Trends Affecting Representative Democracy

By LEE H. HAMILTON

We’ve seen plenty of evidence lately of the deep polarization in this country. Even in the midst of this crisis, national politicians, the political parties, and their adherents are finding plenty to fight over – even as, for the most part, ordinary Americans have been united and many governors and mayors have worked hard to handle the coronavirus pandemic competently and guided by expert advice.

The question as we look ahead is whether the trends we’d been seeing before the pandemic will reassert themselves. Because those are extremely worrisome.

For years now, it’s been common for politicians to label their rivals as unpatriotic and illegitimate. The deep freeze in cross-aisle relations in Congress had made progress there difficult, though the crisis has given congressional leaders and members of the Trump Administration no choice but to keep bargaining until they hammer out agreements.

Other trends are equally problematic. The federal civil service, for instance, has always fielded dedicated public servants who try not to be partisan and to make government work better. That has gotten harder to pull off in recent years, and the result is a civil service that is losing workers, institutional knowledge, and competence.

Likewise with the judiciary, which has become more politicized. It’s a worrisome trend in a branch of government that has generally stood for even-handed justice and, over the long term, strengthened Americans’ civil rights and civil liberties.

This extends to the media, as well. For whatever reason, it exercises less rigorous oversight of government, and what does exist is more partisan.

As polarization has deepened, Congress has gridlocked, presidential power has expanded, and the government has become less responsive and less effective. It took a national crisis to lay bare some of these issues, but the trends underlying them have been going on for some time, and fixing them will take time, too.

This has to start with ordinary Americans. Voters need to reclaim our democracy, agitate to ensure that our institutions of government are performing as they should, and recognize that if the trends I’ve laid out strengthen their grip, our representative democracy will suffer.

People may distrust government, but the only way to solve the problems and worrisome trends of government is principally through government action. Which means that in the end, as citizens we have to step up to our responsibilities and insist that our public officials do so, too.

Editor’s Note: Lee Hamilton is a senior advisor for the Indiana University Center on Representative Government; a distinguished scholar at the IU Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies; and a professor of practice at the IU O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs. He was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives for 34 years.