Mar 14, 2022 5 min read

In the words of Winston Churchill, “democracy is the worst form of government … except for all the others.” Abraham Lincoln justified the dead at Gettysburg because their sacrifice meant that a government “of the people, by the people, and for the people” would not perish from this earth. As Americans, we take pride in the Founding Fathers freeing us from the British monarchy and attempting to create a new system of government that is based on the ideas of the Declaration of Independence, which declared we are all created equal. While initially those ideals were limited to white, property-owning men, over time we have expanded the population to include all adult citizens.

The most important feature of representative government is that it gives everyone an opportunity to participate and be heard (in theory, at least). It does not necessarily promise the people who would make the best elected officials will be put in charge; the Founders were rightfully concerned that a demagogue would be able to use subterfuge and fear to convince the masses to put him in charge. One reason the Founders restricted the vote is they felt property-owning males would be least likely to seek salvation from a demagogue.

The key to a stable government is that it reflects the will of the governed, and that it provides a realistic avenue for change as the will of the governed changes. While no one likes to be governed by people with different values, if the governed feel that those in charge accurately reflect the will of the people, and there are avenues within the system to change things, they are less likely to go outside the system to make the changes they want. When governments fail to reflect the will of the people, the people will only tolerate it for so long.

While there have been a lot of improvements to our system since the founding (the secret ballot, the expansion of the franchise), in recent decades, some glaring problems have emerged. In two out of the last six elections, the presidential candidate who won the popular vote did not win the election (and in the most recent election, the candidate who lost the popular vote by more than 7 million votes was close enough in the electoral college to make a claim, without evidence, that fraud in key states was the only reason he lost). A system that consistently denies the majority of the voters their choice in leaders will have trouble maintaining legitimacy.

The Founders had the members of the House run for election every two years, with the idea that doing so would keep them in close touch with the voters. But with gerrymandering, many districts are so safe that the only potential for an incumbent to lose is in a primary, which means they are pushed to the ideological limits of their party, and punished for compromising. In our two-party system, if there is no compromise, there is only scorched- earth politics and sabotage of your opponent’s agenda. That’s a recipe for dysfunction.

The filibuster is another anti-democratic tool that inhibits functioning government. Already legislation must be passed by the House, the Senate and the president, and then not overturned by the Supreme Court. Failure at any point means nothing is done. The filibuster means that most legislation must get 60 votes in the Senate, a body that is already unrepresentative (voters in small states have much more power than those in large states); 40 senators representing less than 20% of the population can stop most legislation.

Dysfunction in government encourages disaffection and cynicism. When one party wins a majority, yet cannot enact its agenda, people wonder why it matters who’s in charge, because nothing ever gets done. Representative government relies on an engaged citizenry.

The creation of our constitutional government in 1787 was an impressive achievement, but it’s beginning to show its age. To ensure that the government truly represents “the people,” we need to implement reforms. Making it easier to vote (while still retaining measures to ensure the security of election results) is important, because engaged citizens is the foundation of good representative government.

While the Democratic Party has been making efforts to reform the system, this should be a bipartisan effort. We should all work to create a system that accurately reflects the will of the people. If your ability to hold political power depends on keeping some portions of the electorate from having a voice, and you use that power that you have to keep a legitimately elected government from operating effectively, maybe it’s time to adopt a more popular agenda instead of relying on a broken system to retain power.

The brave citizens of Ukraine have reminded us of the value of democracy. The least we can do is make sure ours works well.

Kent James has a doctorate in History and Policy from Carnegie Mellon University and is an adjunct in the History Department at Washington & Jefferson College.