A long-held belief in the United States was that American institutions and processes were superior to other nations. This idea was so strong that the public would not accept practices from abroad. I can remember politicians losing favor after suggesting that the United States adopt some idea or practice from a European country.
In showing how the United States is experiencing minority rule, Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, in their new book, Tyranny of the Majority, describe some of our institutions and practices as the culprits. In other words, these institutional practices are the reasons for our relatively low “democracy grade.” These chickens—problematic American institutions–have come home to roost.
The Global Freedom Index indicates our retreat from democracy. Freedom House, a nonprofit organization located in Washington, D.C., tracks the health of democracies. The Global Freedom Index gives each country a score between 0 and 100, with 100 meaning the most democratic. In 2015, the United States scored 90, in line with countries like Canada, Italy, France, Germany, Japan, Spain, and the United Kingdom. But by 2021, the U.S. score had declined to 83.
America’s score of 83 was lower than that of every other established democracy, and it was equal to the score of troubled democracies like Argentina, the Czech Republic, and Lithuania.
Geography and racism have created a new political alignment in the country. First, the rise of cities in the twentieth century changed politics. What began as a small-state bias became a rural-state bias and later a partisan bias. Before the civil rights movement, rural voters in the South were overwhelmingly Democratic. After the civil rights revolution, the White rural South moved into the Republican Party, pulled substantially by Richard Nixon’s Southern Strategy (playing the racism game).
On top of these changes, our institutions have become more problematic. Levitsky and Ziblatt described the recent anti-democratic workings of four key American institutions—the Electoral College, the Senate, the Supreme Court, and the Electoral System. I have written previously about the anti-democratic Electoral College and the U.S. Senate.
The Electoral College system, based on its slave-is-three-fifths-of-a-person rule and its overvaluing of small states, has always been problematic for democracy; however, this harmful potential was dormant throughout the 20th century.
Until 2000, every president who won the White House won both the popular vote and the Electoral College. Since 2000, both Republican presidents who won the White House won the Electoral College but not the popular vote.
This same anti-democratic representation works in the Senate. In the 21st century, every time Republicans have controlled the Senate, they have represented a minority of the population.
Like the Electoral College, the anti-democratic nature of the Senate has always existed. Still, it did not systematically favor one party over the other until the recent geographic political party realignment.
Democrats and Republicans used to win Senate seats in big and small states at comparable rates, but the shift of rural voters toward the GOP has turned the Senate’s overrepresentation of rural areas into a clear Republican advantage.
The Supreme Court is the third of this quartet of problematic institutions. As a result of the anti-democratic operation of the Electoral College and the Electoral College and the U.S. Senate, four of the current Supreme Court members were selected by a Republican president who was not elected by a majority of American voters and were then confirmed by a U.S. Senate whose Republican majority was elected by a minority of American voters. The result is a Court whose rulings are at odds with the majority opinion of the American people.
The fourth problematic institution facilitating minority rule is the electoral system, which produces artificial majorities and permits political parties that win fewer votes to control legislatures.
Democrats often win a majority of the statewide vote. Still, since their voters are concentrated in overwhelmingly Democratic districts while Republicans win more closely fought races, Republicans can win legislative majorities while winning fewer votes overall.
When we add to this list of anti-democratic institutions and practices the current wave of voter suppression and gerrymandering, the United States democracy score might be gratuitous.
As Levitsky and Ziblatt state, “Opinion surveys make clear that a majority of Americans hold broadly inclusive values and embrace the principles of liberal and multi-racial democracy. But our institutions are frustrating that majority.”
We have minority rule!
