Chapter Fifteen: The Cure for the Ills of Democracy

Jane Addams declared that "the cure for the ills of democracy is more democracy." Will we have more or less democracy during Trump's second term?

Jane Addams, a pioneer social worker and reformer, made the famous declaration quoted above in 1902.¹ Will this prove true for us in the years ahead?

We were told during the election just completed that “democracy is on the ballot.” Donald Trump will be inaugurated for his second term on January 20. What will be the fate of democracy in his hands?

In my post on November 7, I observed that we must approach Trump with humility. We cannot see the world through his eyes. We can say that he is the most important political figure in America since Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Trump is so unprecedented in so many ways that it would be exhausting merely to list them. He has made anti-democratic statements. However, it is democracy which has rewarded him a second time with the nation’s highest office. Is it possible that he will change his mind about it as a result?

Informed friends have told me that it goes without saying that elections will take place as scheduled in 2026 and 2028. If that is true, then as Winston Churchill said in one of the darkest moments in history, “in the end, all will be well.”²

Was the outcome of the election a surprise? In one sense, no. Many commentators were saying that the race was a toss up. In another sense, yes. Few observers thought that Trump’s victory and Harris’s defeat would be so lopsided. This election was not close. And few observers thought that turnout would be so low. A lot of people did not care and did not vote.

What explains the result?

A major cause for the result of this election and for the rise of Trump generally has not received enough attention. America’s educators have failed the nation. I have been an educator my whole life. I deserve some of the blame for this failure.

Specifically, educators failed to communicate that, with all its faults, democracy is the best form of government there is. Jane Addams was right. The cure for democracy is more democracy.

Look at countries which, having grown weary of the endless bickering that is part of democracy, have fallen under the sway of dictatorships. The people living in these countries came to learn, tragically too late, how disastrous that decision was.

This is one lesson that history does teach. But we have not been teaching history. At any rate, we have not been teaching history with sufficient effectiveness.

Looking at the election, can we be more specific about who is at fault for the result?

First on the list is Biden. He should have made way for a robust primary process to select the next Democratic nominee. He failed to do so. He should resign today.

Harris became the nominee in an undemocratic process. Keep in mind what Jane Addams said – we need more democracy not less. Harris was the party’s choice – not the people’s choice. Drawing on my completely unsystematic sample of personal acquaintances, I know many people who voted against Trump. I do not know anyone who voted for Harris.

Many astute people trace her loss to her failure to differentiate herself from Biden. In the words of a friend, Harris was a shadow of Biden, who was a shadow of his old self, which wasn’t Presidential material to begin with.

Speaking for myself, Harris lost me when she tried to explain her flip-flop on fracking by saying “my values have not changed.”³ This meaningless remark established her as an average politician. When I think of her and of this election, the observation which Arthur Koestler made about World War II in 1943 comes to mind. “In this war we are fighting against a total lie in the name of a half-truth.” ⁴

In this election, the lie was Trump. The half-truth was that Harris could win an election and that she was qualified to be President.

How else could Harris have answered the question about her change in position on fracking? She could have told the truth. She could have said she wanted to be President. To be President she had to win Pennsylvania. To win Pennsylvania she had to favor fracking.

Is this a ridiculous suggestion? She could hardly have done worse than she did. She could have had the pleasure of telling the truth. She seems to have preferred to lose conventionally rather than to win unconventionally.

One commentator insists that Harris ran a good campaign.⁵ She certainly had good moments – the convention and the debate. But she is not a natural politician, and she was unable to close the deal. It appears from the admittedly unreliable polls that she lost ground rather than gaining it as time wore on. It is an old saying that nothing kills a bad product faster than good advertising. Even the pundit who liked her campaign did not suggest that she should be the nominee in 2028.

There is a lot more blame to go around, but enough of this.

In his first inaugural address, Franklin D. Roosevelt declared, “[I]n the event that the national emergency is still critical, I shall not evade the clear course of duty that will then confront me. I shall ask the Congress for the one remaining instrument to meet the crisis--broad executive power to wage a war against the emergency, as great as the power that would be given to me if we were in fact invaded by a foreign foe.”⁶

Trump enters the White House with more power than any previous president including FDR. He has the Congress. And he owns the Supreme Court, which has established Presidential immunity. Roosevelt did not have the court in his pocket and he certainly did not have a Presidential immunity decision. I am an historian. I am not in the business of predicting the future. Perhaps it is foolish even to speculate that American democracy might be coming to an end.

Will our nation hold fair and free elections in 2026 and 2028? I sincerely hope I am wrong even to pose this question. After all, our greatest hopes and our worst fears are rarely realized. Not never, but rarely.

1. https://www.uc3m.es/igualdad/media/igualdad/doc/archivo/doc_socializing-democracy--texto/texto-sobre-jane-addams.pdf

2. www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYDaZ6cZXeU

3. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/aug/29/kamala-harris-tim-walz-interview

4. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/feb/26/russia-lies-america-half-truths

https://archive.org/stream/in.ernet.dli.2015.59331/2015.59331.The-Yogi-And-The-Commissar_djvu.txt p. 106.

We call Nazism’s New Order a total lie because it denies the specific ethos of our species, because by proclaiming that might is right it reduces Civil Law to Jungle Law, and by proclaiming that race is all reduces Sociology to Zoology. With such a philosophy there can be no compromise; it must unconditionally surrender. We, on the other hand, live in a climate of half-truths. We fight against Racialism and yet racial discrimination is far from abolished in the Anglo-Saxon countries; we fight for Democracy and yet our mightiest ally is a dictatorship where at least two of the four freedoms are not operating. But such is the sticky, pervading influence of our climate that even to mention these facts, undeniable though they are, has the effect of a provocation. ‘So why rub it in?’ some will probably say. 'This is a battlefield, not a public confessional.’ The answer is that on both sides of the Atlantic people are getting more restive the nearer victory approaches. There is a strange mood of uneasiness everywhere — the hangover seems to precede the celebration.

5. https://robertreich.substack.com/p/the-lesson?r=b2j1q&utm_=

6. https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/froos1.asp