How Real is the Threat to American Democracy?

 "The Republican party is now clearly an authoritarian party.  It embraces, condones, accepts and promotes political violence, and does not accept electoral defeat.  Their glorification of January 6th proves that they're OK with a violent seizure of power.  If they can't win elections fairly, they'd rather end democracy."  Steven Levitzky, Professor of Political Science, Harvard University 

The election of 2000 was one of those moments that prompted thoughts about the stability and effectiveness of American democracy.  I was teaching high school civics, and in that setting, there are always "what if" questions and proposed extreme possibilities that come from the students curiosity.  When it comes to Presidential elections, the existence of the quirky aberration known as the Electoral College throws in some possibilities that the pure democratic will, expressed by the people at the ballot box, can be subverted.  

A typical high school question is, "How badly could a Presidential candidate lose the popular vote and still win enough states to be elected President?"  That's a good question, because it goes right to the heart of how undemocratic and, as has been proven over the years, how unnecessary the Electoral College is in preventing what the founders feared when they set it up.  

Congress should have learned its lesson after the 1824 election disaster.  There were four candidates, and the top vote getter, Andrew Jackson, was prevented from claiming the majority of electoral votes because the third and fourth place finishers, Henry Clay and William Crawford, who only got 24% of the popular vote between them, received a disproportionate number of electoral votes, 78 out of 261 by carrying five states between them.  The second place finisher, John Quincy Adams, only got 30% of the popular vote, but the 7 states he carried, most of them by very slim margins, had 84 electoral votes, leaving Jackson with 99 votes, though he carried 12 states. 

Clay detested Jackson, and had deep political differences with both he and Crawford.  He went against a Kentucky state legislative resolution supporting Jackson, influencing the state's congressional delegation to vote for Adams which they did, 8-4.  The contingent election is even less democratic than the Electoral College, each state has just 1 vote, regardless of how many members are in its delegation, which means that a candidate can win the election, but not get the majority of total votes among the members of Congress, which is exactly what happened with Adams.  With Clay out of the race at that point, Adams got 13 votes, while Jackson got 7 and Crawford 4, on the strength of the votes of 83 members of the House, a minority since 92 members did not vote for Adams, but split their vote between Crawford and Jackson

Just think about what would happen in this country today around a similar scenario of Electoral votes leading to a contingent House election like this one.  The divisiveness which existed, even in 1824, led up to a civil war that ignited just 32 years after Adams left office.  We've now experienced a President who refused to participate in a constitutional and peaceful transfer of power, incited a militant insurrection with the intention of overturning an election, the constitution and Congressional authority, and states making legislative attempts to control election results that thwart the will of the people.  

The threat is as real as it has ever been.  

The Electoral College plus Gerrymandering are Still the Biggest Threats to American Democracy

The 2020 Presidential Election would have been over as soon as the morning after election day, if there had not been an Electoral College.  The decision made by the will of the American people was clear even before midnight, and by morning, enough of the vote had been counted and recorded to make it very clear that Joe Biden had won.  All the court fights, attempts to strong-arm election officials and secretaries of state in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona, Nevada, Michigan and Wisconsin would have made no difference at all.  

Though the system's safeguards held, the weaknesses were exposed.  The biggest weakness is in the jurisdiction and control that state legislatures have over the election process in their state.  It's easy to see how an influential politician, just like Henry Clay in 1824, could convince a legislative body, or a governor or secretary of state for that matter, to refuse to certify legitimate ballot counts and pick their own electors.  And how electors are chosen is a process controlled by legislation, which can be changed by a state legislature controlled by one party.  

Two states, Nebraska and Maine, already have rules which choose electors by congressional district, a process that is totally subject to a legislature that could easily gerrymander the districts to favor one party.  Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin all have state legislatures dominated by the GOP, though all three states have Democrats in every state executive office, courtesy of the Democratic majority that elected them.  But their state legislative districts, and congressional districts are courtesy of Republican control following the 2010 and now the 2020 census.  Aligning electors based on those district boundaries would allow gerrymandering to determine the outcome of the Presidential election, if enough states resorted to this tactic.  

