With former President Donald Trump having all but wrapped up the GOP presidential nomination, one issue looks set to be at the center of the general election campaign: the threat to democracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a major campaign speech <\/a>in Pennsylvania in January, President Joe Biden detailed Trump\u2019s lies about the 2020 election, his efforts to use violence to hold on to power, and his promises of \u201crevenge\u201d and \u201cretribution\u201d against political enemies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cTrump\u2019s assault on democracy isn\u2019t just part of his past,\u201d Biden declared. \u201cIt\u2019s what he\u2019s promising for the future.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n To combat the charge, Team Trump has sought to muddy the waters by claiming, without evidence, that in fact it\u2019s the president who threatens democracy. Trump says<\/a> the criminal indictments in four cases brought against him are the proof \u2014 though there\u2019s no evidence that Biden influenced prosecutors in any of them. Trump also points to a case pending before the Supreme Court, in which Biden also has no involvement, that would rule Trump ineligible for the ballot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThey\u2019ve weaponized government, and he\u2019s saying I\u2019m a threat to democracy,\u201d Trump said at an Iowa rally last month, accusing Biden of \u201cpathetic fearmongering.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n All of which brings up a question: How do ordinary Americans regard democracy? Some people might assume that, though voters are deeply divided over just about everything, there is agreement on democracy as the way to resolve differences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And yet, nearly half the electorate say they plan to vote for a candidate who already has gravely undermined democracy, and promises to do so again if re-elected. Does that suggest Americans\u2019 commitment to democracy \u2014 not just to holding elections, but to the norms that undergird liberal democracy, like the rule of law and an impartial justice system \u2014 isn\u2019t as ironclad as we\u2019d like to think?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Recently, a trove of information has emerged to shed light on the question. A series of polls, surveys, focus groups, and other analyses \u2014 many released since the start of the year \u2014 has aimed to gauge Americans\u2019 views on democracy: how important it is, how well it\u2019s working, and whether there are times when democratic values should be jettisoned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The findings are varied and not easy to summarize, but a few themes stand out: Dissatisfaction with how democracy is performing is sky-high across the political spectrum. Large majorities say democracy is at risk. And, perhaps most importantly: A growing share of Americans appears willing, in our ultra-polarized times, to put partisan or ideological loyalties ahead of democracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhen you are living in a more polarized time, it is going to be more likely that people are going to find excuses for their principles to be pushed to the side, because in that moment their political identity is more important than almost any other identity,\u201d said Joe Goldman, the president of the Democracy Fund, a pro-democracy advocacy organization, and a co-author of a long-term study<\/a> released this month by the group on Americans\u2019 views of democracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s a highly dangerous situation, democracy advocates say. A clear and cross-partisan pro-democracy consensus among the public could act as a crucial bulwark against the kind of authoritarian steps that Trump has said he\u2019ll take if re-elected \u2014 and could make it harder for him to win in the first place. Without that consensus, the threat to democracy will continue to grow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Going back to the founding, there\u2019s been a strain of thinking that distrusted democracy as a system that can lead to mob rule and tyranny.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s pretty clear that our founders hated democracy,\u201d said Michael Schudson, a professor at Columbia Journalism School, who has studied the history of American civic life. \u201cThey were trying to get away from it. Democracy was a form of government from the past that led to, essentially, anarchy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Even today, many leading conservatives insist on calling the U.S. not a democracy but a republic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBy the way, the United States is not a democracy,\u201d Rep. Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, now the House speaker, said<\/a> in a 2019 church sermon. \u201cDo you know what a democracy is? Two wolves and a sheep deciding what\u2019s for dinner. You don\u2019t want to be in a democracy. Majority rule: not always a good thing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n But there\u2019s no question that recent years have seen a rise in the number of Americans who say democracy isn\u2019t working well \u2014 or even who question it as a system and express support for alternatives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A Jan. 10 analysis<\/a> by the University of Virginia\u2019s Center for Politics, which summarized results from seven high-quality recent polls, found broad agreement that \u201cAmerican democracy is not working.