'We, the People' Faltering in Faith

This is an excerpt from "On the Paradox of Democracy, Transformation, and Accepting the Darkness Ahead". The Full article can be found here: https://www.tectonica.co/posts/paradox_of_democracy

Campaign Turned Democracy Referendum

"Do you think Trump might actually win?"

As the campaign entered its final weeks, I heard this question constantly. Without wanting to deflate the crucial energy of those fighting against authoritarianism, I found myself faced with what I had come to believe as a disturbing possibility: democracy itself was no longer the untouchable principle we assumed it to be in the American psyche. The campaign had evolved into a referendum on democracy - if not by strategic choice, but by the gravitational pull of our political moment.

The Harris campaign, like any operating in today's political culture, found itself drawn into this vortex. In those final crucial weeks, Trump's threats to democratic norms echoed loudly through Harris’s campaign messaging (we heard more of Trump’s fascist words than the folksy phrases of the loveable Tim Walz). The strategic direction seemed to rest on a fundamental assumption: if Americans truly understood democracy was at stake, they would surely rally to its defense. After all, isn't that who we are as a nation? 

I saw this miscalculation play out in real time on election night. I held my face in my hands as I saw NBC’s pundits light up over exit poll results showing “State of Democracy” as the top issue for 35% of voters. They saw this as hopeful news for Harris, assuming voters had shown up to defend democracy. But I sensed the number didn’t mean what they thought. 

That 35% wasn’t a promise to uphold democratic values; it was a reaction to democracy’s failure to address people’s needs, their grievances, their loss of trust in the system. While pundits cheered this as a signal of support, I feared it pointed to a deeper disillusionment. For many voters, democracy was top of mind, but not in the way the pundits assumed. People weren’t rallying to protect democracy; they were voting against it. What we witnessed wasn’t just a deprioritization of democracy but a conscious, complex choice to turn away from it as a means of governance. Not because voters rejected the core principles of agency or equality but because they no longer saw those ideals reflected in the system. 

There’s of course a possibility that this statistic represents something different - that potentially those who responded that they were voting on the “state of democracy” were using the term “democracy” as a proxy for their distaste for what they consider to be corrupt politics and politicians. With this faulty logic - Trump supporters, who regularly feel “vicitimized” by “woke censorship” and “shadow-bans”, just like their candidate, felt they were in fact the protectors of democracy - paradoxically supporting the candidate who spoke openly to upend it. It’s important to remember that politics is so polarized in the US that even a common lexicon is hard to come by, and thus terms become loaded with secondary, even tertiary meaning beyond the original definition of the word - and this happens rapidly and often incorrectly, especially in Trumpworld.

However, this is likely not the case. For the base of the MAGA movement, their rejection of democracy is rationalized through their own twisted conception of American democracy. They see the fruits of our democratic process - the movements for social justice, the culture of openness, inclusion and diversity, the increasing accountability for hate speech ('cancel culture'), and most threateningly, the erosion of white supremacy's assumed birthright over American society - as attacks on their core conception of American identity. They have been readying themselves to "protect" this identity through not only electoral but potentially armed means.

There's a telling disconnect between what people feel about democracy in terms of their faith in it and what they can say publicly. Few would openly declare themselves against democratic principles. Instead, the disillusionment appears in more socially acceptable phrases: "I don't believe in politics," or "They're all corrupt." This cognitive dissonance - between what people can voice and what they demonstrate through their actions - reveals a deeper crisis in our political culture. While many couldn't say aloud that they've lost faith in democracy, their votes spoke what their words couldn't. 

We may soon see this hesitation to speak against democracy dissolve entirely. As the Overton window shifts, people might begin to overtly pride themselves on rejecting democratic principles, using Trump's success and explicit anti-democratic stance as permission and justification. What was once taboo to express could become a badge of honor among some.

The Paradox of People Voting Against Democracy

Here lies the painful paradox at the heart of the meaning behind the results of this election: people voted against democracy not because they reject the underlying principle of democracy in its ideal form. That ideal form is that democracy serves as a fair process to make collective decisions for society. 

We must be precise about what people are rejecting. Democracy exists on three levels: as an ideal of collective self-governance, as a set of institutions and processes, and as a political culture that shapes how we practice it. While few would openly reject the concept of having their own voice in decisions that affect their lives, many have lost faith in our democratic institutions to deliver on this promise. But the deeper problem lies in how our political culture has evolved - into a series of hollow transactions that strip meaning from participation. This creates a devastating paradox: people seek agency by voting against the very mechanisms that could give them voice, believing they can sacrifice the institutional guardrails of democracy while somehow preserving their own power within it. They know they're voting to dismantle democratic processes - Trump's promises weren't subtle - but they've become so alienated from meaningful participation that they see little worth preserving in the current system. What they don't yet realize is that in trying to escape a democracy that feels unresponsive, they're ensuring their own voicelessness in what comes next.

