In the presidential election of 2020, the words “fake electors” became part of America’s political lexicon. Had false electors been able to replace duly elected Electoral College voters, an essential step in the nation’s democratic process — the certification of the presidential election vote — could have been set aside. In the current electoral season of 2024, political leaders have promised to restrict the First Amendment, threatened to use the nation’s military to quiet political opponents, and even introduced state legislation allowing election officials to overturn vote totals within their jurisdictions. Like it or not, a foreboding sense of turmoil pervades this year’s election. We invited five members of the LMU faculty, representing the disciplines of political science, philosophy and journalism, to answer the question “Is America’s democracy under threat in the presidential election of 2024?”

— The Editor

A Working System

Despite reports to the contrary, democracy’s machinery is running smoothly.

By Evan Gerstmann

The January 6,2021, attack of the U.S. Capitol was a stain on this country and Donald Trump’s refusal to concede the election to Joe Biden was a disgrace. But the media and academia tend to overreact to all things Trump. Contrary to what many folks may have read, American democracy is doing fine.

First, voter turnout is up, not down. In the 2020 election about twenty million more people voted than in the 2016 election. That’s a big difference. Increased voter turnout is not only true for the overall population of eligible voters, but it is also true for Black voters, and it is a long-term trend. In 2000, turnout for Black voters was 53.5%. Twenty years later, it was 58.7%. (Any reader who would like the sources for any of the statistics cited in this piece is welcome to email me at egerstma@lmu.edu).

Turnout among voters with disabilities is up as well. According to a report by researchers at Rutgers University and San Diego State University, a 2002 law designed to help people with disabilities vote has been remarkably successful. As the reported in the New York Times: “The report … looked at elections through the 20th anniversary of the Help America Vote Act in 2022 and found that the law had generally improved accessibility. The shift was reflected both quantitatively (in turnout and the percentage of people reporting trouble voting) and qualitatively (in voters’ responses in focus groups).”

Higher turnout in elections is a sign of a healthy democracy, especially if it includes racial minorities and people with disabilities. While some democracies have even higher turnout, the United States is hardly a laggard. Voter turnout here is a touch below the United Kingdom’s and touch above Canada’s. It lags well behind Belgium, but that country has mandatory voting. For a large, diverse country, the United States is doing fine.

What about all these problems we hear so much about? Well, the problem with gerrymandering is getting much better, not worse. According to a report from The Brookings Institution, the number of seats allocated to Democrats and Republicans in the House of Representatives is now far more in alignment with the percentage of votes they received than in the past. For example, in 2012 Republicans got 19 more House seats than they would have gotten if House seats were directly proportional to the percentage of votes that Republicans received. In 2020, they only received two more seats than would have gotten in a strictly proportional system. In 2022, they got two seats fewer that they would have gotten in a strictly proportional system.

But what about the electoral college? It’s true that twice in the last six elections, the electoral college hasn’t reflected the popular vote. But the electoral college has been with us since the nation’s founding, so it is hardly a sign that democracy is declining. And it is hard to say what the popular vote would have been if we had a system in which the popular vote winner actually won the presidency. For example, in 2016 Hillary Clinton did get nearly 2.9 million more votes than Trump, but that is largely because she got 4.3 million more votes than Trump in California. Because of California’s unusual primary system, both the candidates for Senate that year were Democrats — Kamala Harris and Loretta Sanchez. That artificially suppressed Republican turnout in America’s largest state.

Finally, two of the pillars of democracy — strong independent courts and a free press —are present in America. The courts rejected all of Trump’s challenges to the 2020 elections and the press was free to strongly criticize Trump for making those challenges.

America is far from perfect, but democracy is alive and well here.

System Vulnerabilities

The mechanism of democracy fails without consistent, committed maintenance.

By Brian Treanor

I am concerned about the state of American democracy: too much money in politics, especially post-Citizens United; the politicization of the judiciary, which seems increasingly involved in elections; social polarization bordering on sectarianism; gerrymandered districts encouraging political extremism; a crisis of misinformation in the face of new technologies like social media and AI; and frightening rhetoric that has escalated from the vacuous ad hominem of “loser” to the authoritarian ad baculum, arguing by using or threatening force: talk of destroying the “enemy within” and “cleansing the blood of America.” We’ve seen this before.

