Let's not fool ourselves though; participatory democracy was never very high on the to-do list of the rule-making class in this country. It shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that there wasn't a right to vote in the original version of the Constitution and that white, male landowners were generally the only ones who could vote. The post-Civil War 15th Amendment prohibited denying the right to vote on the basis of "race, color, or previous condition of servitude", but women still couldn't vote until the 19th Amendment was ratified. Jurisdictions quickly put laws on the books that effectively denied Black Americans the vote by imposition of poll taxes, literacy requirements and even violence. It wasn't until relatively recently that the dominant parties' candidates stopped being chosen in the proverbial smoke-filled rooms and primaries became the rule for choosing candidates. But we have fooled ourselves. We have convinced ourselves that our system is strong and resilient enough to resist the attempts by dishonest politicians to corrupt it. We thought if we just cajoled enough like-minded people to get out and vote, then we could at least elect people who somewhat represented our interests. There's so many things wrong with our assumptions.
First of all, the system itself is weighted. It was designed to be weighted. The Senate gives equal representation to every state, no matter the population. When the Constitution was written each state was more or less its own separate country, its own culture, sometimes with little in common with the other states, so the Senate was designed so that the more populous states couldn't dominate the smaller states. Senators for many years weren't even elected, but were appointed by each state's legislature. Of course the House of Representatives, ostensibly representing populations, was weighted in favor of enslavers, since enslaved people were counted as 3/5th of a person, even though they couldn't vote. The undemocratic nature of Congress spilled over into presidential elections, since the electoral votes that each state had was based on the number of members of Congress. In recent elections we've seen how the Electoral College distorts the results. In the last six elections, we have had two where the losing candidate received more votes than than the winner, and at least one where a few thousand votes in a handful of swing states could have changed the results, awarding the presidency to the candidate with almost 8 million fewer votes.
The current population distribution makes this tilted system even worse. Democratic leaning voters, in general, tend to be clustered in urban centers, while Republicans dominate the rural areas and smaller states. Even though the current Senate is divided evenly, 50-50, the Democratic half represents 40,000,000 more Americans. This is never going to change. You might think that this would be offset by the House of Representatives, where representation is by population, but in many states the House delegation is becoming increasingly undemocratic. In many states the state legislature has control over how district borders are drawn. A party that has control of the redistricting process after a census can, and often does, draw the district lines in such a way as to maximize the chances that their party will remain in power. (Both parties do this, but in recent years Republicans provide the most egregious examples). You can see this in several states that have elected Democrats to statewide offices, yet retain a Republican majority in their legislature and a majority in the Congressional delegation. Often the party in power controls a much higher percentage of seats that the percentage of votes received. By not only gerrymandering the Congressional districts, but the state legislative districts a party can theoretically remain in power indefinitely.
Another anti-democratic feature that we saw several times in recent years involved Republican legislatures reducing the power of Democrats who had defeated Republicans in statewide races. This happened to at least two Republican governors signing laws on their way out to limit their successor's authority. Perfectly legal, if shadily unethical. This predilection of Republican lawmakers to craft laws to retain power has been picking up steam since the 2020 election. I'll get back to that in a moment after a brief return to the US Senate.
The United States Senate has a institutional rule called the filibuster. It used to be a way for a bill's opponent to delay a final vote on a bill he opposed by talking it to death. Since it took 3/5th of the Senate to effectively end the filibuster by ending debate, this meant that there was always the danger of a bill being sunk by minority opposition. In recent years the requirement that a filibusterer take the floor and speak has morphed into a bill needing 60 votes to pass if the opposition merely signals their intent to filibuster. In theory the filibuster ensures that there is broad support for a bill and that a slim majority cannot run roughshod over the minority. In theory. In practice it has become a tool for obstruction. Exceptions to the filibuster have been carved out over the years - it no longer requires 60 votes to confirm federal judges or Supreme Court Justices for example, but in general a minority as small as 41 Senators can kill a bill. Currently, Democratic initiatives are being held up due to united opposition by 50 Republicans and reluctance by several Democrats to eliminate the filibuster.
One of the hallmarks of our system, even at its nadir, was the concept of a peaceful transfer of power. Even when we were more of an oligarchy than a Democratic Republic we could always congratulate ourselves on the fact that the loser always gracefully stepped aside and made way for the winning candidate. This all changed in 2020 when President Trump not only refused to concede, but stirred up his many supporters by claiming that it was really him that won. And not only won, but won by a landslide. He claimed victory on Election Night while votes were still being counted in closely contested states and spent virtually every day through Inauguration Day and beyond casting doubt on the results, refusing to attend his successor's inauguration. This could have been chalked up to a whiney rantings of a petulant loser if not for the fact that thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of his supporters believed him. Some were so convinced by his easily debunked lies that they attacked the US Capitol in an attempt to stop the counting of the electoral votes, the last (mostly symbolic) step in the lection of President Biden.
Since last January 6, Republicans have been busy changing the rules, throwing up roadblocks to voting, purging voter roles and reducing the types of identification needed to register. They have been rewriting election procedures, taking authority for vote counting out of the hands of trained professionals and giving it to legislatures and other partisan bodies. Officials who refused to listen to Trump's entreaties to "find" votes were punished by having their authority curtailed, or by being primaried. All over the country people who vociferously called the last election stolen have been elected to local and state lection boards. The former president continues to call the election stolen, calling for some unspecified action to prevent it from being stolen again. Over a hundred members of Congress voted to not accept as valid electoral votes for President Biden in swing states and continue to back up Trump's lies. With all of these actions, some in plain sight, some hidden away, how can we be sure that these believers in the Big Lie won't do more to overthrow an election than they did in 2020?
Then there's the purely political. Due partly to a razor thin majority and constant obstruction from Republicans, President Biden 's administration is being perceived in many quarters as failed or incompetent, peeling away support that might make the difference in the 2022 Congressional elections. What will happen if the Republicans turn over enough seats to regain the House majority? Impeachment? What about the Senate? With Republicans in charge Biden can say goodbye to confirming any federal judges, let alone any Supreme Court vacancy that might come up.
The biggest reason that our democracy is in danger is the credulousness of so many Americans - willing to believe lies, indulge in conspiracy theories and vote against their own interests. That's the main reason why democracy is all but dead.
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