The Great Democracy

by Ganesh Sitaraman

  China expert Minxin Pei argues that neoliberal reforms from the Deng Xiaoping era are the root of the country’s growing problem with corruption and oligarchy. Just as in the former states of the Soviet Union, China engaged in privatization and decentralization in the 1990s. But frequently, Chinese privatization—particularly of lucrative state assets like mining and lands—only extended to use rights rather than complete ownership rights. Combined with decentralization of administrative power to lower levels of government, the opportunity for collusion became evident: local government officials had the power to grant private actors use rights over land, and private actors, in turn, made it worthwhile for officials to give them the contracts.26

  The result was widespread corruption. Consider the example of Zhou Yongkang, who was on the Politburo Standing Committee (one of the most powerful bodies in China) and received a life sentence for corruption in 2015. During Zhou Yongkang’s sentencing, the court said that his wife and son had taken 129 million yuan in bribes and the family had 2.1 billion yuan in illegal earnings. This isn’t an isolated incident. In a bombshell story, the New York Times reported in 2012 that Prime Minister Wen Jiabao’s family had amassed $2.7 billion during his rise through the ranks of government. So significant is corruption in China that even Xi Jinping has condemned it and made fighting it a central part of his agenda. But what remains unclear is whether Xi’s anti-corruption efforts are bona fide attempts at public integrity or maneuvers designed to solidify and expand his power.27

  The Chinese government has also responded to the realities of an oligarchic economy with greater nationalism and centralization. As Zhang Yunling, director of international studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing, put it, “Patriotism is very important for a rising power.” For his part, Xi has recognized that reinvigorating national ideology is critical for preserving the regime: “The disintegration of a regime often starts from the ideological area, political unrest and regime change may perhaps occur in a night, but ideological evolution is a long-term process. If the ideological defenses are breached, other defenses become very difficult to hold.” Carl Minzner, a scholar of Chinese law, observes that “playing the populist card has gone hand in hand with reinforcing hardline policies.” The government has identified “Seven Nos,” including universal values, a free press, civil society, and an independent judiciary. Meanwhile, Xi has gained more and more control over all aspects of the government, with the government abolishing limits on a third term in office.28

  Russia, Hungary, and China present three different and notable trajectories of the trend toward nationalist oligarchy, but they aren’t the only cases. After the coup in 2016, Turkey’s president engaged in widespread purges of the government, crackdowns on opponents, and constitutional reforms to centralize and strengthen his power—all while emphasizing religious nationalism. Right-wing nationalist parties are also on the rise in other countries in Europe, Asia, and Latin America.

  With all of these examples in mind, it is hard not to see the United States as marching in a similar direction. Although this trend has been growing throughout the late neoliberal era, the Trump administration encapsulates the rise of nationalist oligarchy. The president’s nationalist tendencies are well known. He began his presidency with the swift declaration of a travel ban on persons from Muslim countries and the unleashing of immigration officials to engage in raids across the country. These policies were challenged in court almost immediately, but their substantive, symbolic, and rhetorical value persisted, showing his core supporters that he would protect so-called real America from foreigners who he claimed threatened the security or culture of the country. President Trump has also normalized white nationalism. After the KKK, neo-Nazis, and other white supremacists marched through the streets in Charlottesville, Virginia, leading to the death of one woman, President Trump remained neutral for days before making a statement formally condemning racism, the KKK, and neo-Nazis. The president went on to say that both sides were blameworthy and “very violent.” Few saw the combination of these statements as anything less than an indication of support for the white nationalist groups. For their part, white supremacists didn’t take his statements as a rebuke. David Duke, a former leader of the KKK, tweeted, “Thank you President Trump for your honesty & courage to tell the truth about #Charlottesville.” This type of nationalism was also part of Trump’s campaign for the presidency in 2016. He announced his campaign by claiming that Mexican immigrants were rapists and murderers, attacked a federal judge of Mexican descent, and attacked a Muslim gold star family.29

