Daniel Stid: The Meaning of Democracy in Nine Words
Newsletter 298 - November 14, 2024
For this newsletter, we are reprinting an article that Daniel Stid published ton his blog "The Art of Association" on November 4 — just before the U.S. presidential election. I really liked it, and asked him if we could republish it here, without thinking about the fact that we couldn't possibly do that before the election, making part of this article moot. We now know who won, we know that Donald Trump did not declare victory prematurely, and it was not as Daniel (and most everyone else) expected, a knife edge election. It was a definitive election that has left one side is elated and the other side devastated.
That said, the core of Daniel's post has much to tell us about the nature of democracy and the way in which we should think about future elections and, especially, this recent election. As we explain in our commentary below his article, Daniel's "nine words" do much to explain why this election was an affirmation of democracy, not its end. And his final point is very important. Daniel argues that learning to accept a loss gracefully is part of "civic culture." If that is lacking, he says, that's where we need to start working to defend democracy. He might have been thinking about the possibility of another January 6 when he wrote that. Clearly, that will not happen. Kamala Harris' concession speech seems like the kind of constructive response that Daniel had in mind, especially when she stated clearly that she accepted the results of the election and would help facilitate an orderly transfer of power. We will share a few more thoughts about that following Daniel's essay.
The Meaning of Democracy in Nine Words
By Daniel Stid (Originally published on November 4, 2024; reposted here on November 14, 2024)
With everything that appears to be at stake in this presidential election, it sounds off-key to refer to it as a coin-flip. But given the odds of either candidate and party prevailing over their opponents, that is what it is.
The situation has prompted me to return to a pithy definition of democracy from the political scientist Adam Przeworski: “Democracy is a system in which parties lose elections.”
The simplicity of these nine words is deceptive. Consider seven others that they imply:
Contestation – Parties and their candidates offer voters partial and competing views of what government should do.
Uncertainty – The outcome may at times be predictable (or not!), but it is never predetermined. Voters decide who wins and who loses.
Recurrence – “Elections” is plural. The game, if you will, continues in an ongoing series. With each round, the contestation and uncertainty returns.
Rules – The “system” of recurring contests entails procedures capable of governing the electoral competition and resolving disputes.
Decision – There is an outcome that is authoritative, resolving the question — until the next election — of who won and lost, i.e., “who governs?”
Toleration – Winners agree to submit to future elections. More importantly, losers accept their (temporary) status and agree to play again.
Non-violence – There are other ways to decide who governs than a system in which parties lose elections. But the alternatives rely on violence. [Elections do not.]
The conflicting visions cast by Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, combined with the knife edge over who will prevail, are astonishing. The candidates and their partisans portray the election, not as the next round of a recurring competition, but rather as an apocalyptic showdown. This is not a framing that sets up those on the losing side to accept their defeat.
Based on his past actions and statements leading up to this election, we can expect Donald Trump to declare victory prematurely and continue insisting that he won, even if he loses. In his view, only a rigged contest in which his opponents have cheated can deny him the office that he and many of his supporters see as rightfully his. If this scenario comes to pass, they will once again take their cues from him.
We have one silver lining in this scenario. There is a substantially reduced risk of the sort of violence we witnessed on January 6, 2021 from a mob of electoral losers. The buttressing of the Electoral Count Act, and the prosecutions of 1,500 rioters (so far) who took part in that debacle, make its repeat less likely. Public officials will not be caught off-guard this time, and the sitting president will take care that the laws are faithfully executed.
But what happens if Trump wins outright? I expect in that case that Vice President Harris would concede the election, consistent with her prior statements to this effect. There would be a peaceful transfer of power, ironically back to the leader who did all he could to thwart one four years ago. This continues to be a profound and fundamental discrepancy between the parties.
When it comes to at least some of the Vice President’s supporters, however, I am less confident they are prepared to lose the election. They have been repeatedly told (not that they needed to be convinced) that Trump is a fascist, and that the fate of democracy in America hinges on his defeat. And they have been encouraged to conflate their policy preferences on abortion, immigration, climate change, racial justice, etc. with an expansive definition of democracy.
Should Harris lose, will these partisans stand back up, dust themselves off, and seek to broaden their coalition so that they have a better chance of winning next time? Or will they attribute her defeat to voter suppression, foreign interference, or racism among Trump’s supporters such that they do not regard his election as legitimate?
The unwillingness of many partisans to lose an election does not mean that democracy in America is dead or dying. But it is a serious comorbidity we must remedy. At the same time, we also need to remember that there are approximately 520,000 elected offices in this country. In the next election to determine who should hold 99.9% of these positions, there will not be sustained disputes over who has won or lost them. We have that going for us.
Regular readers of this blog might think, hang on — isn’t Daniel always telling us that democracy in America cannot be reduced to who wins (or loses) national elections? Doesn’t Przeworski’s definition of democracy suggest otherwise? Not really. It presumes a civic culture with sufficient strength and a sense of shared citizenship such that it can encompass and help us work out our political disagreements in peaceable ways.
Ultimately, it is our civic culture that prepares parties and partisans to lose elections (or not). If some are refusing to do so, the remedy will be found not in the domains of politics or government but in the renewal of our civic culture. Whatever the outcome of today’s election, for those wishing to defend democracy, that is the work that lies ahead.
