We need a new theory of democracy – because this version has failed

The author struggles to understand opposition voters. Instead of attempting to empathize, he demonizes. Instead of attempting to understand their rationalizations, he concludes that they are irrational. He accuses the opposition media outlets of being propaganda.

Of course, from his perspective, his political ideals and motives are purely altruistic, rational and high minded. His own publication and aligned partisans never engage in misleading propaganda techniques. The problems are all due to the 'other' tribe. Those deplorable people who are unable to make the correct choices.

No matter where you are politically, the problems in this approach should be apparent.

There are reasonable arguments to be made against the premises of democracy. Do nine out of ten people have a "right" to redistribute the tenth person's ice cream cone? When the state ineptly delivers each a spoonful of warm, melted ice cream, will that be the outcome the voters chose, or a fraudulent bait-and-switch?

The author doesn't address any of that. He drives by smugly while hurling partisan accusations out of the window.

We don't need a "new theory of democracy" - we need to actually follow the Constitution we already have.

The author's concerns about majority rule leading to bad outcomes? That's exactly why the founders created a constitutional republic, not a pure democracy. They knew about mob rule and designed safeguards against it.

The Constitution already handles these problems:

Contradictory voting patterns: Federalism lets states make their own choices. If Kentucky votes against Medicaid expansion, that's their call - other states can do differently and we can all see what works.

Demagogues: Separation of powers stops any president from becoming a dictator. Congress controls spending, courts check unconstitutional acts, and the First Amendment protects counter-speech.

Protecting rights: The Bill of Rights and 14th Amendment protect individuals even when majorities disagree.

Rather than throwing out 250 years of constitutional law, maybe we should just enforce what we have? The framework works when we actually use it. The real problem isn't that democracy has "failed" - it's that we've stopped following our own rules.

Democracy is sometimes a lesson in priorities. The polling figures showed by the author in the beginning of the article are missing other dimensions where Americans also wanted action, and which differ from the Democratic agenda, so a Republican was elected.

The question which needs to be asked is how should people be brought to some moderate or centrist position along all vectors to discourage residing on political extremes, and prevent destabilizing behaviors. You can guarantee civil rights for all citizens under a center-left or center-right political alignment.

If you look at the figures, approximately 71% of Americans make $56000 or more per year, where the middle class is around 52% earning between 56K-169K per year. So it seems unlikely that the majority of Americans might want to vote for anything which further increases the strain on their expendable income, but they might vote for something which reduces their tax burden, which is higher on middle income earners for any number of reasons.

So it’s understandable why driving people to political extremes is desirable for in-state actors in such a scenario because someone may be more likely to vote against their interests if they’re emotionally charged, which doesn’t even include the action of nation state actors for further increasing a political divide.

For a long time now, I've hoped to see some kind of system emerge where law was written in a publicly accessible git-like system. I know some places are trending this way, but it would be so good to see with commits with relevant information and cases attached to each "push." I wonder if this could be a better and more open way for public consensus an ultimately enforcement, but the latter is always the most difficult part. And not only due to corruption, but external and unplanned factors too. This is where branching would be cool to see, where special cases are addressed. It would be a future historian's wet dream too lol. I wonder if this system, modeled on open source collaboration, would naturally cause a more horizontal strucure with better equity.

> According to polling data, 62 percent of Americans favor the government being responsible for the health coverage of all people in the country. Sixty-five percent of Americans polled favored the infrastructure bill passed during Joe Biden’s presidency. In a poll taken just last year, 63 percent of Americans wanted to increase trade with other countries, and 75 percent worried that tariffs would raise consumer prices. Another poll found 83 percent of likely voters, including 80 percent of Republicans, supported providing federal housing assistance after a natural disaster.

> Yet in 2024, a near-majority of voters chose a president who would not only not improve medical access, but would adopt a policy to drop coverage for at least 10 million Americans who are currently insured. His other policies include neglecting infrastructure (with the exception of ICE detention facilities), and rescinding unspent funds from the Biden infrastructure bill. FEMA has been cut, and the president has imposed the highest tariffs since the Smoot-Hawley Act almost a century ago.

> What explains this behavioral disconnect on the part of voters?

I think there's only a disconnect because of the author's flawed theory of how the world works. It would be like an article wondering: "Why did Americans elect Barak Obama, a White Sox fan, when only a small minority of Americans are White Sox fans?" It's because people don't pick the president based on which baseball team they like. The author has lined up polling data on a long list of public policies, but doesn't present any evidence that these are deciding issues for voters.

Psychologists and social scientists have been explaining for decades that the model of voters casting their votes based on public policy positions is not an accurate reflection of reality. Instead, the modal voter aligns with a politician or party usually based upon what is socially expedient for that individual (i.e. what will help me be liked by my friends and family, which is why age and zip code alone get you most of the way to predicting someone's vote). Many voters don't have opinions on individual public policies, but to the extent they do, they usually adopt the policy choices of their chosen party. It's why you can pretty accurately predict someone's opinion on immigration based on their opinion on gender ideology or some other unrelated position.

The red [flagged] and the majority of comments in this thread provide a good understanding why democracy has a hard time in America these days.

There is a difference between supporting the stated aim of a policy (infrastructure, healthcare) and the implementation. Biden’s “infrastructure” bill was just an insane grift to all the Democrat special interests, see Ezra Klein talking about the broadband funding.

This is comparing push polling “are you in favor of a free money tree” with voting.

> But now an extremist group, the Alternative for Germany or AfD, may become that nation’s biggest political party,

It is is supported by most, it is, by definition, not extremist. The word has a meaning, and it was not "something I happen to dislike"