Fault Lines of Democracy

By Anodea Judith, Ph.D.

Author of The Global Heart Awakens

It’s a common phenomenon in organizations and politics to blame individuals, rather than question the system in which they function. With the devastating results of the 2024 election, there is plenty of finger-pointing going on. There’s criticism of Kamala Harris for failing to appeal to working class voters. There’s blaming Biden for not stepping down sooner. There’s disparagement of Democrats for general weakness and failure to seize the narrative. There’s blaming the press for whom conflict is clickbait. The list goes on.

Donald Trump won for many reasons, but among them were the voters who simply blame whomever is in charge and think the next person will do better. When you put the fault on individuals, you get the mistaken idea that changing the person will change the system. But it never happens that way.

George Washington and John Adams warned the nation that the two-party system would be the demise of democracy. In his farewell address, published in September 1796, Washington said: (emphasis mine)

“However [political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.”

He further went on to say: “The spirit of party serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection.”

Sound familiar?

John Adams, the second president, said:

“There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution.”

It’s no secret we live in a divided country. But it’s also evident that the Republican/Democrat duality hangs by the apex of a balance. Control of the Senate goes back and forth by one or two seats every two years. The House of Representatives narrowly squeaked to a Republican majority. Kamala Harris only lost the popular vote by about 3,000,000—roughly the same as Hilary Clinton’s surplus in 2016.

When the two-party system has this close a balance among the electorate, it guarantees that no matter who is elected, close to 50% of the people are unhappy. That unhappiness increases dramatically when the cabinet and staff appointed by the president-elect completely obliterate the personnel, policies, and values of the party that was defeated. Yes, the pendulum eventually swings to the other side, but without integration, it is a perpetual back and forth that locks us in stalemate, wastes taxpayer money, and keeps us all agitated. In a situation where the guardrails of democracy have been all but eliminated, the consequences of an unprincipled leader are disastrous.

The cost of this year’s election neared $16 billion, the most expensive ever. What could that money have been used for instead of perpetuating this battle? Progress on climate change? Programs for the poor? Science and Education?

Citizens United, a misleading name for the Supreme Court’s ruling in 2010, only exacerbated this divide by allowing unlimited corporate donations to political parties, overturning the restrictions that dated back more than 100 years. Such a system of dominance by the wealthy, further increases the racial and gender wealth gap. It perpetuates a system that doesn’t work, and promises to fix it using the same tactics that created the problem in the first place.

What did George Washington propose instead?

No parties. The original constitution said that the runner up candidate would be the Vice President. That changed with the 12th amendment, but even then, the VP was voted on separately, not an assumed running mate.

There are many systemic failures to address in what’s left of our democracy: corporate dominance, racism, sexism, gerrymandering, and misinformation, to name but a few, but all are fed by a two-party system in which all of us lose.

Democracy in the U.S. is already broken. It has long failed its constituents. The question isn’t “How do we fix it?” The question is what can we create that’s better?

Posted by Anodea Judith - 11/14/2024