It should not be a large surprise that voters have not been peculiarly afraid with the warnings of Democrats that Donald Trump is simply a deadly threat to American state institutions. Survey Gallupa conducted in January 2024 showed that only 28% of Americans are satisfied with the “action of democracy in the United States”. That's a evidence low score.
American democracy has long made 4 promises: common prosperity, voice for citizens, country management by experts and efficient public services. However, both in the United States and in another rich and even medium-income countries, democracy of these aspirations has not met.
It wasn't always like that. For 3 decades after planet War II, democracy provided what it promised, especially common prosperity. Real wages (inflation adjusted) in all demographic groups rapidly growthand inequality falling.
Somewhere in the late 1970s and early 1980s this trend up Suddenly, he's finished.. Since then, inequality has reached sky advanced leveland salaries for workers without at least a bachelor's degree have barely increased. About half of American workers watched the gross of the second half fly high.
Although the situation has looked somewhat better in the last decade; an increase in inequality has been taking place for almost 40 years stopped around 2015. However, the post-pandemic wave of inflation powerfully affected families in the working class, especially in cities. That's why many Americans reported in pollsThat fear number 1 is for them the state of the economy, not democracy.
Equally crucial was the belief that democracy would give voice to all citizens. If something went wrong, you could have let your elected representatives know. This rule has never full worked – by most American past many minorities have been completely unrepresented – it has become an even more generalized problem over the last 4 decades to take distant the influence of voters on the political process than before. How She put it Arlie Russell Hochshild, many Americans surviving in the Midwest and the South (especially those without higher education) began to feel like “foreigners in their own country”.
Worse still, at the same time as these trials were taking place, the Democratic organization changed its electoral base. From the working class organization became a coalition of technological entrepreneurs, bankers, highly qualified professionals and the best educated citizens who have very little priorities consistent with what is crucial for the working class.
Yes – the reluctance of the working class was besides aroused by right-wing media. But they could not do so if mainstream media and intellectual elites did not ignore complaints from a large part of the country's population regarding the economy and the prevailing culture. Over the last 4 years, this trend has accelerated, as the highly educated social strata and the media ecosystem have continuously highlighted identity issues, which have even more alienated many voters.
If it were just that the full country is walking under the dictatorship of technocrats and intellectual elites, it could be explained that at least experts are holding the rudder. But a promise State management by experts no longer sounds convincing at least to the 2008 financial collapse. It was the experts who designed the financial strategy to service the common good, and then made giant fortunes on Wall Street due to the fact that they reportedly knew how to manage the risks. Not only did it turn out that they had no idea, it was politicians and officials of the control institutions who threw themselves for help the perpetrators of the crisis, doing almost nothing for millions of Americans who lost homes and livelihoods.
Since then, public opinion has not gained any assurance in expert knowledge, but, on the contrary, has become even more suspicious. This is peculiarly the case with the COVID-19 crisis, erstwhile quarantine and vaccination became a litmus paper of religion in science. Divergentities the opinions did not find any place in mainstream media, hit so to alternate transmission centers that rapidly began to attract more and more audiences.
This leads us to a promise to supply public services. How wrote erstwhile a British poet John Betjeman, "our nation represents the values of democracy and efficient sewage," but the fact that the erstwhile guarantees the second is becoming increasingly questionable. In a sense, the full strategy is simply a victim of its success. As of the 19th century, the United States and many European countries began to introduce laws to guarantee the meritocratic selection of officials with the best qualifications and to reduce corruption in public services. Later, government to defend citizens from fresh products on the market, from cars to pharmaceuticals, came to this end.
However, public services have become little efficient as regulations and safeguards are on the floor. U.S. government spending on the biggest roads has increased over 3 times from the 1960s to 1980s due to fresh safety procedures and regulations. akin declines in the productivity of the construction manufacture are assigned the burden of regulation in the field of spatial planning. This is not only about cost increases, but besides about the fact that procedures to guarantee security, transparency and responsiveness to citizens' needs have led to crucial delays in the implementation of all infrastructure projects and the quality of another services, including Education.
In short, all promises of democracy have been broken in the eyes of many Americans. However, this does not mean that the Americans now like any another form of political life organization. inactive are. Proud from their country and believe that its democratic character is an crucial part of their identity.
The good news is that democracy can be reformed and strengthened. First, we request to focus on what is most important, that is to say, the common prosperity and the voice of citizens, and that means reducing the function played by large capital in politics. likewise with technocratic expertise: it cannot be separated from democracy, but it can surely be little political. Government experts should come from more diverse environments and it would besides be useful for them to be deployed at local administration level.
Of course, erstwhile Trump's men take over, no of this will happen. The fresh president is obvious. Hazard for American democracy and for the next 4 years will weaken many organization standards. The task of rebuilding democracy will so be to the centre-left forces. They must cut as many ties as possible between them and the large business and technology manufacture and return to their roots – to the voters of the working class.
If Trump's triumph awakens the Democratic Party, he can unwittingly launch a process that will lead to the renewal of American democracy.
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Daron Acemiglu – lecturer in economics at MIT. Together with Simon Johnson and James A. Robinson, he received the Alfred Nobel Prize of the Bank of Sweden in economical Sciences in 2024. Co-author (with Simon Johnson) of the book Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year conflict Over Technology and Prosperity (PublicAffairs, 2023).
Copyright: task Syndicate, 2024. www.project-syncicate.org. From English he translated Maciej Domagała.
