On January 6th, 2021, the whole world witnessed the United States of America, one of the Western world’s oldest democracies, experience a “brush with death.” In hopes of reclaiming Trump’s presidency, Trump supporters stormed Capitol Hill under the conspiratorial belief that the Democrats “stole” the 2020 election through fraudulent means. For Trump supporters, this day was nothing more than a “civil protest” that was upholding the democratic right to fair elections. However, Democrats were horrified at the scene as the idea of maintaining power after losing an election screams authoritarianism. In order to save the US’s fragile democracy, Biden has tried to pass two voting rights bills: the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. Despite his intention, the question of whether the bills will “save” the United States’ democracy has been asked, with many political scientists viewing it as a simple bandage to the problem. This leads us to wonder: is democracy inherently flawed? And if so, should other democratic countries like Canada be wary? 

Before we can answer these questions, we need to understand what a democracy is. Etymologists trace the origin of democracy to the Ancient Greek word “dēmokratia” which can be broken down into “dēmos,” meaning “people,” and “kratos,” meaning “rule.” Under this political regime, it is the people who have the power, not the elites. It should be noted that back then, it was more of a “direct” democracy where the citizens of a city-state would represent themselves. However, today’s democracy is a representative democracy where a large population is represented by an elected official. Over the course of centuries, the idea of democracy has been associated with liberty and fair elections, which become the main pillars of the institution. It is the ideas of liberty, individualism, and equality that tend to idealize democracy as the ultimate form of society. But what about the Cold War? Hasn’t this allowed democracy to have risen above its counterpart, communism, in terms of world domination? According to Dr. Robert D. Kaplan, “The rise and decline of communism says nothing about the long-term viability of western democracy.” In fact, he goes on to explain that democracy, which is usually associated with “good ideals,” is actually value neutral, allowing leaders of all kinds of morals to achieve power as long as they gain the support of the people. When Germany experienced economic failure from losing WWI, Hitler capitalized on the people’s desires of returning to Germany’s glory days before the war to ensure his seat in power. 

Is this not the case with the Trump experience? Throughout the 2016 US presidential election, he promised to “Make America Great Again,” a return to the old “glory days.” He managed to secure his time in office. However, he was not able to keep it. His attempt to stay in power on January 6th is frightening, as it shows that no matter how we view democracy, there will always be the risk of individuals who get elected to power and seek to keep that power in true authoritarian fashion, easily killing democracy in one fell swoop. In the end, democracy is a neutral regime that is as good as its leader, which depends on the people’s opinions of electing a good leader for its success. 

Is Democracy then a faulted system? Is it doomed to fail? Are we seconds away from its dissolving? The second United States president, John Adams, would like to think so, stating, “Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” However, I’m more optimistic. 

I mentioned before that democracy is as good as its leaders, but that isn’t exactly fair, as it is actually the electoral system that determines the strength of our democracy. How we design our electoral system depends on how we interpret the concept of responsible government. According to The Canadian Regime, a responsible government is tied to the idea of a division of powers; it ensures that there is no individual who can abuse their power, which basically protects the idea of democracy. Thus, a responsible government, through dividing the power of a monarch into several bodies, creates checks and balances to avoid abuses of power and ensure that the needs of the people are served.  

Both Canada and the United States practice this concept by creating three branches of government: Executive, Legislative, and Judicial. However, they interpret ‘responsible government’ differently. In the United States, each branch of government essentially acts on its own. As The Canadian Regime states, “They do not need to rely on the confidence of [other branches] for legitimacy.” This is why a US president can pass laws without the approval of Congress, which is significant as Congress represents the people. In contrast, each branch of the Canadian government, especially the executive Prime Minister, must maintain the confidence of the House of Commons, which represents the interests of the public. If the Prime Minister loses the confidence of the House of Commons by attempting to govern without their support, the Prime Minister must resign, and a new election be called.  In recent years, the Prime Minister’s power has grown significantly, but it is the checks and balances enforced by upholding the confidence of the House of Commons that prevent a Prime Minister from grabbing all the power for himself. 

In addition to this distinction of the interpretation of responsible government, the number of political parties each country has seems to play a part in how strong their democracy is. According to Lee Drutman’s feature article, “Why The Two-Party System Is Effing Up U.S. Democracy,” he states, “Ultimately, the more binary the party system, the stronger the out-party hatred.” This polarized hatred of Us vs Them isn’t unique to politics in the United States, as the US seems to be polarized on every topic from race to religion. But when it comes to the Republicans versus the Democrats, this hatred prevents the parties from working together to benefit the country as a whole. It encourages people who are loyal to one party over another to be unwilling to concede, even if their party legitimately lost. However, other democracies like Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia all have a multi-party system. While it may not prevent certain parties from going neck and neck in electoral races—like the Liberal and Conservative parties in Canada—according to recent studies, it has reduced polarization to some degree. 

So, is Canada’s democracy stronger than the United States? The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy 2020 Index seems to think so, as Canada rose to 5th place as a “full democracy” during the pandemic, while the US has fallen into a “flawed democracy.” The index identifies the reason for this descent as “extremely low levels of trust in institutions, increasing threats to freedom of expression, and a degree of societal polarisation that makes consensus almost impossible to achieve.” Now, the United States isn’t the only country that has fallen into the “flawed democracy” category. The index identifies that both France and Portugal have backtracked in terms of civil liberties due to the pandemic lockdowns. That isn’t to say that we Canadians haven’t experienced our fair share of issues within the pandemic, but the report raises important observations that cannot be ignored. 

This leads us to today and Biden’s new voting rights bills. The Freedom to Vote Act seems to be addressing the issue of voter suppression. According to an article by Indivisible—an American grassroots movement that focuses on upholding democracy—they explain that voter suppression can have negative implications for democracy, as it reduces the power of the people in favour of certain white rich elites and not allowing minorities to participate in elections. As for the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, Congress states that the bill will ensure that states and political subdivisions must receive clearance before making changes to voting practices. While these new bills show promise of improvement regarding voter suppression, they do not address the structural problem the United States’ democracy is facing at the moment. With the Republican GOP’s blocking of the bills, it demonstrates that Biden’s first Presidential speech of unity hasn’t been practically implemented since he entered office. Perhaps at the end of his presidency we might see improvement, but as long as the United States’ structure remains the same, its democracy will be at risk of collapsing.