BRACK: Fragility of our democracy is being tested now

By Andy Brack  |  There’s been a growing, gnawing sense among many Americans that the nation’s fragile democracy is flailing amidst an authoritarian threat from within.

You see it in a president imploring people to do the right thing to aid Ukraine and Israel.  It’s in the courts as landmark cases are shredded by a 6-3 conservative majority that claims to interpret based on the original intent of the U.S. Constitution, but is more activist than many a liberal court.

And front and center, you see it in a Congress that can’t get its act together.  One speaker had to go 15 rounds before capturing a narrow majority, only to be turned out by hard right radicals who haven’t been able to elect one of their own.  To some, the Grand Old Party of Republicanism is disintegrating before our very eyes with some predicting a split that could have major ramifications.

All of this ghoulish disarray is having a sobering impact on a polarized electorate of American voters, according to a big new study by the Center of Politics at the University of Virginia.

It “reveals a stunning number of Americans on both sides of the aisle endorsing policies that could challenge the U.S. Constitution, even as a majority express a preference for democracy over other forms of governance,” according to an overview.

Among the startling findings:

Resistance.  About seven in 10 voters who prefer Democratic President Joe Biden or former Republican President Donald Trump say they believe electing officials from the other party would hurt the country.  And in a show that compromise and collaboration are waning, about half of each said they saw those who supported the other party as threats to the American way of life, the study said.

Violence.  About 40% of the 2,008 voters polled said they believed the other side was so extreme that it was acceptable for violence to be used to keep them from succeeding in their goals.

Authoritarianism.  While 69% said they thought democracy was the preferable form of government compared to non-democratic forms, “nearly half of the overall sample frequently expressed opinions that veered towards authoritarianism.”

Secession.  Two in five Trump voters and a third of Biden voters said they would favor red or blue states respectively seceding from the union and forming their own countries.

There’s more disturbing stuff in the survey about the partisan split on issues between those who support Biden and Trump, but the bottom line is the nation’s spirit has been sapped since the 2016 election and the debacle of the results in the 2020 election.  

As one of the center’s advisers noted, “The breakdown of the democratic norms most Americans have long taken for granted is not a problem just among the right or the left, it is a growing American problem. Politicians and voters can point fingers all they want, but what is needed is action to fix it.”

So is there any hope – that concept that Barack Obama made famous in 2008 and that fueled his presidency and spawned a counter-movement?

Historian Heather Cox Richardson believes the country will recapture its zeal for democracy, just as it has before after small groups of people have tried to take it away.  The “Letter from an American” newsletter author, who has more than 2 million daily subscribers, says in a new book called Democracy Awakening that American democracy will persist.

“The true history of American democracy is that it is never finished,” she concludes. “Reclaiming our history of noble struggle reworks the polarizing language that has done us such a disservice while it undermines the ideology of authoritarianism.”

Let’s hope she’s right.

Andy Brack is editor and publisher of Statehouse Report and the Charleston City Paper.  Have a comment? Send to:  feedback@statehousereport.com.