NOTE TO READERS: For now, think of every graphic on this page as an individual section, and every section's text as a stand alone observation or thought, one not necessarily connected to those that precede or follow it. There may also be some overlap between this page and the Home page.
INTRODUCTION:
Not all, but probably nearly everyone with a comprehensive knowledge of the history of democracies agrees with two thousand plus years of conventional political wisdom (CPW) which says that, one, all democratic societies—no matter their form of government: direct, representative, constitutional republic, constitutional monarchy, etc.—will "eventually fail” in their effort to govern themselves [successfully, effectively, competently].
- Plato, circa 400 BC: “Democracy will inevitably become tyranny”
- Aristotle, circa 400 BC: “Republics decline into democracies and democracies degenerate into despotisms.”
- Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) "The body politic, like the human body, begins to die from its birth, and bears in itself the causes of its destruction."
- John Adams, 2nd U.S. pres. "There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide."
- Thomas Babington Macaulay, British historian, poet, politician (1800-1859): “I have long been convinced that institutions purely democratic must, sooner or later, destroy liberty or civilization, or both.”
- Shawn W. Rosenberg, Political/Psychological Science, UC-Irvine, 2017: “Particularly in well-established democracies like the United States, democratic governance will continue its inexorable decline and will eventually fail..."
Two, democratic societies will fail because, "for the most part," their voters simply aren't intelligent enough to govern themselves successfully/effectively/competently. They also have a number of other human "shortcomings" that don't help matters. For example, far too many are woefully uneducated, or are insufficiently "informed on the issues." Or they're misinformed, naïve, gullible, greedy, etc.
- (The ever perspicacious) Winston Churchill (1874-1965): "The best argument against Democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter."
- Shawn W. Rosenberg, Political/Psychological Science, UC-Irvine, 2017: “...people lack the requisite cognitive capacities for integration and abstraction needed for the kind of systemic understanding, considered judgment and critical reflection that liberal democracy requires of its citizenry." https://www.academia.edu/81028655/Unfit_for_Democracy_Irrational_Rationalizing_and_Biologically_Predisposed_Citizens...
A democracy's failure will take many forms. Adrian Pabst, Professor of Politics, University of Kent, suggests how a modern day democracy's "inexorable decline" might manifest itself:
- "The argument is not that democracy is becoming the same as a dictatorship, but rather that liberal democracy mutates into novel forms of illiberal authoritarianism. A new oligarchy seeks to centralize power, concentrate wealth and manipulate public opinion by using media spin, closing down debate, and ironing out plurality."
FOOD FOR THOUGHT: Even if America doesn't collapse into a full blown, Putin-style autocracy in the near- or mid-term, there is no best case scenario for the "illiberal authoritarianism" that American democracy has already started mutating into. Our nation's myriad of major economic, financial, fiscal and (poverty related) societal (EFFS) problems are going to continue getting worse, much worse in many cases. Meaning, among a long laundry list of problematic issues confronting our nation:
- The joyless ordeal that passes for daily life for an increasing number of Americans will only get more joyless, their ordeal more debilitating.
- The multitude of civilizing values and attitudes that keep civilizations civil---e.g., honesty, courtesy, charity, altruism, duty, respect for the free speech rights of others, respect for the rule of law, respect for the outcomes of elections, etc., etc.---will continue to "wither on the vine."
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LAYMAN'S TAKEAWAY: The seemingly unstoppable force pushing American democracy toward "eventual failure" is the mountain of major EFFS problems America is buried under. That mountain is only going to grow larger––and at an accelerating pace––if:
- millions of low skill Americans---combined with millions of low skill [take your pick: undocumented immigrants, illegal aliens] living in America---continue putting considerable strain on a considerable number of our nation's already over-strained systems, e.g., healthcare, education, social services, criminal justice, etc.,
- the proportion of our population who rely heavily on America's already strained entitlement programs, i.e., our very old, very sick, very disabled and very poor, grows significantly relative to the segment of our population whose tax dollars are keeping those programs afloat.
