A few months back, I was presenting to a local service club. The CPAC convention had just ended, and their opening speaker said, “Welcome to the end of democracy. We are here to overthrow it completely.” I consider myself non-partisan. I’m a registered independent. But this claim stunned me. It seemed so wholly un-American. I opened my presentation by saying that my program has moved from non-partisan to partisan: we are now pro-democracy. I said it in jest and thought it would be a good, ironic joke. Of course, we are all for democracy, right? Instead, the leader sent a note out saying that since my program was partisan, I should not be invited to speak in the future.
I’m writing this letter to press my point. I am pro-democracy as this is the only form of government that is of, by, and for the people. Take a look at other forms of government (Wikipedia has a good List of Forms of Government). Other forms range from monarchy to theocracy, communism to oligopoly, and kleptocracy to corporatocracy. The critical difference between democracy and these many other forms is the flow of power. In all other forms, power is hierarchical, flowing down from the top. In a democracy power flows up from the people. The key difference is that democracy takes work – the people must be involved, take the challenge seriously, and behave like leaders. In the other forms, you abdicate the responsibility of leadership to others.
Healthy democracy takes an educated, empowered, and engaged populace. So, it follows that to destroy democracy, you defund education, attack independent experts, and intimidate and confuse the public. To confuse people, you sow distrust in the media, buy out and control, or shut down local newspapers. You limit healthy forms of dialogue to incomplete and superficial social media platforms. You neglect to endorse pro-democracy candidates as the Washington Post did. To disempower and intimidate people, you eliminate the CFPB, the IRS, The DOJ, the EPA, and other regulatory agencies. The honest conversations we should be having are not whether or not regulation and taxes are good or bad but whether or not our taxes are being spent wisely. There are legitimate reasons for taxes and regulations. Legitimacy and efficacy are conversations we should be having.
A healthy democracy is built on the foundations of separation of powers and checks and balances, not a single ruler or ruling class. A healthy economy needs open competition and empowered consumers who pressure companies to innovate and keep prices aggressive. A healthy democracy and thriving economy have healthy institutions. The recent Nobel Prize for Economics was awarded for work demonstrating this. In a healthy democracy, we meet and honestly discuss the issues of the day and the affairs of the world. We respect each other and don’t insult or antagonize; we overcome our fears, compromise, and move on. Please vote for the representatives and policies you believe will support a healthy democracy.