Amid the United States’ celebration of the 250-year anniversary of the American Revolution, journalist Osita Nwanevu says it may be time for the country to wipe the slate clean and build a new political system. KPBS’s Amita Sharma recently interviewed Nwanevu about his new book “The Right of the People: Democracy and the Case for a New American Founding.” Here’s that conversation.
Osita, you have said that the U.S., its institutions, as well as its economy, are not democratic. Elaborate.
Osita Nwanevu: In a democracy, the first thing is that people come to a collective choice in equal standing. Political equality is very, very important. There aren't any privileged minorities. People don't have different amounts of political rights or a different amount of political say on the basis of arbitrary characteristics. The second thing is responsiveness. Democratic systems are responsive to the governing public. Democracy is not a suggestion box. When people come together to act collectively, things do happen. The third thing is majority rule. Of all of the different ways in which you might make a collective choice together, from some form of unanimity all the way down to some form of minority rule, majority rule is the one that's most consistent with the principle of equality. Two people want one thing, three people want some other thing. It's very hard for the two to get their way over the three unless there's some fundamental inequality at work. So equality, responsiveness and majority rule. It sounds pretty intuitive when you describe them to people. But I think the American political system flouts each of those things in very fundamental ways.
For hundreds of years, the U.S. has widely been seen as this beacon on the hill, a symbol of democracy and freedom, even hope. The country has a long history of at least democratic traditions, does it not?
ON: I think the American founding was a very, very important moment in world history for advancing the liberties of ordinary people. At the same time, it was limited in certain respects that I think is worth taking seriously. The founders, I think conservatives are generally fair in saying, were not really enthusiastic about democracy. They did establish what I think could be fairly called a republic, a system where power was distributed. We didn't have a king. But we did have a system with checks and balances, a written constitution, and those things were very important. They crafted institutions that, again, are not monarchical institutions, are an improvement from monarchical government, but were not really intended to directly represent popular majorities in this country, and were not meant to treat the American people equally. I think we have to come to terms with that. That's not to say that we haven't had important moments of our history, important moments when, again, we've succeeded in improving the system's democratic character — granting the vote to women, granting the vote to minorities, direct election of senators. These kinds of things are very important. But I think we have a long way to go. We have a long way to go in comparison even to our international peers — who also have governments that are democratic in character, that we can learn from, and I think actually do much better than our democracy in representing their people.
You write in your book, that part of an off-ramp to the current march toward autocracy is to acknowledge that the U.S. was never a democracy. What comes after such an acknowledgement?
ON: Well, I think about improving American democracy as a generational project. I'm not somebody who says that we should have a constitutional convention next year or even in the next five or 10, but I do hope that this book and other works from people who are taking this problem as seriously as I do, inspires a generational project like the civil rights movement, like the women's movement, to over time, increase the democratic character of the American system. There are a few reforms that I think are worth pursuing in the next decade or so. There are things like the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, which would move us to a popular vote for presidential elections instead of the Electoral College. But longer term reforms like dealing with the Senate in a completely new way overall, having a completely different constitutional set of arrangements, that's going to take a long time. But I think we are at a moment where people understand that the systems in Washington aren't really working democratically in their interest.
They might not know exactly why. They might not have all the diagnoses that I have in this book. But there was a poll that Gallup did earlier last year where they found 71% of Americans were dissatisfied with the state of American democracy. About half of Americans don't really think democracy works in the interests of ordinary people. That's not a tenable situation. I think that the absence of a real sense of democracy works in Washington is only going to contribute to the rise of people who say, "We don't have a democratic system anyway, so why not just throw your interest over to some authoritarian who's going to go into Washington with a wrecking ball and make things right."
I'm interviewing you from San Diego. How does the lack of democracy in this country that you described filter down to local government?
ON: Most voters don't necessarily pay as much attention to their state and local elections. But the people who actually end up doing so, end up being wealthier and less representative of the general population than people who participate in the federal elections in the federal donor process. There are underlying inequities that we should really take very seriously there. In a lot of states and localities now, you see experiments with things like rank choice voting, expanding the access to the ballot in certain ways. Those things can and should be done at lower levels, irrespective of what happens at the federal level. In fact, if we make democracy obviously work better in our own communities, in our own states, that, I think, gives us the confidence to pursue larger reforms at the federal level. I think just about all over the country, you see people experimenting with different voting systems, expanding voting rights, districting reform. These are efforts I think people should pay attention to because as it stands, the people who pay the most attention to state and local politics end up being the people at the top of our society.
That's not a good way to sustain democratic systems and democratic practice.
And what do people across the country in cities, in places like San Diego County, do to help build a foundation for a new democracy?
ON: Well, I think you should get in touch with any kind of democratic reform efforts that might be happening around you. But I also think that expanding labor power, getting involved in work or organizing are very important. Unions are institutions of democracy. Otherwise, the halls of government are dominated by lobbyists representing corporations, trade associations, these kinds of groups. Unions are real institutions that really matter for ordinary working people. They also train people for a democracy. When you're involved in a union, you practice certain skills that are important, learning how to speak with people who are different from you, learning how to compromise, learning how to make arguments. The fact that we've had this decline in civic institutions, unions included, I think has been a real detriment to our democracy. Labor organizing, I think, is actually a very important part of making all of this work, both for material reasons and combatting inequality, which corrupts and impacts our democratic governance. But also because I think that there are certain democratic capacities that they can build for all of us.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