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n One typical poll<\/a> included in the UVA analysis, released this month by Gallup, found just 28% of respondents, a new low, said they were satisfied with how democracy is functioning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n An overwhelming number of respondents to a PRRI survey<\/a> from last year \u2014 84% of Democrats, 77% of Republicans, and 73% of independents \u2014 said that U.S. democracy is at risk. And 2 out of 3 respondents to a Jan. 31 Quinnipiac poll<\/a> said U.S. democracy is in danger of collapse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A set of focus group conversations with mostly undecided voters in Georgia, Wisconsin, and Nevada, conducted Jan. 24 by the progressive polling firm Navigator Research and viewed by States Newsroom, found similar views. But the focus groups also underscored the challenges that Democrats might have in convincing voters that Trump is to blame for democracy\u2019s troubles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Participants almost universally said, when asked, that U.S. democracy is not working well. One Nevada man described it as a corpse, an assessment that many other participants appeared to agree with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But asked why, almost no one pointed to Trump and his lies about the 2020 election, his role in the violence of Jan. 6, or his promises to govern as an authoritarian. Many participants, instead, talked about feeling that their vote doesn\u2019t matter because politicians on both sides ignore the views of regular people \u2014 concerns that existed long before the tumult of the Trump era.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s self-interest on both sides,\u201d said a Georgia woman. \u201cFrom the lobbyists, from the politicians, to make it the way they want instead of the way we want.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBoth sides are trying to say (democracy is under attack), but they\u2019re trying to just point at the other side and make everyone believe it\u2019s the other side,\u201d said a Wisconsin man. \u201cI tend to think it\u2019s more about the entities that are in power just wanting to remain in power. And that\u2019s the best way to do that, is to make sure that we think it is under attack, but from the other side.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Stony Brook University political scientist Stanley Feldman summed up the challenge in an interview<\/a> with the New York Times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cVoting to protect democracy isn\u2019t as straightforward as it may seem. Democracy is an abstraction to many voters,\u201d said Feldman. \u201cTo many Republicans, bringing criminal charges against Trump at this point looks like the Biden administration is trying to subvert democracy by getting rid of a candidate who can win in November.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Still, at least in the abstract, people appear to value democracy and to see preserving it as important.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When the Quinnipiac poll<\/a> asked people to choose which of 10 issues was the most urgent, the top choice, at 24%, was \u201cpreserving democracy\u201d. Over 80 percent of participants in the Democracy Fund study, who were surveyed at different times from 2017 to 2022, said democracy is a fairly or very good political system. And only 8 percent were found to be \u201cconsistently authoritarian\u201d in their responses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But when Democracy Fund asked a series of questions aimed at gauging support for key tenets of liberal democracy \u2014 including about authoritarian rule, about using violence to advance political goals, and about accepting election results \u2014 only 27% always gave the pro-democracy answer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Perhaps even more troubling, this willingness to deprioritize democracy corresponded closely to partisan interests. For instance, in September 2020, 81% of Republicans said it would be important for the loser of that year\u2019s election to acknowledge the winner. In November \u2014 the month when the election was called for Biden, and Trump refused to concede defeat \u2014 that figure was 31%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe results show that support for foundational principles of liberal democracy are discouragingly soft and inconsistent,\u201d the study\u2019s authors conclude, adding: \u201cThere is a significant segment of the population that may be willing to embrace or accept the cause of authoritarian figures if and when it is in their partisan and political interests.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Plenty of other polling evidence points toward the same conclusion. A CNN poll<\/a> from October found that 67% of likely Republican primary voters in South Carolina said Trump\u2019s efforts to overturn the election, if true, are not relevant to his fitness for the presidency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n An AP\/NORC poll<\/a> released in December found that 87% of Democrats said a Trump win in 2024 would damage democracy, while 82% of Republicans said the same thing about a Biden win.<\/p>\n\n\n\nQuestioning of democracy<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Preserving democracy\u2019 still seems urgent<\/h2>\n\n\n\n