E.B. White — writing during the Second Red Scare — reminded his readers that democracy “always hangs by a thread … is always being challenged, always being defended.” I mean, think about it. A society in which the few wielding real physical and economic power are limited by the many wielding no power but the vote? In which the executive head of state tolerates checks from the judicial and legislative branches? In which free speech is a right even when it’s the speech of one’s political adversary? It’s all just so damn improbable.

In fact, Plato believed that democracy was inherently unstable, that it would eventually degrade, subject to irrational passions. He further argued that tyranny is the most natural — that is to say, most likely — corruption of democracy, its Achilles’ heel.

Fearing that tyranny, some people assume the answer is to militarize. The tree of liberty watered with the blood of patriots and tyrants and all that. No doubt there are times in which democracies have had to fight to be born or stay alive: the American Revolution, the Battle of Britain. However, threats to democracy are generally more prosaic, and the tyrant rarely arrives at the head of a foreign army.

Autocrats frequently come to power by using the tools of democracy. People with little going for them except overconfidence and malevolent charisma exploit free speech to spread lies and conspiracies, sow resentment, and stoke hatred. In a healthy democratic society, these figures are an ugly sideshow with all the menace of P.G. Wodehouse’s Roderick Spode. But if a society is unwell, with a bit of well-timed opportunism these aspirant dictators can use elections to gain a toehold in the system. That accomplished, they use minority power to engage in obstructionism, creating crises for government. Then it’s back to using speech to blame and smear their opponents. And so it goes.

When democracies die, they do so as Mike Campbell describes in “The Sun Also Rises”: gradually, then suddenly. Not a singular, explosive conflict, but a slow poisoning followed by a coup de grâce. So the best strategy for saving democracy is prophylactic. Like maintaining your health, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. It is dependent less on politicians and military leaders and more on people living George Eliot’s “hidden lives”: teachers, reporters, fact-checkers, local bureaucrats, judges, civil servants. Regular folks prioritizing the good of the community, people who understand that loving democracy is not about winning every argument, and still less about insisting on your way with respect to every single issue. It is about trying to act honestly and justly, and about embracing the joys, and the frustrations, of life in common. Of course, I’m not naïve. It’s clear that our democracy is on the ballot this November. And while there are good reasons to criticize many of our elected officials, we shouldn’t be fooled by a false equivalence between one man who, whatever his errors and missteps, has spent his life trying to serve his country and another man who has done and intends to do nothing but serve himself. But we can’t save our democracy in November; we can only forestall the immediate threat. It we defeat Trump but fail to address the underlying vulnerabilities— democratic norms that have eroded or been abandoned, disinformation, illiberalism, social and economic selfishness — we’ve merely delayed the day of reckoning.

This essay was written prior to the nomination of Kamala Harris as the Democratic Party nominee for president.

Decline of the Watchers

Scrutiny from professional journalism is essential to democracy’s health.

By Kate Pickert

A healthy democracy cannot exist without a free press. Absent an independently funded news media, government will tell its own story (true or not) about how it operates, spends taxpayer money and adheres to the ethical standards its public expects. Journalists hold government to account and expose secrets and corruption that those in power would prefer stay hidden.

A free press, enshrined in the First Amendment, is often referred to as the Fourth Estate or the “fourth branch of government,” as critical to our democracy as the legislative, executive and judicial functions. As we ponder whether American democracy is destined to remain strong or is on the verge of crumbling, it’s worth examining the health of the Fourth Estate.

The prognosis is grim. Like Congress, the federal judiciary and the presidency, the Fourth Estate is grappling with historically low public confidence. What’s most dangerous to the news media (and therefore our democracy), however, is something else entirely. The industry’s business model is failing and with it, the future of a free press itself.