- moving forward, an already unacceptably high (yet growing at an ever-accelerating pace) percentage of our federal budget is going to be devoted simply to service our national debt ($36.67 trillion as of 4-12-25). If the debt grows faster than America's GDP –– long story short: we're screwed. America's "debt spiral" will reach the point of irreversibility, which means our financial/societal/civilizational collapse "will be nigh."
"You can ignore reality, but you cannot ignore the consequences of ignoring reality.” (Ayn Rand)
There's no getting around our harsh reality.
- The America people AND American democracy are both facing a bleak future.
- That future is getting bleaker by the day.
- No one has the slightest idea how to slow, much less reverse, our nation's (and planet's) downward civilizational spiral.
(RADICAL) FOOD FOR (RADICAL) THOUGHT: What if democracies in the modern era, generally, but American democracy in particular, are in various stages of decline/failure for a reason that has nothing to do with their voters' cognitive and other shortcomings, but because literally every self-governing society is practicing democracy, i.e., engaging in the process of self-governance, incorrectly.
In which case, we don't have a "it's the voters' fault" problem as CPW suggests, we have an incorrect "theory" of self-governance (S-G) problem---in the same way, for example:
- astronomers practiced astronomy incorrectly when they ascribed to the incorrect theory (taught to them by their astronomy professors) that our Earth sits stationary at the center of our solar system,
- medical doctors practiced medicine incorrectly when they ascribed to the incorrect theory (taught to them by their medical professors) that good vs. poor health is determined by the body's four major humours being in vs. not being in their "proper" balance.
re Political Science's unwritten, unexamined—and incorrect—100% Political/Ideological (PI) War theory of S-G.
The unexamined assumption among our political academics is that elections are simply the means by which different factions of voters decide between competing legislative policies, or policy agendas. In the specific case of America's NLEP, the choice for voters is between the Democratic Party's liberal/progressive policies vs. the Republican party's conservative/libertarian policies.
Or expressed differently, America's LOC and ROC voters "use" their NLEP for one purpose: to wage 100% PI War against each other every two years to determine which side's PI warrior-politicians will control Congress for the next two years. And they wage their 100% PI War solely because they don't have the slightest idea:
- of what shared, apolitical/non-ideological(ANI) objectives even means,
- why their shared ANI objectives are vastly more existentially important/valuable to them than their PI objectives,
- how to use their NLEP to achieve them.
It is our society's "primitive" understanding of the S-G process that explains why, after 200+ years of voters waging 100% PI War against each other, the following graphic captures the part-Groundhog Day, part-Twilight Zone S-G nightmare our electorate is now imprisoned in.
Since the 100% PI War theory, and strategy, of S-G is as far from a normative theory and strategy of S-G as voters in a free society can get—LAYMAN'S TAKEAWAY: it's glaringly obvious that, long story short, the ultimate fault for American democracy's "inexorable decline" lies with our academic experts on the democratic process, i.e., our political science and civics educators, for failing to develop a large body of knowledge re correct vs. incorrect [or normative vs. non-normative] theories, and strategies, of S-G.
BRIEF DISCUSSION: fairly early in our nation's history, our elected representatives at the state level assigned to our political and civics educators the responsibility of teaching our future voters what voters in free societies should do to fulfil their civic duty in their capacity as voters (layman's takeaway: a voter's two biggest "civic" responsibilities: 1) be informed on the issues, 2) get out and vote come election time).
Yet, apparently, in all this time it has never occurred to our "mainstream" academics to comprehensively compare, or even explore, the relative efficacy of different voting strategies---derived from different theories of S-G---which voters can use most notably in their NLEP. And based on either the actual outcome, or the predicted outcome, of each strategy conclude, for example, that any voting strategy that results in Congress permanently overflowing with two or more factions of largely well-meaning---but also (layman's takeaway) largely self-serving, politically ambitious, power-craving, perks and privileges-addicted---"politicians" is definitely NOT a correct S-G strategy voters should be using to elect their 535 members of Congress.