  Trump’s nationalism, however, has not extended to economic populism—despite his campaign promises to drain the swamp and fight for working people. Instead, President Trump’s administration has deepened the emerging American oligarchy. The signature legislative efforts of the Trump presidency have been an effort to repeal Obamacare and a massive tax cut. Some analysts showed that the full Obamacare repeal would mean that up to thirty million people would lose their health insurance. Although the overall repeal failed, the repeal of just the individual mandate was pushed through as part of a tax bill—and according to the Congressional Budget Office, that change would leave thirteen million uninsured. The people affected by the repeal, of course, aren’t the wealthy. They are the very working people that a populist claims to support.30

  The Trump and Republican tax plan provides an even better example of expanding oligarchy. The tax bill included the largest corporate tax cut in American history, totaling $1 trillion over a decade. It cut the tax rate on the wealthiest people in the country while increasing the income level where that rate takes effect. It shrunk the estate tax—the tax wealthy people pay to pass wealth on to their heirs and heiresses—so that there’s no tax on the first $22 million that married couples pass down to their children. Each of these policies alone is an example of income and wealth defense for the richest people and corporations in the country, but together, they are truly radical. Instead of spending $1.46 trillion (the total cost of the bill) on rebuilding infrastructure or improving education or expanding Social Security, the Trump administration chose to expand corporate profits, with benefits for wealthy executives and shareholders, then cut those people’s taxes, and then allow them to build a hereditary aristocracy by passing tens of millions of that wealth on to their children.31

  The Trump administration has also delayed and rolled back regulations that will ultimately benefit big corporations while harming ordinary people. The administration delayed regulations designed to decrease the amount of silica and beryllium that people inhale and delayed highway safety rules to prevent sleepy truckers from getting behind the wheel. It has opened up national monuments for natural resource extraction. Regulations on access to courts, net neutrality, clean power, and fuel efficiency are under attack. These policies all favor large corporate interests over consumer interests. But this is unsurprising, given that the president who once promised to drain the swamp has instead filled his administration with lobbyists for industries opposed to those regulations and to the agencies where they now work. A March 2018 report found that the Trump administration had appointed 187 lobbyists to government positions.32

  As public policies are being skewed to benefit oligarchic interests, the president himself has been engaged in self-enrichment of the kind that is more befitting a petty dictatorship rather than the world’s most powerful democracy. The president hosts events at the Trump Hotel, down the street from the White House. He continues to visit Mar-a-Lago, his Florida getaway/resort, where members hobnob with him—for a (now increased) fee. Foreign governments seek to curry favor with the administration by hosting events at his properties. And to put a cherry on top, taxpayers are footing the bill, covering the costs of travel and security when the president visits these properties. If a multibillionaire president in a foreign country didn’t cover the costs of a lavish lifestyle, we would certainly condemn that political leader for corruption and graft.33

>   At the same time, the Trump administration and the Republicans aspire to rig the political system to preserve their own power, even in the face of majority opposition to an oligarchic agenda. Gerrymandering is the most obvious example. Our constitutional system gerrymanders the Senate and electoral college, which is why presidential candidates like Al Gore and Hillary Clinton can win the popular vote and lose the presidency. But gerrymandering for the House of Representatives or state legislatures is not constitutionally required. And yet many partisans use the tactic to benefit their party in elections.

  Trump and Republicans, however, have gone much further than gerrymandering. They have claimed widespread voter fraud when there is no evidence of such practices (except perhaps by Republicans who tampered with ballots in North Carolina) and have used those claims to impose restrictions on voting. The Trump administration created a presidential commission to investigate voter fraud and make recommendations on how to address the fake issue (the commission disbanded amid extensive litigation). It even attempted to ask census questions in a manner that experts showed would depress cooperation with census officials and lead to undercounting minority populations.34