Heidi and Guy's Further Thoughts
The one other silver lining of this election is that most participants and observers seem to believe it was fair. Not only are claims of a rigged election rare; we have heard many stories about how precinct after precinct took exceptional care to make sure that the election process went smoothly and transparently, so there were few surprises. As a result, the large proportion of people (mostly, but not entirely, on the conservative side of the aisle) who thought the election was going to be rigged, saw that that American elections actually are fairly conducted after all (or at least this one was). The electoral process has legitimacy once again — Something that is obviously critical, which is highly important for electoral democracies to succeed. So while some of the promises Trump has made sound very undemocratic, and cause people to fear that democracy in the United States is either "over" or "profoundly threatened," the increased trust in elections that resulted from this election is a significant boost to the strength of U.S. democracy, compared to what we would have had if Trump had narrowly lost the election — an outcome that would, again, have been deeply mistrusted.
Will Harris's supporters accept the outcome of the election? (Daniel, above, feared some would not.) By and large they seem to have accepted their loss. Democratic Rep. Brendan Boyle of Philadelphia said:
This is not just one storyline. This is not just someone using this to explain their priors, right? This is pretty systematic. This is a solid Republican victory, and the largest Republican victory by a presidential candidate since Ronald Reagan in 1984" in Pennsylvania. “I don’t think any Democrat who wants to improve upon this situation should sugar coat this.
While some commentators attribute the loss to the stupidity or even evil character of the other side, saying "they [Trump's voters] were misled" or "duped," or "they are racist"), that doesn't seem to be the common reaction, at least among the pundits who are writing about the outcome in the media. Among the reasons we have frequently read:
Harris refused to make a clean break from Biden and his policies of the last four years.
Harris didn't have enough time to run a good campaign after Biden withdrew so late in the process, and similarly,
Harris wasn't vetted through the primary process since Biden withdrew so late in the process
The Harris campaign was poorly run.
Trump's ads were more effective. One commonly cited is the ad featuring Harris' support for providing taxpayer-funded gender transition-related medical care for detained immigrants and federal prisoners.
Harris spent too much time focusing on Trump's anti-democratic tendencies (which everyone knew about) and didn't spend enough time focusing on her own policies. So people said they didn't know what she favored.
And, as we said before, voters didn't like Biden's policies of the last four years, and not having any other information, they reasoned that Harris would be four more years of the same. So they rejected that.
None of that is blaming others. It is not blaming foreign actors. It is not blaming the media. It is not blaming, even, Donald Trump. It suggests that the Democrats do understand that they didn't put together a winning coalition, and they will have to do something different in the future if they want to win the next time around.
This is exactly what should happen in a healthy democracy. Let's look back at Daniel's list:
Contestation – Parties and their candidates offer voters partial and competing views of what government should do. THIS HAPPENED
Uncertainty – The outcome may at times be predictable (or not!), but it is never predetermined. Voters decide who wins and who loses. THIS HAPPENED
Recurrence – “Elections” is plural. The game, if you will, continues in an ongoing series. With each round, the contestation and uncertainty returns. UNCERTAIN This is a bit (though not much) uncertain. Trump did promise a group of his supporters that they would not ever have to vote again, which made the Democrats apoplectic. It seems highly unlikely, however, that Trump will be healthy enough to consider staying beyond his four year term, and even if he does, it seems quite far-fetched that he would be able to abrogate the Constitution to eliminate elections. So we see this, most likely, as an empty threat.
Rules – The “system” of recurring contests entails procedures capable of governing the electoral competition and resolving disputes. THIS IS STILL TRUE
Decision – There is an outcome that is authoritative, resolving the question — until the next election — of who won and lost, i.e., “who governs?” THIS HAPPENED
Toleration – Winners agree to submit to future elections. More importantly, losers accept their (temporary) status and agree to play again. THIS HAPPENED
Non-violence – There are other ways to decide who governs than a system in which parties lose elections. But the alternatives rely on violence. THIS ELECTION WAS DECIDED NONVIOLENTLY
So, looking at Daniel's list, this election proved that democracy is still alive in the United States, and it worked as it is intended to work. The Democrats, of course, are very concerned that it won't work like this in two or four years; they fear that Trump and the Republicans will have so "fixed" the system that Democrats will never stand a chance again.
While this is remotely possible, it becomes less possible if the public steps up and is loud, making their support for the democratic process and for "free and fair elections" loud and clear. So just as Daniel said at the end of his essay, what we need to work on is our "civic culture." He said we need to strengthen it so that both sides are willing to lose elections. We would add to that that we need to strengthen it so our elected leaders know that we want free and fair elections, and we want our representatives to represent us well, work for our interests and needs, and work collaboratively to solve the many problems facing the United States and its citizens. It is time to end our destructive hyper-polarization, and go back to a civic culture in which all Americans work to make America as great as it can be without denigrating or disempowering or ignoring the interests, concerns, and needs of their political adversaries.
One last point. Had the election been much closer (perhaps with a narrow Harris victory), then the things that Daniel was worried about could easily have happened. The truth remains that, for really close elections, there are serious questions about the ability of the system to withstand the stress (especially when political leaders and many of their followers do not trust the system). The situation would, of course, be even more serious If one party were willing to fabricate stories of vote counting irregularities. The fact that this election was conducted without incident does not mean that the danger has passed. Continuing vigilance and contingency planning will continue to be needed, as will scrupulous and transparent effort to assure all voters that their votes are being accurately counted. Nevertheless, the fact that this election worked and is widely trusted is a positive development that may help re-establish the precedent of trustworthy and trusted elections.
Photo credit for the Lead Graphic: Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f7/ElectoralCollege2024.svg .. Attribution: Chessrat, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
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