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Solomon D. Stevens is the author of “Religion, Politics, and the Law” and “Challenges to Peace in the Middle East.” He wrote this for InsideSources.com.
In 1978, the respected neo-conservative Irving Kristol wrote a book called “Two Cheers for Capitalism,” arguing that capitalism was essentially valuable but also flawed. The same could be said for democracy.
Our Founders were aware of its flaws. They sought to create a government that would balance freedom with security, power with restraint, and rights with responsibilities. They knew that the new form of government they created was an experiment and would be tested. Today, we are living through perhaps the most serious challenge to democracy since our founding.
Let’s face it. Democracy in all its forms (including our democratic republic) is inefficient and constantly frustrating. Separation of powers. Bicameralism. Checks and balances. There are times when our government can barely function. One branch of government blocks another, and one house of Congress frustrates the plans of the other.
As citizens, we are rightly appalled by this. In the last 50 years, Congress has been able to pass all of the appropriations measures for a budget only four times. And that is its primary responsibility!
But our democratic government is inefficient for an excellent reason: It seeks to institutionalize protections against tyranny. America began with a battle against tyranny, and much of its Constitution was a response to perceived flaws in English government and law.
Tyranny is always a temptation because it is always efficient. Absolute power in the hands of one person is the embodiment of efficiency. And when you live with a deadlocked government, tyranny might seem like a good alternative to those who only know the faults of democracy and have never experienced the horrors of tyranny. Our Founders had lived with tyranny, but we have only lived with democracy.
Tyrants always claim they stand for the people and seek power on behalf of the people, but history teaches us this is a lie. Traditionally, it was understood that the three main goals of tyrants are power, sex and money. They do not seek these things on behalf of others, and they do not care what happens to their country as long as they can get what they want for themselves.
The inefficiency of democratic government lies at the foundation of the American regime. But there is more. As American political scholar Martin Diamond pointed out, our regime differs from all those that came before because it attempts to replace religion and blood with principle.
Earlier governments had established religions and based citizenship on blood. Charting a new direction, the Declaration of Independence says — in the words of Abraham Lincoln — that our country was “conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”
Our founding was, of course, a flawed attempt to put these principles into practice. The inability of the Founders to include the abolition of slavery in our Constitution was the most glaring example of this. But the principles were there to challenge all that would follow.
The problem is that religion and blood are powerful forces, and, in recent years, they have emerged as an existential threat to democracy. Christian nationalism promotes a pre-founding concept of government — one in which a particular religion is empowered and supported by law. White nationalism seeks to reintroduce blood as the foundation for citizenship.
Our Founders hoped that a set of secular principles would be able to replace religion and blood. But today, these principles are being challenged as never before.
Donald Trump’s appeal is based on his promise to eliminate the inherent inefficiency of democracy and to unleash the political power of religion and blood. He tells us that if he is elected, people will never have to vote again because everything will be fixed. And, he tells us that he will not allow American blood to be poisoned. A lot of Americans have wanted to hear these things for a long time.
Like many others, I see that democracy is flawed and that the American regime is constantly frustrating, which is why I can only offer it two cheers. However, our Founders sought — in their imperfect way — to chart a path for a government that would at least put obstacles in the path of potential tyrants and attempt to replace religion and blood with secular principles. They knew this was a fragile project, but they offered us an opportunity that I hope we will not squander.
Not since the Civil War has that project been challenged so fundamentally. As Lincoln warned, we are now engaged in a test to discover “whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.”
