A long view for U.S. democracy

At a time like this, long-term thinking plays an essential role

When the house is on fire, renovations may not be the first things that come to mind. That’s how it might feel for our national democracy right now.

Like the first Gilded Age, we are living in a time of backsliding for our institutions. The new year will surely bring new threats to our federal government. I’m not talking about routinely bad policies, which any new government can bring. More important than those transient changes, wholesale alterations may befall our system: abandoning a nonpartisan civil service (replacing the Pendleton Civil Service Act with Schedule F), undermining of national departments (Defense, Health), and turning the rule of law to personal ends (Justice). How much of the good parts of our system can be preserved? Engaging with these short-term threats is surely urgent.

Still, more than ever, it is essential to maintain long-term thinking. Out of any disruption in coming years, it may still be possible for American democracy to become more representative, more responsive, and more deliberative. After all, the first Gilded Age did eventually produce positive changes.

Also, over the last decade, repairs to democracy have put us in a better position than we would otherwise be:

• Gerrymandering reform has made the House of Representatives more representative than it’s been in over a decade.

• All-party primaries and ranked-choice voting have protected a handful of legislators from being turfed out by extremists.

• In many states, legislatures and state courts are more representative, and are providing more support for individual rights.

In coming weeks I will show you evidence for each of these statements. For now, this Thanksgiving, I hope you will be grateful that we have a starting point.

In the meantime, let me leave you with this lecture which I gave at Princeton two weeks ago. It’s kind of long, but if you are scientifically minded, you may like it. I laid out a framework, rooted in mathematical biology, to explain why our institutions are failing. This is not just a theoretical subject: I believe these same approaches can help us find a way forward.

Many of these ideas come from my colleague and collaborator Simon Levin, who kindly lent me his slides for the first half of the talk. Another collaborator, Keena Lipsitz, provided valuable insights from political science.

Enjoy, and happy Thanksgiving!