This problem would be solved by simply abolishing the Electoral College.  In addition to that, a federal commission, intentionally and intensely bi-partisan, should be in charge of drawing congressional districts in the states.  This would eliminate any authority of state legislatures over a federal election process, which is a logical, reasonable assertion of federal authority and would eliminate the partisan political interference of states which should not have that kind of authority.  

Logistics are one Thing; Eliminating the Power of Ignorance is Another

Woeful performance in science and math by American students, compared to the rest of the world, led to an overhaul of the educational objectives with the goal of improving the test scores and making American students competitive with the rest of the industrial world in these areas.  Frankly, our educational system still seems to be hit and miss in their attempts to achieve this goal, with scores not really showing a lot of improvement.  

But our educational system is falling apart and failing completely when it comes to practical education in history, geography, economics, constitution and government, political science and in English language communication skills.  We're now into a third generation that lacks adequate critical thinking skills, the ability to write a clear sentence or paragraph, or to coherently organize their thoughts, ideas and learning experiences.  There's a lack of understanding of how government operates, of the basic principles of constitutional, representative democracy and how it works, and the history behind where those ideas came from.  And I've had a front seat from which to observe this failure, along with the battle scars from fighting for the kind of educational requirements and objectives that are necessary for the preservation of our democracy and our constitution.  

Education is the primary method by which ignorance--and that's not intended as a derogatory term, but as an accurate description of the biggest threat to constitutional democracy that exists--is eliminated.  But most American students are not getting anywhere near what they need to be capable of the kind of critical thinking and understanding of exactly what is at stake, and why we must continuously defend it against individuals promoting ideology that would change it, tear it apart or destroy it for their own selfish interests. 

I consider myself fortunate to have received the balance of my elementary and high school education prior to the shift in objectives toward more technical subjects.  I understand the reason for the increased emphasis in math and science, but not at the sacrifice of social studies and language arts.  One of the reasons the Europeans do so much better than we do is that they don't send their kids home from school in the middle of the afternoon, done for the day, and their expectations for graduation don't have allowances for failure like ours do.  Pick up an eighth grade constitution exam and see what students must know in order to pass.  You'll be shocked and appalled.  

No one who participated in the Trump Insurrection of January 6th knew much about what was on that eighth grade exam, or they wouldn't have been duped into being there.  Listening to and reading some of the comments from those who have been arrested, tried and convicted, or who pled guilty to lesser charges because of their involvement, that fact is made crystal clear.  

I consider a successful education in civics, history and social studies one which leads a student who graduates from high school to register to vote on their eighteenth birthday, and then commits to cast a ballot in every election in which they have the right to vote.  That's a minimum standard.  Volunteering in ways that support representative democracy is a demonstration of belief in the value of constitutionally guaranteed freedoms.  Any expected outcome from education that does less than that is a failure. 

Our Democracy is Teetering in the Balance

It was following that 2000 election that I got a very strong sense of a shift in the political atmosphere and the direction of the country.  I know that what I sensed had been an undercurrent for a long time, but during the Bush administration, I really felt that the corporate, billionaire class was given more control over the government and the economy than had ever been the case before.  The restraints on using money to buy the votes of members of Congress, state legislatures, and clearly, during that administration, the Presidency itself were gone.  

Money flows into politics and it is used to perpetuate ignorance which in turn produces an ill-informed electorate who vote for candidates who are anti-democratic and who support the continued ability of the corporate billionaire class to expand their power and influence, leading to their eventual destruction of democracy.  They will use democratic methods and principles up to the point where they don't need them anymore.  Then those who have supported them will suffer the same as everyone else. 

We are at a point where it will take assertive action on the part of sharp, alert politicians fighting to preserve democratic principles in order to avoid disaster in the form of either a civil war, or government collapse.  The only way to achieve this is for the rest of us to step up and make sure the right people get elected, and that their actions are supported.  There are those who have predicted this outcome, and the end of American democracy, by their own observation.  We have to take steps to make sure their predictions don't come true.