Democracy and the Pandemic

in these last four months

of pandemic and shutdown and reopening

has there been a moment when you’ve

asked yourself is american democracy up

to this challenge

you’re not alone we are bombarded with

news comparing the u.s response to the

pandemic

to other countries and too often it

seems american democracy is faltering

back in march a co-worker of mine a

chinese citizen with a visa to work in

the united states

told me she was going home early because

she thought she’d be safer in china

she said she just thought the chinese

government would deal with this pandemic

better than the u.s

later she sent me a care package from

china with

500 medical grade face masks that i

couldn’t get here in chicago

ouch that is a care package with a

bucket full of national shame mixed in

and i found myself looking at those 500

mass and thinking

was she right these can seem like dark

times for democracy

but the story isn’t over i’m here to

talk about why we should have some faith

in our form of government

the crisis we face today democracy

versus the pandemic

is a unique one but it’s also the latest

chapter in a larger story

that story began on november 9th 1989.

i remember that day matter of fact it’s

my first memory of politics

i was a little boy there was a commotion

in the living room

i went to see what was going on and

found my parents laughing and dancing

around the television

because some wall in germany had fallen

down the berlin wall they called it

i remember thinking what in the world

could make adults this excited

but that day america’s political system

passed one of history’s great tests

ideas are tested by events

scientists test hypotheses with

experiments

political ideas are tested by whether

the countries that champion them

flourish

do they project strength abroad do they

enable good lives for their citizens at

home

do they win battles do they manage

crises

ideas and events move through history

together

the day the berlin wall fell american

ideas of democracy

and free markets triumphed over the

ideology of communism

that triumph helped propel forward a

wave of democratization throughout the

world

in the mid 70s fewer than a third of the

world’s countries were democracies

by the early 2000s most of them were it

was a time of utmost

optimism about the american system of

government

at its height it seemed as though the

very history

of political competition and change

itself had ended

american-style government liberal

democracy with free markets was the last

form of government there could ever be

and then the lights went out the wave of

democracy stalled

the world began a democracy recession

a key player here was china china became

a communist dictatorship in 1949

and for the next three decades it was

one of the capitals of human misery on

earth

but then china began an astonishing

rise i remember backpacking across china

with a buddy in 2004

everywhere we went the skyline was

filled with tower cranes

building skyscrapers it seemed like the

whole country was under construction

it was electrifying not to mention noisy

there was pride too we took a bus

into the mountains and on the bus was a

little boy who wanted to practice his

english

he asked me where i was from i said

america he said

america you are stronger than us

for now my jaw

dropped how often do you hear

nationalism from a tween

but incredible as it sounds that’s what

he said

with china’s rise has lifted hundreds of

millions of people out of poverty

as fellow human beings that’s something

we should all celebrate

but on the level of political ideas

china’s rise is troubling

because the government delivered

prosperity and rose to superpower status

while rejecting democracy and freedom

the obvious comparison is to india india

is a democracy

but india has stayed relatively poor

and here in the united states democracy

stronghold

many of us feel our government was

floundering for years before this

pandemic hit

so here i stand telling the story of

democracy

over the last 30 years about the same

age now as my parents when i saw him

dancing around the living room

but they got to witness american

democracy go from night to day

i’ve had to watch it my generation has

felt it go from day to night

this pandemic begins the next chapter of

democracy’s story

it started out as a medical crisis it

has become

a test of our form of government again

ideas are tested by events this pandemic

is a challenge confronting our countries

and of course our shared humanity is

more important than political ideologies

at a time like this

but precisely because it confronts our

countries it inevitably tests the

political ideas on which those countries

are based

it’s like a stress test of all the

governments of the world

above all this pandemic extends the

pre-existing

civilizational competition between china

and the united

states they are the world’s wealthiest

and mightiest countries

and along with india the most populous

they are the standard bearers for

democracy and authoritarianism

of course there’s more to democracy than

the united states germany australia

south korea they’re all democracies and

they’re all dealing with the pandemic

quite well

and there’s more to authoritarianism

than china autocracies like russia

and iran are dealing with the pandemic

quite poorly

but because china and the u.s are so

influential

their examples will inevitably affect

democracy’s future

i don’t want to dwell here on the

reasons for america’s struggles with the

pandemic you hear about those every day

i want to dive into the philosophical

foundations of american democracy

and pull out of those foundations three

reasons for hope

rational hope hope based on intellectual

substance

i want to look at the roots of america’s

political system and talk about why they

give us a chance to succeed

reason for hope number one the election

coming up

november’s election is the first chance

the american people have had to hire and

fire

representatives based on the pandemic

we’ve had elected representatives at the

helm from the outset

but what changes in november is that for

the first time

those representatives have to answer for

the decisions they’ve made

and they answer to us remember

democracy doesn’t just mean electing

people to rule over

us it means after they govern for a

little while

we get to decide if they keep their jobs

if we think our politicians blew it in

response to this pandemic

november is our chance to say so and if

we think they handle the pandemic

well or that they’re the right people to

lead us back to productive life

november’s election is our chance to say

that too

accountability at elections is the

