A View from the Valley
By Georgia Earley
According to the Pew Research Center and several others, there are dozens of classifications of democracies which are governments based on consent of the people. Ours is considered representative. Instead of voting on laws directly as in a direct democracy, we vote for representatives to make decisions on our behalf, and for now, we can vote on laws directly through voter initiatives and referendums. In all democracies officials pledge to uphold the laws of their constitution which, in our case, guarantees broad individual freedoms.
However, history has shown there’s no guarantee that those we elect will not take away those freedoms. According to an APM Research Lab report in June 2022, 68% of Americans believed they’d lost more personal freedoms in the prior 10 years than they’d gained and expected this trend to continue over the next decade. The Cato Institute in April of 2024 reported 74% of Americans worry that we could lose our freedoms if we’re not careful. And according to the Pew Research Center, most Americans now feel that our elected leaders of both parties have increasingly put special interests, or their own career and financial ambition before the good of the people.
Our Democratic Republic was founded on the principles of achieving fairness for all using experience, historical precedent, and reason (logic, critical thinking, and evidence), not ideology (a set of opinions or beliefs of a group or an individual). The founders intended that elected officials serve the public by listening to the concerns of all constituents, represent those concerns in negotiations, and act on them with fair policies and legislation in accordance with our constitution, not a party or a person. And as in personal relations, negotiations often require compromise, without which our constitution would not even exist. When ideology of any kind is prioritized over fairness, history has repeatedly shown that conflict is inevitable.
And when winning becomes more important than fairness and those we elect increasingly use tactics like district gerrymandering, intimidation, unverifiable claims, and the nuclear option (51-percent vote instead of 60-percent) especially for the supreme court, then the more our democratic process erodes, as do our freedoms.
So in democracies it’s the process that counts. Public trust is in that process. And when that process erodes, trust erodes, and it’s then up to the citizens to protect their freedoms and to hold their elected officials accountable to the constitution and to it’s principle of fairness.
We pay our elected officials to serve us, not to rule over us, and certainly not to over-rule us. However, since the 2010 Citizens United ruling when the Supreme Court struck down restrictions on corporate (and later PAC) funding for political campaigns, large financial donors have increasingly pulled the strings of many of our lawmakers. Essentially a vote for their candidate, is a vote for them. So do we know who they are?
And for American institutions like the Judiciary, Inspector Generals, Federal Reserve board, Office of Management and Budget, and all federal health, educational, and national security institutions, their credibility is in their political independence, non biased professionalism, and transparency, without which we’ve seen in other countries that democracies devolve into autocracies.
Recently Marco Rubio and Kash Patel said, “No one is above the law.” So to insure this and that those laws are fair, we need to insist on transparent governmental practices with nonpartisan checks and balances, from state voter redistricting committees to congressional financial and institutional oversight.
And to protect the democratic process, we need to safeguard our independent free press to insure open avenues for substantive discussions about issues without fear of reprisal. Freedom of speech is for everyone, including leaders within their own party. And since those in power have the most heard voices, it’s important they choose their words responsibly. Division and violence is encouraged when we demonize those who think differently and impute blame.
So the question for all of us is how well are those we elect serving us these days? Do we know who’s pulling the strings of those for whom we vote? Do those we elect prioritize fair decisions based on verifiable factual information rather than beliefs or assumptions? And do we? Do we and do those we elect listen to opposing views and feel free to speak openly about controversial issues without fear of retribution? Has winning become more important than fairness?
America’s greatness lies in it’s continued adherence to laws which have engendered the trust of individuals and businesses both here and around the world. Our country’s unity and it’s prosperity exists because of that trust. The credibility of our constitution is in its principle of achieving fairness for all with laws made using reason, and not ideology.
The credibility of our constitution is in it’s principle of achieving fairness for all with laws made using reason, and not ideology. The credibility of our institutions is in their impartiality and accountability to the people, not to a party or an individual.
When people unite behind those principles and speak up, history has shown that our democracy can survive times of great political divide. So how our Democratic Republic holds up going forward will depend on what every American does, or does not do, now.