In the last 30 years, the audience for print and digital newspapers has dropped by two-thirds, decimating advertising and subscription revenue. Television news viewership has plummeted  too, and just 15 percent of Americans say they have paid for local news in the last year. This has predictably led to mass layoffs and fewer journalists than ever covering government, as well as other aspects of our lives and well-being. While the national press is still robust enough to cover every beat in presidential campaigns, local media is sadly endangered, verging on extinction. A 2023 report from Northwestern University found that more than 200 U.S. counties have no local news outlets and even more are at risk of becoming news deserts in the coming years.

When we think of the future of democracy, it’s tempting to focus only on the federal government, but local and state governments are meant to embody these ideals as well. When local and state governments operate without reporters watching, democracy becomes less healthy. Voter participation rates fall and corruption and misuse of taxpayer dollars increases.

Social media platforms are becoming go-to news sources for more Americans, but those who distribute “news” and “information” on these platforms are typically not adhering to the same vetting standards as traditional reporters and outlets. As a result, the public is becoming less informed and more polarized.

More and more, we are losing our grip on a shared reality, in which all of us agree on a certain set of facts that allow for real public debate, judgment and discernment. We are veering toward a society defined by echo chambers and mis- and disinformation. This threatens our democracy and creates a pathway for authoritarianism. To save our democracy, we must save journalism. Whether through philanthropy, government support or taxation (which carry with it their own risks) or a new business model that prompts Americans to spend their dollars on reliable information, journalism must endure if we are to live in a free, self-governing society.

Promises Unreached

When it comes to racial progress, history repeats itself.

By Chaya Crowder

I saw a meme on social media that noted that history repeating itself over and over again is comparable to failing an open-note quiz. Despite having the historical wisdom of our ancestors to tell us how things will go, when it comes to racial progress Americans often fall for the same tactics time and time again.

In the United States, racial progress historically is often swiftly followed by eras of political regression. Slavery is one of the founding institutions of this country. Following the abolition of slavery in 1865, reconstruction was implemented for a brief period of time. During this short period from 1863 to 1877, the United States saw exponential progress when it came to the political empowerment of Black people. Following the Civil War, 2,000 African American men held office during Reconstruction, there were two Black senators and 14 Black members of Congress, 600 or 700 members of state legislatures and numerous other local level offices. Today, there are only three Black people currently serving in the U.S. Senate:  Raphael Warnock, Cory Booker and Laphonza Butler.

In response to Black political power during the Reconstruction era, we saw the rise of the Ku Klux Klan. There was violence at the polls across the South that led to contested elections and ultimately the end of Reconstruction. Though the 15^th Amendment granted Black people the right to vote, new disenfranchisement tools such as literacy tests were developed to undermine that right. After the Reconstruction era, it would take almost 100 years for another Black senator to be elected. During this time we also saw the rise of Jim Crow segregation.

Decades of Jim Crow racism prevented Black people from engaging in electoral politics. However, Black people remained civically engaged through church attendance, protests and sit-ins. During this era, there was the rise of the Civil Rights movement.

Years of organizing, protesting and legislating led to the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act. In order to combat discriminatory disenfranchisement tactics across southern states, the Voting Rights Act made it illegal to deny access to the ballot box based on race, thus eliminating poll taxes and literacy tests and requiring federal intervention in the electoral process in certain parts of the country based on a coverage formula.

In 2013, the Supreme Court decision in Shelby v. Holder effectively gutted the Voting Rights Act. In the 10-plus years since that decision, states have added almost 100 restrictive laws making it harder to voter in certain parts of the county.

The temporary gains of the Voting Rights Act were followed by the war on drugs and mass incarceration, which ushered in what Civil Rights attorney and activist Michelle Alexander refers to as a new Jim Crow era. Harsher penalties for drug related offenses led to a 1,216% increase in state prison populations for drug offenses, according to The Pew Charitable Trusts. Even now, there are drastic racial disparities in sentencing. Black men are sent to state prison at 13 times the rate of white men, and in seven states, 80% to 90% of all people sent to prison on drug charges are Black, according to Human Rights Watch.

In 2008, Barack Obama was elected as the nation’s first Black president, ushering in an era of hope. Some Americans naively referred to this as emblematic of a post-racial era. During Obama’s second term in office, the murders of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown, two unarmed Black teenagers, gave rise to the Movement for Black Lives in which Black people declared, in the words of the now-famous phrase, that Black Lives Matter.

