Democracy’s Equilibrium
In my previous post, I discussed how the Left-Right spectrum we consider USA politics in terms of can be boiled down to beliefs on power concentration. Today, I’m going to use that spectrum to depict the never-ending battle democracy faces to stay intact. As a reminder, here is the spectrum, with some of the more relevant political stances placed at their approximate position on the power spectrum.
Figure 1: Power Concentration Spectrum
An important thing to note is that this spectrum extends beyond where democracy can exist on both sides of the spectrum. Fascism by definition cannot exist within a democracy, and neither can Communism. Socialism is a bit trickier, as Democratic Socialism can exist within a democracy, as the name implies. On the other hand, Revolutionary Socialism - the “Socialism” that’s long been the bad guy in American rhetoric - cannot. Note that I’m referring to real democracy here; symbolic democracies where the elections are rigged do not count. Fascists can hold elections where they are guaranteed to win, but that doesn’t make their government a democracy. With this understanding, we can assign positions on the spectrum to the points beyond which democracy will necessarily be dismantled. The portion between those two cliffs is where democracy must live.
Figure 2: Political Spectrum with Democracy Cliffs
Now, if we take that spectrum and place each voting citizen at their place along the spectrum, there will be what we’ll call the tipping point. The tipping point is the position where, if everyone on the right voted Republican and everyone on the left voted Democrat, it would be a tie. Of course, in the USA one person’s vote doesn’t necessarily count as much as another’s, thanks to the Electoral College, but there is still a similar idea of how much of the spectrum a candidate/party needs to appeal to to retain power. Showing this on the spectrum, we get the following.
Figure 3: Political Spectrum with Tipping Point
In a perfect democracy, the side with the most voters would hold power. In practice, it’s hard to make a democracy perfect, which means one side may be able to win without a plurality. The USA is certainly an example of this - see the 2000 and 2016 presidential election results. It’s important to note that the side with the most voters doesn’t necessarily mean the side with more space on the spectrum. It’s possible for the electorate to concentrate on one side or the other. This will play an important role shortly.
Over time, the tipping point can move right or left, by either moving the electorate along the spectrum, or by rigging the system to win with less support. Here is my approximation of the tipping point over time in recent USA history.
Figure 4: Approximate Tipping Point vs. Time in USA
Now, in any electorate, there are people that fall all over the spectrum, including outside of the democracy range. In general, people on the extreme ends of the spectrum want to pull the tipping point on the spectrum to be closer to them. Doing this means that they can retain power without needing support from moderates. When this happens, they can enact more extreme policies and not risk losing their required voter base to keep power. There are also people who prefer moderate policies, who would want to pull the tipping point back to the center, no matter which side it’s on. What results is a sort of tug-of-war of the tipping point, between the two extremes of the spectrum, with moderates joining either side once they’re losing.
The key to this tug-of-war is, if the tipping point makes it all the way to either of the democracy cliffs, that side wins and democracy is over. If all you need to win power is the support of the fascism supporters, you can use the power they give you to enact fascism, and once that’s done, you can cancel elections, and nothing within democracy can stop it, since the power was given to you by the electorate. The same holds for communism. Only a revolution can bring democracy back at that point.
In this way, the strength of a democracy can be measured by its ability to keep the tipping point between the cliffs. There are several ways to do this, which I’ll get to shortly, but first I want to give a physical analogy to this tug-of-war. If we think of the tipping point as a ball that can roll right and left, the shape of the ground it’s rolling on can show the defenses democracy uses to keep it from falling off a cliff on either side. Here’s one take on what that might look like.
Figure 5: A Strong Democracy
In Mechanics, the equilibrium of an object is where it will naturally end up, given enough time. In the case above, the equilibrium would be in the center, which is the lowest point. If we get rid of the bowl shape in the center and just make it flat with the bumps on either side, then any point along the flat portion would be an equilibrium.
Now, let’s see what the different features of the diagram mean, and how they can be manipulated. First, the general bowl shape comes in part from the fact that, as the tipping point moves more to one side, the other side should gain more supporters, who will try to pull the tipping point back. The further in either direction, the greater that effect. This is mirrored in the slope increasing the further from center you get, making it harder to push the ball in that direction.
That effect relies on people holding the same position along the spectrum, even while the tipping point, and with it the political narrative, change. If, instead, people follow a party even as they become more extreme, this effect is lost. This amounts to them being pushed by the tipping point as it moves, which means they can be pushed right off one of the cliffs and welcome the end of democracy, even though their original position was inside the democracy range. This is extremely dangerous, and is a reason why I am strongly opposed to any party affiliation. In this case, the center portion would be more flat. Fox News, which has been shown to make people less informed than if they didn’t watch the news, is an example of a mechanism to move a portion of the electorate right. MSNBC is the closest analog for the left, though it’s not as extreme or openly nefarious as Fox. With this in mind, let’s update our diagram.