  In Georgia, Secretary of State Brian Kemp has been compared to Viktor Orbán for his tactics: purging more than one hundred thousand voters from the rolls because they chose not to vote in a recent election, delaying voter registrations for minor issues, accusing opponents of hacking without evidence, and refusing help from the Department of Homeland Security. Dodge City, Kansas, which has seen an increase in its Latinx population, moved its only polling place—for twenty-seven thousand residents—from the civic center to a location one mile from the nearest bus stop and outside the city limits. When Republicans lost statewide elections in Wisconsin and Michigan in 2018, they did not go quietly into the minority but instead passed laws stripping power from incoming Democratic officials. Their corporate contributors and allies, unsurprisingly, remained silent in the face of these antidemocratic actions.35

  It’s not just politicians who are undermining democratic institutions. The decline of local news media, critical for democratic engagement, is often thought of as a byproduct of the rise of the internet. Although there is truth to this story, the collapse of local media wasn’t inevitable or solely due to technology. In communities around the country, local papers like the Bastrop Daily Enterprise (Louisiana) and Fayetteville Observer (North Carolina) were thriving until they were bought out by private equity firms, which then gutted their newsrooms, outsourced operations to regional or national centers, and raised prices. For the firms, the result is profits. For the paper, lower circulation. For the communities, a loss of quality information about public affairs.36

  At the same time, big media companies are on the rise, some of which have an ideological agenda designed to support the rich and powerful. In the spring of 2018, the Sinclair Media Group, a pro-Trump media company, gained infamy for forcing local news reporters across the country to read an antimedia statement. At the time, Sinclair operated in 193 stations in 89 media markets, reaching 39 percent of Americans. It also wanted to purchase Tribune Media, which would give it 235 stations in 108 markets—and the ability to reach 72 percent of Americans. If the Trump administration approves the merger, it would mean a propagandistic outlet broadcasting to most Americans through the guise of local news.37

  Nationalist oligarchy may not be a desirable future, but it is a plausible one. Looking back, it is easy to see how nationalist oligarchy emerged from the late stages of the neoliberal era. The neoliberal strategy of deregulation, liberalization, privatization, and austerity has the consequence of concentrating wealth and power in private hands. This was coupled with a theory of politics that ignores the power of wealth. The view that money is speech under the First Amendment first emerged only in the 1970s, and over time, it unleashed wealthy individuals and corporations to spend as much as they wanted to influence politics. The “doom loop of oligarchy,” as Ezra Klein has called it, is an obvious consequence: the wealthy use their money to influence politics and rig policy to increase their wealth, which only increases their capacity to influence politics. Crony capitalism, self-enrichment, and other kinds of corruption are but variations on the theme.38

  The authoritarian and antidemocratic tendencies of nationalist oligarchies are also an outgrowth of neoliberal failures. The neoliberals preached that all good things would go together. They argued that the swift adoption of democracy would mean a growing economy. They imposed the Washington Consensus, proclaiming that liberalization would create booming economies. But this didn’t happen. Peoples around the world, as Joshua Kurlantzick has observed, “soured on the notion of democracy itself” when it failed to bring growth. The result was “decreased public participation in politics; nostalgia for previous authoritarian eras; the rise of elected autocrats; increasingly poisoned, violent election campaigns; and sometimes an outright return to autocracy, whether through a coup or some other extra-constitutional means.” The United States has not been immune to these changes in attitudes. A study published in 2016 found that only 30 percent of millennials thought it was essential to live in a democracy. And between 1995 and 2010, the percentage of wealthy Americans who supported authoritarianism jumped from 20 percent to nearly 35 percent.39

  More broadly, the rise of nationalism can also be interpreted as a response, or backlash, to neoliberalism. Neoliberalism’s atomistic individualism and its marketization of everything leaves people with little by way of community, tradition, or social bonds. Nationalists—whether ethnic, religious, cultural, racial—thus find a hungry constituency, yearning for connections to each other and to something bigger than themselves.

