BUCKLAND — Which is better: a government with a strong leader that “guarantees justice” or an imperfect democracy in which everyone can have a voice?
The audience, made up of mostly older residents, that heard Amherst College Professor Austin Sarat’s talk on “constitutional rot” at Mohawk Trail Regional School on Thursday night picked “democracy.” But 78-year-old Sarat doesn’t want to see democracy die out with an older generation that seemingly values it more than younger people, who were born after World War II and Watergate.
About 70% of Americans born in the 1930s said in a recent poll that they believe it is essential to live in a democracy. But only 30% of the poll respondents who were born in the 1980s agreed. Sarat said support for a more authoritarian form of government has grown between the 1990s and today.
“Democracy is good, but it needs to be gooder,” quipped Sarat, whose political science career began in 1974 — the year President Richard Nixon resigned after the Watergate scandal.
“When Nixon resigned, there was a lot of celebration over how well the system [of government checks and balances] was working,” he explained. “We can’t assume that now.”
Once, Sarat thought democracy was “as American as apple pie,” he said. “But it has been taken for granted.”
He told the Charlemont Forum audience that democracy has been steadily eroding over the past 30 years, and that the power that President Donald Trump has amassed during his second term is a “symptom,” but not the cause of the declining democracy.
“Today, millions of Americans are choosing their version of justice over democracy. But standing up for democracy isn’t a partisan issue,” he said. “It’s about the [shared] principles on which we all continue to live.”
Since the beginning, he explained, the Constitution has included built-in “cooling mechanisms intended to make it hard for any majority to work its will over the other branches of government.” But the separations of powers, and the checks and balances between the executive, judicial and legislative branches, have weakened.
“The phenomena of the MAGA movement has a messianic idea of politics. But, if you want to understand the phenomena, you have to see it as those who believe in it do,” he said.
“To preserve democracy, you have to preserve the infrastructure of democracy,” Sarat continued. “If you want to save democracy, you have to do something about the conditions in which people live.”
Sarat said the United States used to invest a lot in the “common good” of the American people, through schools, libraries, parks, highway systems and social safety net programs that help in hard times.
“Too many people have become the long-term unemployed,” he said. “One in four Americans have nothing set aside for emergencies, and 43% of Americans can’t afford to cover a $1,000 emergency without going into debt.”
Many people want radical change, Sarat said.
“Seventy percent of Americans believe that, if the signers of the Declaration of Independence were alive, they would disagree with the way it is being followed in the United States today,” he noted.
The signs of a strong democracy, he said, include:
- Economic well-being for most.
- A consensus of fundamental values.
- Effective governing.
- Political conflicts that focus on middle-range issues, not on radical left-wing or right-wing ideals.
- Political differences in which each sees those on the other side as opponents, not enemies.
To make democracy work, Sarat said leaders should “play by the rules,” be able to accept losses and have confidence in the government.
“We’re all in the same boat, but we’re not all rowing in the same direction,” he added.
To strengthen democracy, Sarat urged his audience to “do something,” whether that means writing letters to national leaders or standing on street corners protesting.
“Be curious about the views of others, and practice empathy before judgement,” he said. You’ve got to give people a place to stand, not tell people what to think.”
He added that too much of American politics today is “playing to the like-minded.”
“We don’t value listening [as much] as we value talking,” he said. “Say what you think, but make room for the idea that you could be wrong.”