where candidates of their own party lose. Note these types of threats are significantly more serious to democracy even than the myriad changes to election laws that make it harder for citizens to vote, even when those laws disproportionately affect some groups more than others. This would be voter nullification after the fact.
In their 2021 paper, “The Majoritarian Threat to Liberal Democracy,” Guy Grossman, Dorothy Kronick, Matthew Levendusky and Marc Meredith, political scientists at the University of Pennsylvania, argue that “many voters are majoritarian, in that they view popularly elected leaders’ actions as inherently democratic — even when those actions undermine liberal democracy.”
The willingness of majoritarians “to give wide latitude to elected officials is an important but understudied threat to liberal democracy in the United States,” Grossman and his co-authors write.
What liberal democrats see as backsliding, the four authors continue, “majoritarians see as consistent with democracy, which mutes the public backlash against power grabs.”
Why?
Many voters grant tremendous license to elected incumbents, perceiving incumbent behavior as ‘consistent with democracy’ — even if it undermines checks and balances or other aspects of liberal democracy.
Jack Goldstone, a professor of public policy at George Mason University, stresses economic forces in his analysis of declining support for democracy.
“The rise of authoritarian parties is rooted in rising inequality and even more in the loss of social mobility,” he wrote by email, adding that
More rigid and culturally divided inequality breeds resentment of the elites. And I would say the elites brought this on themselves, by creating meritocratic bubbles that demean those outside, and access to which they increasingly control for their own families. The elites have implemented policies of globalization, meritocracy, and market-driven morals, preaching that these are for the best, while ignoring the widespread harm these policies have done to many millions of their fellow citizens. A bond with an authoritarian leader who is not beholden to these elites makes ordinary people feel stronger, and gives them a sense of importance and justice.
In an essay last month, “Trump Was a Symptom, Not the Disease — and It’s Become a Global Pandemic,” Goldstone was sharply critical of economic and political elites, especially liberal elites:
It is the actions of liberal elites — well-intended but grievously misguided — that have spawned the populist wave. In a variety of ways, ruling elites promoting globalization and diversity have deprived many groups in their own societies of opportunity, hope, and security.
Along similar lines, but with a different emphasis, Elizabeth Suhay, a political scientist at American University, wrote by email that “the rise in authoritarian parties is primarily driven by discontent among the masses.” Scholars have demonstrated this, she continued, “at the individual level (e.g., whether a person is unemployed) and the national level (e.g., the national unemployment rate).”
Suhay added a crucial caveat:
I would also say that European and U.S. elites are an indirect cause of the rise of authoritarian parties. The neoliberal policies they have championed have led to increased inequality, stagnating wages, and a weaker safety net for most citizens. Economic distress, pessimism, and precarity increase citizens’ interest in radical political candidates and policies, on both sides of the political aisle.
Trump, Suhay argues,
deserves substantial blame for the recent challenges to democracy in the United States. It is difficult to overstate how unique he is on the American political scene with respect to his genuinely authoritarian tendencies. This said, it is important to recognize that a substantial portion of the electorate was strongly attracted to these very tendencies. In my view, it is due to a combination of factors that have generated deep anxiety about their own lives as well as the state of the nation: economic precarity and pessimism, rapidly increasing racial and ethnic diversity, and declining social capital. In response to these anxieties, a powerful person who promises to turn America’s clock back several decades is very attractive.
Acemoglu, the M.I.T. economist, argues that one way to address the discontent with contemporary democracy among so many voters on the right would be to implement traditional center-left economic policies, including many supported by the Biden administration. Acemoglu makes the case that the activist wing of the Democratic Party has undermined the effectiveness of this approach:
The tragedy here is that Democrats have the plans to deliver public services and more broad-based economic growth, and this would help many Trump supporters as well. But Republicans have become very united in blocking all such policies, and Democrats themselves appear to work hard to alienate these groups, for example, by appearing more radical than they truly are, or banding around slogans such as defund the police or open borders.
There is a strong argument, Acemoglu continued,
that not just the United States, but many other countries, need traditional social democratic/labor party type coalitions to support wage growth, worker protection, public service delivery, redistribution, health care and better health services, as well as antimonopoly regulations and policies. But the posturing and noneconomic language that many center-left parties have adopted make the coalition that would support this type of social democratic party much more difficult or even impossible.
Given the intransigent, anti-democratic posture of the Republican Party and its leaders, only the Democratic Party, its shortcomings notwithstanding, is equipped to lead a drive to restore democratic norms. To become an effective force for reform, the party must first cease alienating key swing voters.
While many voters disagree with the progressive movement, especially in its more cultural and identitarian forms, many more agree with its redistributive agenda: the reduction of inequality through the transfer of income, wealth and opportunity to middle and working class America. The stakes in this struggle could not be higher.
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