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Defining democracy as being a political system wherein the “majority rules” is too simple a definition for the modern world. By that definition, many countries can be simply and neatly classified as either democratic or undemocratic, and by this definition, the vast majority of countries around the world are democratic. A more constructive notion of democracy is one defined not only by “majority rules”, but one in which all individuals are truly equal under the law with regard to basic civil rights, voting rights, political representation and safety. An ideal democracy would involve a lot of civil engagement. Governance should not be hampered by minority objections that are based on lies and self-interest. But nor should the will of the majority be honored at the expense of the rights or safety of the minority. Lies and fear-mongering pose particular challenges to democracy and always have. By this more sophisticated and idealistic definition, no country in the world is a perfect democracy and frankly, the United States is pretty far from fulfilling that definition.

It’s relatively easy (at least for those born into and raised to value democracy) to see the potential downside of non-democratic power structures. It’s also relatively easy to see how a country with a centralized power system with more limited accountability to the people can “get certain things done” very quickly – when the people in charge don’t have institutions “standing in their way”, they can act with fewer limitations for either good or bad. But it’s also important to understand why democracies can fail – and that requires understanding the weaknesses and vulnerabilities of ordinary human beings. When non-democratic countries do terrible things, the blame can often be legitimately placed on the people who took power and had the will and intention to do the terrible things – especially if their actions were opposed by the masses (which is often the case). When democratic countries do terrible things, there may be a larger share of blame to place on the leaders and their enablers, but there is a level of complicity of the masses – that needs to be understood and acknowledged – in order to enable institutional change. It’s also important to understand what kind of work and engagement on the part of the citizenry is required to make sure that democracy works well for everyone.

Majorities, especially those stoked by fear and uncertainty, can often do terrible things to minorities. And sometimes certain minorities can act in a way to motivate the majority to do terrible things to other minorities in order to consolidate power. Even when democracies don’t necessarily do terrible malicious things, but just fail to do good things that are widely supported, and are generally ineffective, there needs to be a careful examination of the road blocks to progress. While there is a separation and balance of powers in the US, the structure we have often leads to counterproductive gridlock (eg. the filibuster). Some laws and policies are based on outright lies, half truths and politically expedient ideas. The will of the people is sort of represented, but in many places is suppressed (particularly racial minorities in Republican states) and many people who do have the right to vote do not do so because they feel impotent and embittered by the system’s toxic nature. Those in power can and have removed rights of individuals (eg. a predominantly male Supreme Court reversing Roe vs. Wade coupled with state level laws criminalizing abortion, thereby repressing women’s bodily autonomy, safety, health and freedom). Minorities have held the will of the majority hostage (eg. the NRA lobby stalling sensible gun law reform, despite overwhelming bipartisan support for such legislative reform).

Not that I have clear practical insights on how to accomplish any of these goals, but I think that independent of political ideology, there are several key areas where American institutions need to be reformed in order to come closer to what democracy should be. Arguably, there should be more than two main parties in the American political system and there are very good arguments for why the two party system is toxic and polarizing – but that’s a separate and bigger discussion. But here are some other, more procedural ideas.

1. Significantly limit the influence of money in politics, get rid of PACs and make sure that all campaigns for public office are financed in a manner that is completely transparent, publicly disclosed and accountable.
2. Eliminate or significantly change the filibuster to compel those who want to use it to orally argue their case for the entire period of the filibuster.
3. Take Congressional redistricting and voting regulations out of the control of state legislatures. This is an obvious conflict of interest. Instead, appoint these tasks to a separately created, non-partisan organization with appropriate expertise.
4. Get rid of the winner take all premise for the electoral college. Some advocate for just using the popular vote. I am actually in favor of keeping the electoral college system, but just changing the rules so that the number of electoral votes each presidential candidate receives is proportional to the vote margin in that state – so the country’s most conservative state, Wyoming, would usually have one of its three electors for the Democratic nominee and California (the most populous and one of the most progressive states) would usually have something like 20 of its 54 electors for the Republican nominee.
5. Shorten Supreme Court appointments and impose term limits on congressional offices. The incentive here is to limit the amount of power of individuals in government and to give them more reason to focus on the job of governance than getting reelected.