With a national election looming, Americans prepare to engage in a political ritual in which remarkably few have faith. Despite two-and-a-half centuries as a republic, many say the country’s democratic system is fragile and working poorly. Americans may be dissatisfied with democracy’s health, but the real problem is people pushing government to do too much.
Last week, the New York Times reported that 45 per cent of voters believe “that the nation’s democracy does not do a good job representing ordinary people,” according to an October Times/Siena poll. By contrast, 49 per cent think American democracy does a good job representing the people.
This isn’t an isolated finding. Last year, an AP-NORC poll found that 49 per cent of respondents said “democracy is not working well in the United States.” That sentiment was shared by 45 per cent in 2021.
In another all-too-familiar result, 76 per cent of respondents to October’s Times/Siena poll say that democracy is under threat. Then again, it may be under threat from the people themselves. Fifty-one per cent say the political and economic system needs “major changes,” and another seven per cent say it should be “torn down entirely.” Given the American way of disputing everything under the sun, it’s unlikely there’s much agreement on what those changes would look like or the kind of system that should replace the one we tear down.
Of course, a big part of the problem may be the government’s attempts to satisfy a population that has wildly differing political views, cultural tastes, risk tolerances and personal preferences. By trying to reconcile the irreconcilable, government officials inevitably make rules and pass laws that might satisfy one constituency but offend others. The more involved the state gets, the less happy people are with the outcome. And the U.S. government gets more involved by the day.
In an Atlantic excerpt of their new book Over Ruled: The Human Toll of Too Much Law, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch and lawyer Janie Nitze pointed out that less than a century ago, “all of the federal government’s statutes fit into a single volume. By 2018, the U.S. Code encompassed 54 volumes and approximately 60,000 pages.”
The intrusion of laws into American life is exacerbated by administrative rules enforced through harsh penalties and imposed by agencies of which the government has lost count: “Even federal agencies cannot agree on how many federal agencies exist,” write Gorsuch and Nitze.
Law has also become more centralized, with matters once left to individuals and families now regulated by localities, local ordinances displaced by state laws, and states muscled aside by the federal government. There’s a law or a rule that can be applied to any area of human life — many of which were managed by social custom or individual judgment just a few generations ago — if a sufficiently surly bureaucrat feels bored or malicious.
“There is no one in the United States over the age of 18 who cannot be indicted for some federal crime,” John Baker, a retired Louisiana State University law professor, told The Wall Street Journal in 2011. “That is not an exaggeration.”
Gorsuch and Nitze worry that “more than ever, we turn to the law to address any problem we perceive. More than ever, we are inclined to use national authorities to dictate a single answer for the whole country. More than ever, we are willing to criminalize conduct with which we disagree.”
Interestingly, Americans largely concur with the authors that we’re overgoverned. When asked, they say government officials meddle where they’re not welcome and they don’t like the results.
Last year, Gallup reported that a 54-per-cent majority of Americans believe the government is “trying to do too many things that should be left to individuals and businesses.” More Americans have consistently said the government is doing too much than have said it should do more for over 30 years. The only exception was in 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Then people saw various levels of U.S. government in action, flexing muscle in the name of public health, and went back to preferring a less-active state.
In particular, Gallup found, a plurality of Americans “say the government regulates business and industry too much.” A full 57 per cent of respondents believe the federal government “has too much power.”
But if Americans agree that democracy, as expressed through an excessively powerful government, isn’t working, they disagree over who is at fault. Partisans of both parties, the Times notes, hold news and social media responsible for some of the harm they see; Democrats especially point their fingers at Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump as a threat to democracy, while Republicans blame Vice-President Kamala Harris, President Joe Biden and Democrats in general.
Those conflicting answers feed the problem. Social cohesion has broken down and the country is fractured into hostile political tribes that, according to polling by the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, frequently view each other as “threats to the American way of life.” Unable to amicably work out conflicts or call a live-and-let-live truce, warring Americans turn to government.
“When trust in individual judgment, civic institutions and social norms fades, where else is there to look for answers but the law?” ask Gorsuch and Nitze.
The result is a government that reaches further into people’s lives with laws and regulations beyond count. It’s done at the demand of a population that has lost the ability to work out differences. All that government interference only increases tensions and reduces satisfaction with the political system.
The solution, it would seem, is to reduce the state’s role and strip it of much of its accumulated power. Then we should demand that Americans learn, once again, to resolve their disputes without calling for mommy government. It’s not obvious that Americans are prepared to resume that responsibility.
National Post