The Betrayals of American Democracy Unable to Respond to the Majority Desires of the People.

The Madisonian model is more than ever put to the test.

The mass killings continue in America, but the ritual does not change.

Nineteen schoolchildren between the ages of 7 and 10 and their two teachers were massacred with an assault rifle by an unbalanced person on May 24, 2022, in Texas. A few weeks earlier, a white supremacist, equipped with the same rapid-fire rifle, had murdered ten black people in a store in a small town in New York State.

These events have unfortunately become commonplace in America.

Pollsters ask the same question and get the same answer: more than 60% of Americans demand a federal law limiting gun sales.

This has been going on for years. Democratic presidents have all supported such a measure, but they have never had the votes needed in Congress - because of the Republicans. A majority of Americans feel they are being shortchanged, and unrepresented. They want tighter controls on gun sales, like maintaining abortion rights. They risk not having the first and losing the second. Would democracy in the United States betray the majority?

When it is not speculating about a future civil war, the oldest of Western democracies, the one that presents itself as a model, is questioning the relevance of its institutions: they would no longer be able to translate the will of the majority of citizens. In November 2020, the Americans voted for a Democratic president. But with a majority in the lower house, Joe Biden lacks support in the Senate, while the Supreme Court, largely composed of his Republican predecessors, now has an ultra-conservative profile.

The Philadelphia Spirit of the Founding Fathers

The problem is that this situation - on arms sales as on many other issues - is not contrary to the spirit of the Constitution. The Founding Fathers, those who met in Philadelphia in 1787, created a democracy of balance. They feared both the danger of absolute one-man rule and the prospect of a tyrannical popular majority.

One of them, James Madison (1751-1836), who was to become the fourth president, not only wanted the separation of powers (executive, legislative, judicial), but also organized the balance of powers. The powers of the president were offset by the no less important powers of Congress, which was supervised by the Supreme Court. All of this is done in a federal system in which everything that is not expressly the responsibility of the "center" is the responsibility of the states.

Over the years, this complex Madisonian mechanism has evolved rather in favor of the White House. But its operation remains marked by the spirit of Philadelphia: the will of the majority must be tempered and framed to protect the minorities. Thus, the president is elected by a double college (popular vote and electoral college). Each state, regardless of its population, has two senators. Supreme Court justices are appointed for life.

The system worked as long as the two major parties could compromise, which is the fuel of democracy. The 1990s marked a turning point, with the transformation of the Republicans into a fundamentalist party. The gun issue embodies this regression. The Second Amendment to the Constitution does not allow a psychologically disturbed 18-year-old to buy the mass murder machine that is an AR15 rifle. Unless one advocates a “literalist” interpretation of the Founding Fathers' text.

Structural Evils

The absolute right to bear arms has become an article of faith and is part of a set of other dogmas that make up the Republican charter: banning abortion, teaching creationism in schools, opposition to gay marriage, climate change skepticism, demonization of taxes, etc. To this catalog, Donald Trump has added a dose of hostility to ethnic minorities and the obligation for any elected official or candidate of the party to adhere to this ultimate bullshit: the November 2020 election has been “stolen” …

American democracy suffers from some other, more structural ills, ranging from the role of money in politics to the lack of federal regulation of the organization and control of elections. The Democratic Party, for its part, has a fairly sectarian left-wing whose agenda feeds Republican fears. With the 2022 Midterms just a few months away, Trump, using money and intimidation, is stirring up the fantasies of part of the electorate and seeking to consolidate his hold on the elephant party. Any disagreement with him in the Republican ranks is treasonous since the Democratic camp is not only the adversary, it is the enemy - an enemy whose “Americanness” is being challenged.

In this atmosphere of extreme polarization of opinion, the parliamentary investigation into the January 6, 2021 insurrection against Congress is entering its final phase. Seeking to determine the highest level of responsibility for this attempted legal coup, the House investigation is closing in on Trump and a core group of his loyalists.

Underlying this investigation is a serious question: in the next presidential election, would Trump, if he were to run again, accept defeat? A topic for constitutional law students: the checks and balances of the Madisonian equilibrium in the face of a demagogue with tyrannical tendencies that are not always countered.

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