Let’s face it.
Americans are not just worried about the eventual fate of our democracy. They are down on it right now.
Nearly half of Americans now say American democracy does not do a good job of representing us.
Sigh.
This is a sentiment deeper, wider, and more complex than issues of authoritarian menaces, deep states, and election integrity. Arguably, it is more pressing than immigration, inflation, health care reforms, and social mobility.
We have a big problem, and we need our leaders to speak about the broad disillusionment with our democracy and what we should do about it — beyond simply vanquishing the opposing party.
Presidential leadership comes in numerous forms.
In some cases, it requires being a calm voice of clarity amid the din of competing grievances and aspirations across the nation.
In others, it entails directing America’s focus toward slowly building threats that are receiving little or no attention.
The latter takes some amount of courage. One must invest time and political capital that many politicians are loathe to spend.
The topic has been absent from the presidential debate (and the debate moderators are partially responsible for this).
The Thin Line
Self-government implies a plausible connection between the governing and the governed—an authentic dialogue that allows for dispute and informs deliberation.
Yet, consider how thin this connection that has become:
● In 1790, the congressman-to-citizen ratio was about 1-to-30,000. George Washington, among others, argued that it was dangerous to have a larger ratio. Today, the ratio is 1-to-800,000.
● As of the last election, only 8 percent of the congressional districts were regarded as “swing” or “purple,” meaning they were so hotly contested that the final margin of victory was less than 10 percent. Some commentators have taken to debating the fate of our nation in terms of “swing counties”.
● The average cost of a winning congressional campaign has climbed to $2.8 million—roughly 37 times the median household income. If you want to know how warped our political-financial complex has become, just consider the recent financial disclosure statement of Democratic vice-presidential candidate Tim Walz. He shocked Washington elites by reporting that his income was not even twice the median annual income of the rest of Americans.
● Does a citizen’s $100 campaign contribution make a difference? Last year, the wall of special interest lobbying money that stands between you and Congress reached a record $4.26 billion.
● If all this were not sobering enough, candidates and elected officials now routinely use algorithms to aggregate and commodify our profile information while voters are using AI chatbots to evaluate candidates’ positions and manage their democratic engagement.
Can anyone plausibly argue that a world of algorithms speaking to algorithms for the purpose of giving ever-smaller slivers of voters a chance to elect the richest among us is a reasonable approximation of a functioning, democratic republic?
Enough is Enough
This level of attenuation leads to cynicism and disengagement, especially among the young.
Worse, as some have pointed out, the current system conflates our roles as citizens and consumers. Disembodied clicks are no substitute for genuine debate.
We cannot reverse the tide of technology or the depth of inequality overnight, of course. But we can and should begin to have a national debate about ways to increase meaningful civic engagement.
The same social media used to manipulate voters, for example, can be used as a platform to speak more frequently and directly with them, if one establishes a norm of civility. Rep. Jeff Jackson (D) represents the 14th district of North Carolina. He has roughly 750,000 constituents, but he has 2.2 million TikTok followers, largely because his brief explanatory posts about Congress are so clear and accessible.
More broadly, we should recognize that in this age of pervasive data and meta-data, information becomes a kind of currency.
Where one obtains this currency via “large language models” and how it is spent via algorithms should be subject to transparency requirements, just as we have for campaign donations.
We have only scratched the surface in understanding what artificial intelligence will mean for democracy. But one thing is clear: we will need to use soft power—the creation of new norms, values, and mores—to help return our democracy to firmer ground.
Our democracy is threatened not only by authoritarians or mobs. It is threatened by invisible systems and programming that, bit by bit, are sapping its promise and authenticity.