Is Trump Really The Result of Too Much Democracy?

The blogosphere has been abuzz yesterday and today about Andrew Sullivan’s article in New York magazine where he allows all his fears about Donald Trump to come to the fore, pointing to Socrates’ statement in Plato’s Republic that “tyranny is probably established out of no other regime than democracy”.  I urge you to read the piece in its entirety as I only touch on a handful of issues that he presents – it is truly grim reading.

While I reject his hypothesis that a demagogue like Trump arises from too much democracy, in the sense that the barriers that restrained the passions of the people have been torn down, and that elites are necessary to “provide the critical ingredient to save democracy from itself”, I wholeheartedly agree with his analysis that the anger felt by the working class, as globalization destroyed their livelihoods and recent transformations in societal norms challenged their moral foundations, is the fuel that Trump’s demagoguery feeds on. I’m less convinced that new media, what he calls “media democracy”, is as responsible as he makes out for allowing someone like Trump to emerge – as Sullivan himself points out, we’ve seen these populist demagogues, such as Huey Long and George Wallace, in earlier eras as well. And I think his de-emphasis of money in politics, using as an example the failure of some well financed candidates such as Jeb Bush, misses the bigger point that the influence that is purchased with political money shapes the governing agendas of both parties, limiting action on policies that are either broadly popular or issues of concern with a vast majority of the electorate, further fueling voter anger with the system and the elites.

However, I think the most important issue that he basically ignores is that the present Republican Party has become a party that is seemingly incapable of governing, of making the compromises necessary to move forward.  They have had the same responses to virtually every issue for the last 40 years and those responses have proven to be ineffective in solving the problems they are supposed to address. And the supposed moderating influence of Senate Republicans is nowhere to be found as they are paralyzed and polarized by the fear of a primary challenge from the right. Therefore, it’s not surprising that the elites in the party have been unable to stop Trump – they have lost all credibility with their own voters. And the other elite moderating institutions have also compromised their integrity with the voting public.  The anti-democratic Bush v. Gore, the seeming abandonment of principles to craft essentially political decisions, the angry tirades of the late Justice Scalia, all of these have helped erode the integrity of the Supreme Court. Additionally, the lack of any accountability by the legal system for the destruction of the American and world economies by the masters of the universe on Wall Street feeds the lack of faith in our traditional institutions. And Trump was and is only too happy to fill that void.

I do wholeheartedly agree with Sullivan that we dismiss Trump’s chances in the general election at our own peril. He has avoided the continual expectation of his imminent implosion and has exceeded his pre-election polling numbers in the many of the Republican primaries. And Hillary has not shown herself to be an especially effective candidate, as her negatives seem to grow the more people see of her. Her inherent cautiousness and the fact that she is viewed as a classic symbol of the elite establishment will also be exploited by Trump. Additionally, like Sullivan, I am extremely anxious about what an external event like a terrorist attack could do to enhance the fear factor that a tyrant like Trump feeds on. I’m not sure our democracy could survive a Trump presidency – let’s hope we don’t have a chance to test that belief.