Super Tuesday is now behind us. Which means the 2024 presidential campaign is now in full swing. And it’s the rematch between Joe Biden and Donald Trump that no one wanted.
We’re staring down the barrel of a campaign season that will most likely see many Democrats, at least as suggested by this February poll, loudly claiming that Trump and his MAGA followers are the most important problem facing the US today. We saw echoes of this sentiment in Biden’s State of the Union address when he said, “democracy must be defended.”
For many Democrats and for some right-leaning never-Trumpers, villifying Trump and MAGA is a way to make people understand that democracy itself is on the line. And to try to shake people into seeing that a vote for Trump is a middle finger to our American experiment in self-governance.
But what if every time the problem is framed this way, those who do so chip away at the very thing they’re trying to protect? In other words, what if democracy’s silent existential threat is calling the other side an existential threat to democracy?
Hear me out. Living in a pluralistic society, especially one where we vote for our elected officials, means that in all the places where we share space—our schools, our faith communities, and at the dinner table—we need to be able to coexist, preferably without wanting to kill one another, regardless of who is sitting in the Oval Office in January 2025.
Being able to live together regardless of the outcome of the election requires social trust. As one scholar put it, “Trust in fellow citizens is the backbone of a well-functioning democracy, given its role in promoting social cohesion and facilitating collective action.” That same study found that partisan divisions reduce this trust, making it more difficult to believe that our fellow citizens will “do the right thing.”
Social trust is, in part, rooted in a principle so important that, as long as it holds, we can disagree on pretty much everything else. It can be boiled down to this: Most of my fellow citizens are capable of reasonable thought most of the time.
Just last week, I had a thoughtful audience member challenge me on this point, asking whether a functioning democracy really makes such a strong demand. In his thinking, supporting democracy requires agreement with a much weaker principle, which is simply that we believe it to be the least bad form of governance.
A society where people think democracy is simply the best out of an array of bad options, and where people still believe their ideological opponents are stupid and/or hateful could, in theory, work. But only if the disdain they feel for the other side doesn’t lead them to try to change their opponents’ minds. After all, when we try to change minds and our opponents remain firm in their convictions, two things tend to happen at the same time. One is that we probably now hold our fellow citizens in low regard. The other is that they now know we hold them in low regard. Neither of these is good for social trust.
How then do we get to the point where we see our fellow citizens as capable of reasonable thought? For starters, we can recognize that, in a truly game theoretical sense, if either side walks away from this commitment, we all suffer the consequences. In other words, if we fail, we fail together.
It can be all too easy to think that it’s the other side’s job to convince us that they’re not crazy or ignorant. And, the thinking goes, if they don’t do it well enough, that’s on them. But this is both short-sighted and shirks our own responsibility.
In a democracy, I have a responsibility to think through a version of my opponent’s position that makes sense to me, even (or especially) if I don’t agree with it. By “makes sense,” I mean a version that can't be explained away as stemming from hatred, resentment, stupidity, or ignorance. If you’re thinking about your opponent and you’re not sure this is possible, consider...
Think of a truly hateful and despicable action. I’ll pick kicking puppies—precisely because of how deeply disturbing it is. Now come up with a story about how someone who kicks puppies might not be an awful human being—while you still, I hope, stridently condemn the action itself. What came to mind? Did you think that maybe the person was being attacked? Or maybe she was protecting a child? My point is that, if there’s a version of something as horrible as puppy-kicking that doesn’t necessarily stem from hate, ignorance, or sadism, in all likelihood, there’s a version of your ideological opponent’s position that would make sense to you too.
The upshot is this: For any conversation on a heated issue to continue, how the other side justifies—or even how they might justify—their position and opinion matters at least as much if not more than how you justify it for them.
So, when your impulse is to yell loudly how Trump is a unique threat to democracy, try this instead. Imagine yourself in a conversation with an ardent supporter of his. And assume your goal is to keep the conversation about the 2024 election going. That might involve you explaining to your compatriot why you see Trump as a threat. But it also includes listening when the person responds and doing so without projecting your own assumptions.
Perhaps you think that what I’m saying is the rambling of an unhinged idealist, and that the stakes are just too high to play nice. If that’s the case, I’ll gently suggest that you just might have it backwards. The stakes aren’t too high to play nice. They’re too high not to.
Note we haven't carefully defined "democracy".
I think you do have to assume the other voters are rational; it's not sufficient to think "democracy is the least bad form of government". If I assume other voters are NOT rational, then it would seem that disenfranchising the irrational voters would yield a superior form of government. (In the limit, if I think I'm the only rational person, then my rationally "best" form of government might be my dictatorship.) In other words, the statement "democracy is the least bad form" has a hidden assumption: "the electorate is rational"
Ilana,
Your logic assumes that the varying camps are telling the truth. Having grown up in NYC was enough to for me to judge TRUMP’s inability to tell the truth. During his eight years on the political scene he has provided countless examples of his grifting and conning those who can least afford it.
I agree with you that “Most of my fellow citizens are capable of reasonable thought most of the time.”
But Trump is not one of that “Most”.
We need to believe him and understand that he, along with his conspirators Bannon,Miller, Ronnie Jackson et all will turn our country into a strong man autocracy and buy him out of debt and keep him out of jail.
Normal debate rules do not apply. We have to crush him at the ballot box.
SWG