While a strategy (and the theory that supports it) that results in Congress permanently overflowing with two or more factions of PKQ-Caliber legislators constitutes the correct strategy/theory---which, fyi, we might also describe as the normative strategy/theory.
In other words, in a nutshell: what if the key to democracies succeeding spectacularly has nothing to do with how intelligent the "average" voter is, or how educated and/or informed he/she is, or whether they're gullible or naive or greedy---or whether 90% of eligible voters vote vs., say, 60%, etc.---but merely requires that those societies' political/civics educators teach their future (and current) voters an easy to understand, easy to implement voting, or S-G, strategy, one that will enable them to keep their national legislatures continually replenished with a steady supply of PKQ-caliber legislators?
re POLITICAL AMBITION, POWER-LUST, SELF-SERVINGISM
re Political Ambition
There are roughly half a million Americans serving in some form of elected office, most of them at the local level. A useful operating assumption is that, not all of them but the vast majority initially ran for office, not because they had political aspirations or they craved political power, but because they constitute that tiny minority of individuals in every democratic society who actually get off their butts and offer to perform what are often times the largely thankless tasks that have to be performed to insure that the many gears of a community (and a society) that are essential to their successful functioning don't stop turning.
(Because when enough gears stop turning, civilizations stop being "civilized.")
That said, within this group of well-meaning, well-intentioned individuals, there is no doubt a [small(?), substantial(?)] percentage who, once in office, experience the perks and privileges that came with their position. And however small or minor those perks may be, they are enough to turn the elected official into, by definition, a self-serving PAP.
Meaning, their desire to get re-elected will corrupt their decision making, perhaps ever so slightly in some cases, considerably in others. Regardless of how much, it's likely that a significant number of these elected officials will get re-elected simply because they run unopposed -- because no one else wants the job.
The reason for pointing out these commonsense observations about human nature is to underscore the larger takeaway:
- Political ambition should be seen as a necessary evil at the local and, to a lesser extent, state level -- but a 100% unnecessary evil at the national legislative level.
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ODDS & ENDS
It is almost impossible to overstate the amount of economic, financial, fiscal and (poverty related) societal (EFFS) damage done to our nation and society by generations of legislation crafted and enacted into law by U.S. Congresses dominated and controlled by, by definition, self-serving, politically ambitious "politicians" (PAPs).
Equally damaging are the two polar opposite political/ideological (PI) myths propagated by both parties' PAPs in Congress---which are treated as incontrovertible facts by large segments of our population.
LAYMAN'S TAKEAWAY: the easiest, fastest way for our society to see those two myths for what they are is by learning to speak the language of Effective S-G, or the language of ANI Cooperation.
Hard though it may be to imagine, our nation's voters, including even our intelligentsia -- particularly our political academics -- don't have the slightest idea of what it means for our ~160 million left-and right-of-center (LOC/ROC) voters to govern themselves "effectively" -- most notably when it comes to the way our voters ARE using vs. SHOULD use their national legislative election process (NLEP).
That's all but entirely because, while most of us have a sense of what it means to be an "informed" voter or a responsible voter, the myriad of concepts associated with a free society's voters governing themselves effectively doesn't yet exist -- other than (presumably) on this webpage. So important, democracy-saving concepts like, for example, normative S-G strategies voters can use in their NLEP to achieve their shared ANI objectives, are not yet part of our society's self-governance (S-G) zeitgeist. The requisite S-G terms are not in our S-G lexicon; the indispensable S-G strategies are not yet in our voters' S-G toolbox (in fact, voters don't even know they have an S-G toolbox).
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FINAL TWO LAYMAN'S TAKEAWAYS:
- Twenty-four hundred years of history is telling us—in as clear and emphatic terms as possible—that if we want to see democracy as a form of government succeed, our voters are going to have to ~do something [no free society's electorate] has ever done.
- The civilizational duty of our political intelligentsia in particular—i.e., our society’s intellectual elite who “… critique, shape, and lead in the politics, policies, and culture of their society”—is to help teach our society’s non-elite (notwithstanding their many human failings and shortcomings) how to ”do something [they’ve never] done.”