Democracy is not on the ballot, affordability is not the answer

One of the recurring themes of the 2024 election campaign was the argument that “democracy is on the ballot”. Trump had attempted to overthrow US democracy, and regularly mused about the desirability of dictatorship, but had nevertheless been renominated by the Republican Party. That argument went nowhere, and hasn’t been seen in the current midterm campaign.

The optimistic interpretation is that the threat to democracy has faded. Talk of Trump running again in 2028 has diminished, and the SAVE Act, which would disenfranchise millions, has stalled in Congress and won’t apply to the current election. A further reason for optimism is that Trump is now so unpopular that he would lose even a rigged election, as long as there was some attempt to preserve a pretence of electoral competition.

These points may be correct, but they are contingent and circumstantial. The bigger lesson of 2024 is that a plurality of American voters are willing to vote against democracy, and a majority are willing to vote against or abstain. That’s a depressing conclusion for believers in democracy, and one that runs against a lot of previous evidence.

Although there have been many previous periods when government crises have produced a demand for a “man on horseback”, most voters have almost always rejected such candidates. Democracies have been overthrown by coups or (in Germany’s case) by governments which lacked majority support, but rarely in free elections.

So far, we have seen no such rejection. Trump is massively unpopular, but mainly for reasons that apply to many previous presidents: he promised lower prices and instead delivered higher inflation, and he promised to keep the US out of Middle Eastern wars, but started them instead.

By contrast, his attempted overthrow of the constitution in 2021 is barely mentioned. His immigration policies, with masked secret police, concentration camps and deportation of people who have lived in America since infancy, are disapproved of by a slender majority, but remain by far his most popular policy position.

In these circumstances, it’s unsurprising that Democrats have chosen to focus primarily on “affordability”. Relative to the “cost of living”, this framing at least has the merit of implying that wages might be part of the problem. But it does not provide a basis for a repudiation of the Trump regime.¹ Rather, the implied model is one of normal politics, where the Republicans will return to power when and if the economy performs badly under the Democrats.

The one bright spot has been the last-minute shift to focus on Republican corruption. While concerns about the future of democracy are abstract, corruption is comprehensible and hard to conceal. Viktor Orbán’s crushing defeat owed a fair bit to aerial photographs of his country estate, complete with two swimming pools (trivial compared with Trump, but Hungary is a much poorer country).

The difficulty is the (historically well-founded) belief that “both sides do it”. American politics has long been characterised by practices that would be regarded as dubious or unthinkable in many other countries — ambassadorships for some wealthy donors and pardons for others, pork-barrelling on an industrial scale and much more. And, although the US is not alone in this, there has been widespread toleration of sexual harassment and worse. Trump has extended these precedents and gone much further, with leading Republicans following suit. But for someone not paying attention, it’s easy to imagine that this is balanced out by the feckless Hunter Biden, or by fraudulent welfare claims.

Nevertheless, recent surveys suggest that corruption is emerging as a major concern for voters, and that more people perceive the Republicans as the party of corruption. Assuming that the Democrats win control of at least the House of Representatives, and that Trump does not succeed in overturning the result, a central focus of the remainder of Trump’s term should be investigations aimed at establishing universal awareness of Republican financial and moral corruption. The broader view of an “Epstein class”, with complete immunity from any consequences, is part of this.

To be successful, the perception must match reality. That means Democrats must not tolerate any such corruption on their own side, regardless of the political costs of action. This seems to be happening. Although he was given the benefit of the doubt for too long, Graham Platner (widely seen as an ideal candidate) was dumped once credible accusations of sexual harassment emerged.

The elephant in the room here is Bill Clinton, not only for his numerous instances of sexual assault and harassment, but for his corrupt pardon of financier Marc Rich. Democrats as diverse as Kirsten Gillibrand and Bernie Sanders have condemned his actions, but he is still generally regarded as a “party elder”, regularly invited to campaign for Democratic candidates. That needs to stop.

The next step is to extend the critique beyond Trump and his immediate circle to Republicans in general, to the billionaire class that backs them and to the Supreme Court, most obviously Thomas and Alito. There’s ample evidence here, but it will take time to establish it.

Harder, but crucial, is to establish the link between Republican corruption and subversion of democracy through gerrymandering, voter suppression, billionaire financing and, of course, the insurrection. Only when the majority of Americans, including former Trump voters, conclude that voting for Republicans was not just a mistake but a moral failure and abdication of democratic responsibility, will it be possible to undertake a serious reconstruction of US democracy.

¹ Unless affordability is linked to corruption. We can’t have nice things because Trump and the other billionaires have stolen the money. ↩