  * * *

  The central question today is whether nationalist oligarchy will come to dominate the next era of politics. Conservatives can support an oligarchic economic system, rig the political system to stay in power, and use nationalism to divide and conquer. In those moments when liberals win elections, they would be forced to operate largely within the constraints of the era—most likely by advancing reformed neoliberal policies that further entrench economic power, albeit with a human face. But there is another path forward, a path that is politically, economically, and socially inclusive—a path toward a great democracy.

  5

  TOWARD A GREAT DEMOCRACY

  Nationalist oligarchy, nationalist populism, and reformed neoliberalism are all undesirable futures. Nationalist oligarchy and nationalist populism exclude major segments of the population, stirring fear and hatred in order to mobilize a political coalition. Nationalist oligarchy and reformed neoliberalism concentrate wealth and power in the hands of the few, undermining equality, opportunity, and freedom. What we should want is a path forward that is inclusive politically and economically—offering opportunity and community to every member of society. This fourth option for the future of politics requires an agenda to achieve a great democracy.

  Democracy, of course, causes confusion. Right-wing trolls like to point out that the United States is a republic, not a democracy. They ignore that James Madison himself defined a republic in The Federalist as a government based on representation and that no one using the term democracy today means a direct democracy along the lines of ancient Athens or the New England town meeting. Democracy today means representative democracy—a republic.1

  When many others think of democracy, they think primarily about voting and elections. Countries in transition from dictatorships are celebrated when their first elections take place. Photos abound of proud voters with inky fingers. And yet, in many countries around the world, elections aren’t competitive, and they aren’t free or fair. They instead ratify the power of authoritarian leaders. North Korea’s official name, for example, is the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, and its leader, Kim Jong-un, was elected with 100 percent of the vote in 2014. But no one thinks of North Korea as a democracy.2

  In recent years, when scholars have questioned whether democra
cy might be in a moment of crisis all around the world, they have looked beyond elections—but not by much. For example, in their article “How to Lose a Constitutional Democracy,” constitutional scholars Aziz Huq and Tom Ginsburg describe the three features of constitutional democracy as competitive elections, free speech and association, and the legal rules necessary to ensure democratic choices. In their bestselling book, How Democracies Die, political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt focus on the erosion of constitutional norms, including many associated with electoral democracy: a leader’s weak commitment to democratic institutions, the denial of the legitimacy of political opponents, toleration of violence, and clamping down on civil liberties. Many other scholars and commentators have also emphasized that democratic norms and institutions are under assault, eroding slowly, or being destroyed altogether.3

  But although the emphasis in recent years has been on norms and institutions, the restoring-norms approach cannot fully explain what makes democracy work—and its reform agenda is not designed to make democracy more inclusive. This is a problem because the most sustainable way to preserve norms and institutions is to make democracy more inclusive socially, economically, and politically. To see why, consider the conditions under which leaders adhere to political norms and support democratic institutions. Norms are simply informal practices that a group of people follow even when they would benefit immediately from breaking them. We can include in this category both informal courtesies that people grant each other (for example, civility on the Senate floor) and respect for institutions (for example, not attacking the freedom of the press or integrity of the judiciary).

  The puzzle is figuring out why political leaders would ever restrain themselves by following these informal conventions. The first explanation is that political leaders actually have a long-term interest in adhering to norms. If political leaders are what social scientists call repeat players—that is, they are going to be participating in politics for a long time—then they might be better off in the long run by keeping the norm intact, even if breaking the norm is in their short-term interest. In the first two years of President Trump’s administration, for example, Senate Republicans would have benefited from ending the filibuster for legislation so that any piece of legislation would only need a simple majority to pass. In a time of Republican control of the House of Representatives, Senate, and presidency, ending the filibuster would have enabled the Republicans to advance their legislative agenda successfully. But Senate Republicans anticipated that the Democrats would, one day, have control over Congress and the presidency. And in that situation, Republicans would be better off if Democrats did not have the power to pass legislation so easily. Because they are repeat players who want the other side to play by the same rules, the filibuster remains.