What people voted against is the process of democracy as it exists. More specifically because they no longer have faith in the ability of US democracy in form and context to deliver on its promise: to give them agency to make their lives better. Our more than 200-year-old democratic system undeniably needs evolution to meet modern challenges - from the high economic threshold for meaningful participation, to our fragmented media landscape, to the vast complexity of our diverse electorate - but this calls for democratic renewal, not abandonment. The tragic irony is that in seeking agency through anti-democratic means, they're embracing the very forces that will strip them of what little voice they have left.

The rationalization is both complex and devastating. I suspect - especially considering the bigoted strains central to the MAGA movement - many believed they could sacrifice the "fairness" part of democracy – the mechanisms that ensure equal voice and protection for all – while somehow preserving their own agency within the system. They convinced themselves that dismantling democratic guardrails would only affect their perceived enemies, not themselves. This suspension of disbelief allowed them to support authoritarian promises while imagining their own power would remain untouched or even grow stronger. A myth we will undoubtedly see crumble before us in the coming years. 

What makes this especially troubling is that people knew exactly what they were voting for. These weren't hidden implications or subtle hints – Trump's promises to dismantle democratic structures were campaign centerpieces. When people cast their votes, they did so with full knowledge of what was at stake. But their experience of democracy had become so hollowed out by decades of purely transactional politics that they saw little worth preserving in its current form.

This reveals our political culture's fundamental failure. When every interaction between citizens and their democracy becomes a transaction – another fundraising email, another targeting algorithm, another data point to be analyzed – we shouldn't be surprised when people stop believing in the system's ability to create meaningful change. They're drowning in political content while starving for genuine participation. A role in it where they are seen as the recipients of its benefits rather than targets to be used for the power of others. 

The Republicans and MAGA movement offer demolition as the solution to democratic dysfunction, while many Democrats stand defending institutions with fingers in their ears, refusing to acknowledge the legitimacy of this crisis of faith. Neither approach addresses the root cause: our politics has stripped democracy of its transformational potential, reducing it to a series of shallow transactions between marketing targets rather than meaningful engagement between citizens resulting from the market takeover of our democratic functions.  

The rejection of democracy manifests not just in votes against it, but in withdrawal from participation altogether. Not voting becomes its own act against democracy - a silent but powerful statement of disillusionment. People in this disaffected state find themselves faced with impossible choices: either "troll" the system by voting for its destruction, or sit out entirely?

The frustration people feel with democracy's current state is valid – the system has indeed become increasingly disconnected from the lives of those it's meant to serve. Something particularly palpable as times get harder for the everyday person. But this doesn't justify embracing authoritarian alternatives. The cruel irony is that in voting against a democracy they feel has failed them, people are ensuring their own voicelessness in what comes next. In frustration they have abdicated their own right and future remedy. 

It’s tempting to see this only as a rejection of political processes, but it’s more profound. People are rejecting the hollowed-out version of democracy they’ve been offered, one that no longer feels responsive or real. Even if they aren’t calling for authoritarianism outright, in their desperation, they’re open to dismantling a system that seems more intent on preserving itself than on serving them. If the system that claims to protect them is unresponsive, they perhaps feel they’re better off tearing it down and starting anew with disregard to those discarded as collateral damage and wrongful disbelief that they themselves could be that included in that group. 

Yet, as organizers, activists, and leaders, we know that the solution cannot be found in abandoning democratic principles. What we need is not less democracy but more—a transformation in how it’s practiced, a renewed commitment to participation, to treating people as agents of change rather than targets for political gain. The path forward must be grounded in real, participatory politics, in a democracy that listens and responds to the needs of its people.

To be democratic means to listen to the people, not to blame them. And if the majority voted against a system they do not trust, we need to listen and evaluate - even if we do not ourselves consent to the dismantling of democratic principles. We cannot demand belief - in democracy or anything else. Building a culture of democracy means building trust and we need to build that trust not only through good intentions but through results and our own trust rather than contempt which our political establishments show the people. 

Those of us in movement work understand a fundamental truth that Alinsky articulated: "revolution must be preceded by reformation." No change can sustain without popular support - without the hearts and will of the people behind it. Here lies our central challenge: the very consensus needed to preserve democracy has turned against it. Trust, like peace, isn't something we can simply possess or demand - it must be built, nurtured, earned through genuine participation and proven value. The connection between trust, civic participation, and democracy forms an inseparable chain - break one link, and the whole system fails.

This is the work ahead: not to demand people’s loyalty to a broken system, but to rebuild a system worthy of their loyalty. The way out of this crisis lies not in denying the disillusionment but in addressing it head-on, in building a democracy that lives up to its promises.