hallmark of democracy

accountability means that when you think

about democracy and the pandemic

you can’t just look at the short term

and you’ve got to consider

risk citizens in authoritarian countries

have to

live with their rulers decisions even

when those decisions spell disaster

when the rulers make good calls things

can go pretty well

but when they don’t the citizens are

without recourse except revolution

that is a high risk approach to politics

citizens in democracies can change their

leaders and their futures based on

results

we have the capacity to change that

mitigates risk

it means we’re at our best in the long

run and it means that even

in the midst of this pandemic and

economic crisis

and racial crisis we as a democratic

people

remain in control of our destiny

reason for hope number two in true

democracies we don’t just elect the

people to do the deciding

we take up the policy issues of the day

ourselves we

self-govern true self-government is a

dance with three steps

we deliberate as a people about matters

of public concern

we form some majority convictions about

what’s right a majority will

and we have the power to project that

majority will into government such that

state action

reflects our convictions self-government

is the

of the people by the people part of

democracy

it is radical and it is wonderful

and i want to acknowledge that in the

united states in recent years it doesn’t

seem to be working

something about american public

discourse has gone wrong

become partisan polarized bitter

and something about the connection

between the american people and their

government has gone wrong too

so that even when most americans have

made up their minds about something

too often they can’t get the government

to act accordingly

there’s alienation within we the people

an alienation between the people

and their government but we have been

through such periods of alienation

before

and we’ve come through them because

there is a deep wisdom built into the

very structure of self-government

the policy issues ahead of us are

difficult because they don’t just

involve questions of technical

competence they involve questions of how

to balance competing values

some americans think we should do

whatever is necessary to minimize the

illness

others think we should take on more

medical risks to get the economy running

again

some think we should heed and abide by

the policy views of medical

professionals

others think we should be more skeptical

of experts

some think we should centralize policy

in the white house

others think we should allow more state

and local variation

these sorts of policy trade-offs are

where self-government shines

phase one of managing a pandemic might

require

massive quarantines and you know what

it’s not surprising authoritarian

governments are good at that

massive impositions of state power are

what they do best

but phase two of managing a pandemic is

about

balancing competing goods that’s what

democracies do best

why partly because when we talk to each

other instead of just using power over

each other

good arguments and good facts tend to

prevail

democratic deliberation is far from

perfect but it exerts a sort of pull

a tug toward the truth and what’s the

alternative

authoritarian governments routinely

control their people

with propaganda secrets coercion and

lies

another reason self-government works is

because when people truly self-govern

there is no ruling elite there’s dignity

in that

we’re not just passengers waiting to see

what the people in charge decide to do

but also ruling elites inevitably

exhibit

profound failures of judgment and good

will

but when we self-govern our values and

our interests

matter because we make them matter

because the people in charge are us

finally self-government works because at

the end of the day

the american people have deep reservoirs

of wisdom

and good sex now the process of

self-government is messy

take a deep breath brace yourselves you

are

guaranteed to hear views you strongly

dislike

maybe you’re hearing some of them right

now in this talk

but just remember those disagreements

are an essential part of a good thing

democracies get to wisdom but they get

there slowly

and they get there through contestation

reason for hope number three american

government is not a pure democracy

but a constitutional system with checks

and balances the rule of law

and individual rights what constitutions

do

is structure the power of the state the

basic idea of the u.s

constitution is to give the state enough

power to meet the needs of the moment

while preventing

surplus repression so what we want from

the constitution in times of crisis

is constrained strength in a pandemic

we want to be able to ramp up executive

power really high

and then ramp it back down while keeping

it always within

a law-governed constitutional structure

we want a government with enough power

to control contagion but that still has

to respect

individual rights and individual

variations of circumstance

and we want to preserve the

constitutional system itself for when

the crisis is over

we’re seeing all of that imposing a

quarantine at the scale we did

is a remarkable demonstration of

executive power but the quarantine

and bailout and other policies we’ve

adopted have never been pure command and

control

the white house congress governors state

legislatures and mayors all played a

role

the courts remain open and are hearing

claims of individual right

and a less formal part of the structure

of checks and balances is working too

the businesses churches and other

institutions that make up america’s

complex power structure

are exercising some independent

judgments

above all at the end of the day the

american people remain in control

because if the last 228 years of

unbroken

four-year election cycles or any clue

come november

the election will be held arguably we’re

a bit too decentralized for a pandemic

the system is optimized more to prevent

surplus repression than to enable

unified action

but the system isn’t broken and we will

emerge from this crisis

with a constitution that preserves

democratic freedom for tomorrow

so those are my three reasons for

rational hope accountability in

elections

true self-government and constrained

strength in the constitution

things may seem dark now but they need

not stay that way

we are the world’s oldest democracy but

democracy is evergreen

because democracies can change at the

center

of american democracy are the tools to

meet this crisis

and the larger crisis unvanquished

to go from doubt to confidence from

night

to day and from darkness back again to

light