Figure 6: A Democracy without Independently-Thinking Voters
The other contributor to the general shape is the set of rules that prevent one party from rigging the system in their favor - checks and balances. However, there’s an obvious flaw in checks and balances, at least as far as the USA’s go: if one side gets enough power, they can rig the checks and balances in their favor, which in turn makes it easier for them to gain more power and further rig the system in their advantage. This means the center actually bows up, since the further you move the tipping point, the easier it is to rig the system without losing voters.
The USA has seen a fair bit of rigging through gerrymandering, disproportional representation in the Senate and Electoral College, and election rigging. All have favored Republicans, which, in conjunction with Fox News, is why the tipping point is so far right in the USA. Let’s update our diagram again to show this.
Figure 7: An Easy-to-Rig Democracy without Independently-Thinking Voters
Looking at this diagram, it’s clear we were destined to end up at the point we’re at now. The disproportionate representation by the Electoral College and the Senate means the ball was placed right of center at the start, and the bow makes it just a matter of time until that advantage yields further rigging.
Finally, those steep bumps on either side of the diagram represent the most extreme of the checks and balances: Impeachment. Impeachment doesn’t only have to happen when the tipping point reaches one of the extremes, but it is supposed to be enacted in the case that it does, representing a final barrier to falling off the democracy cliff.
That is where the USA is right now.
Donald Trump has made it clear that he feels he is above the law and can do anything he wants. He has, in a letter formally written from the White House, announced that he doesn’t recognize the Legislative Branch as an equal. He has made his intent to tamper with the 2020 election abundantly clear by admitting to asking Ukraine to help him do so. For good measure, one of his advisers also confirmed they intend to rig the 2020 election even more than past elections. He has said he’ll run for more than two terms. He tells the populace to listen to him and to deny facts coming from reputable sources.
These are the textbook actions of a dictator taking over a democracy.
The Republican party as a whole has also supported him; without that he would be removed from office by now. This has made it clear they want to pull the tipping point off the Right Democracy Cliff. The only question now is whether our democracy can stop them.
The House of Representatives pulled their weight by impeaching Trump, but Republican Senators made it clear from the start that they would automatically acquit Trump rather than holding a fair trial. This means that our last defense against democracy failing has been removed. Let’s update our diagram one last time, courtesy of the Republican Party.
Figure 8: An Easy-to-Rig Democracy without Independently-Thinking Voters, without Impeachment
Clearly, this is not good. Unless structural changes to our democracy are made, it’s just a matter of time before that ball falls off. At this point we have to hope that we haven’t already fallen off the cliff, and fight for the 2020 election to save our democracy. Since we already know there’s plans to rig the 2020 election, that might mean we have already fallen off the cliff and just haven’t landed yet in the fascist region. The question is whether they will be so rigged that Republican wins are guaranteed, or if Democrats will still have a chance.
Path Forward
One thing is for sure: even though there’s a chance it’s too late, the American people need to fight for democracy. It is hard to overstate how bad things could become, and quick, in this country. Trump is a man who has already played a significant role in two genocides (Kurds, Mexicans), publicly called for the killing of a law-abiding, patriotic citizen of his own country (whistleblower), privately called for another (Ambassador Yovanovitch), banned immigrants purely based on their perceived religion (Muslims), called for a second Civil War in the USA, tried to pull funding for disaster relief in a state that voted against him (California wild fires), is controlled by arguably the USA’s number one international enemy (Russia), admires oppressive governments (China/Tianenman Square), and is clearly deteriorating mentally. If a future where that man has unlimited power doesn’t scare you, then, frankly, you clearly aren’t thinking it through. He’s shown time and again that there is no act so bad that he wouldn’t do it to benefit himself. And Trump cannot have the power he does alone. The impeachment trial has shown that the entire Republican party is in on it with him. For that reason, a vote for any Republican in 2020 is a vote for the very real possibility of genocide, information control, and civil war within the United States of America. This moment right now in the USA is the reason history is taught in school - those who don’t learn from it are bound to repeat it.
We need to vote Democrat to push the tipping point back toward the center, and we need to vote Democrat because they are the ones trying to uphold and rebuild the walls of our democracy, while the Republicans are trying to tear them down. Even if you don’t like the Democratic party’s economic policies, you need to vote for them if you ever want your vote to count again. While you’re at it, you should reconsider your opinion of Democrats’ economic policies, since they work significantly better.
In 2020, a vote for a Democrat is a vote for democracy.