In the aftermath of Obama’s presidency, Donald Trump was elected, a result that brought with it an emboldened, racially resentful mass public. At the end of his presidency, in 2020, we saw the George Floyd uprisings and a brief racial reckoning that led to seemingly deep commitments to anti-racism and diversity, equity and inclusion principles. Years later school districts are banning books and curricula related to Black history and the term “DEI” is being weaponized as a slur in right-wing media. Racial progress is consistently followed by era of political regression. In the United States, where we have failed to fully address our racial history, we are plagued with generational trauma that has prevented the cycle from being broken. Until we as a nation grapple with the legacy of slavery, segregation, mass incarceration and racial violence, when it comes to racial progress America will continue to fail the open-note quiz and fall short of its promises.

Eroded Protections

Changes to the Voting Rights Act and new obstacles to voting may threaten democracy.

By Nathan Chan

Assessing the future of American democracy requires that we think deeply about mass participation in elections, both in terms of the overall status of voter turnout and consideration of who is privileged to cast a ballot in the United States.

Higher voter turnout is often viewed as a healthy sign of democracy. On that point, the United States has been doing better in recent years. According to the US Elections Project, turnout in presidential elections among the voting eligible population (VEP) has risen on average over the last couple of decades — hovering around half of the VEP casting a ballot in the 1980s, rising steadily to 60.1% voting in 2016. The 2000 presidential election saw about 66.6% turn out to vote, a rate unseen since 1900. Americans are utilizing their democratic right to make their voice heard at the ballot box. This is even though turnout in the U.S. lags well behind many other countries around the world.

Yet, even though turnout in the U.S. has generally risen in recent elections, and this is optimistic for the future of American democracy, there is still much to be concerned about. In 2013, the Supreme Court, in the case Shelby County v. Holder, invalidated Section 4(b) of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Without the provisions in Section 4(b), states with a past record of suppressing the minority vote no longer need to pre-clear election-related laws by federal entities. Soon after this decision, state governments in Texas, Mississippi, North Carolina, and Alabama began adopting more voting requirements and heavier restrictions to voting — all states that were in part, if not in full, previously subject to federal preclearance of election laws under the VRA.

I continue to be concerned that without the core protections in the Voting Rights Act, gains in voter turnout will remain unequal across racial minorities who have historically faced heavy barriers to the franchise. This is especially because political science research has found that photo identification laws, for example, discriminate against racial minorities and negatively affect voter turnout disproportionately for non-white voters.

Fast forward several years, factually inaccurate claims of election fraud emboldened states to impose further voter hurdles related to registration processes, mail-in ballots, early voting, day-of voting, and ballot verification — measures that make voting more difficult. Following the 2020 presidential election, 19 states passed 24 restrictive laws in 2021, eight states enacted 11 restrictive voting laws in 2022, and 14 states enacted 17 restrictive voting laws in 2023.

Political scientists continue to monitor turnout rates across race and ethnicity in assessing the future of American democracy. It is clear that there is a racial turnout gap. Whites’ turnout at higher rates than Black Americans, Latinos, and Asian Americans, and there are structural forces at play that disproportionately prevent minorities from turning out to vote in the present day. All the more concerning, research has shown that the status of the racial turnout gap has been worsening. In every presidential election since 2008, the turnout gap between white and non-white voters has increased; a phenomenon largely seen in midterm elections in the same time frame. The gap in voter turnout between whites and Blacks is particularly pronounced and increasing among counties previously protected by the Voting Rights Act and after the Shelby County v. Holder decision. This suggests that the end of pre-clearance federal regulation in areas with histories of racial discrimination has contemporary effects on increasing the racial turnout gap. Therefore, when assessing not only the status of voter turnout but also considering how this breaks down across race/ethnicity and inequities that come to light, I am concerned about the future of American democracy. As states continue to impose barriers to voting that make it more difficult to cast a ballot, rather than make it easier and, further, as these restrictions disproportionately and negatively affect racial minorities — I am concerned on one hand about whose voices are amplified and on the other, whose are muted in the American political system.