On my recent road trip that took me from Alabama to Nashville and Lexington, I also reached one of my primary goals of the trip: a Trump rally in Pennsylvania. While standing in line for three hours, I spoke to other attendees. Behind me stood a mother with her daughter, a first-year college student and first-time voter, who was Trump-curious in a deep red area of Pennsylvania. I asked her about the issues she cared most about in this election. She mentioned economic concerns; about being able to buy a house or to care for a family on a teacher’s salary. In this regard, she trusted Trump more to help her and the country than Harris. It was emblematic of the general vibe of elections these days. Who do you trust? It is not really about specific policies or plans. Ultimately it is about trust. And that is hard to find. Not only among voters, but also in the American system of government in general. There is a Paradox of Trust that lies within the very heart of any representative democracy. While trust is a necessity for everyday life – including political life, it is mistrust or distrust that instructs the provisions and mechanisms of the U.S. Constitution, and the reluctance to let just any adult American vote.
Trump Rally in Pennsylvania (2024)
James Madison, the primary writer of the Constitution, ironically saw human nature as the main obstacle to stable self-government. He famously wrote: “But what is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary.” Madison was afraid of the so-called ‘mob’ and ‘mob rule’, and like the philosopher Cicero, he rejected the direct democracy of ancient Athens. Madison did not trust people to trust each other, and the people as a whole could therefore not to be trusted with direct self-government. So America had to become a republic, a representative democracy, in which the passions of the people would be filtered “through the medium of a chosen body of citizens.”
Power corrupts
But the Framers also knew that power corrupts. Sure, as Madison wrote, “the aim of every political constitution is, or ought to be, first to obtain for rulers men who possess most wisdom to discern, and most virtue to pursue, the common good of the society.” Still, to prevent a power grab, a separation of the legislative, executive and judiciary powers was needed, and with checks and balances to keep each of these powers from running amok. Out of more distrust, the legislature itself had to be broken up: the House of Representatives was to have “an immediate dependence on, and intimate sympathy with, the people”, while the Senate, up until 1913 appointed by state legislatures, was to keep the House of Representatives in check.
The Framers of the Constitution also did not entrust the People with directly electing the chief executive officer. Instead, an intermediate body that was to be elected directly by the people – the Electoral College – would decide on the president. Why? Alexander Hamilton argued that “this process of election affords a moral certainty that the office of President will seldom fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications.”
Holding public trust vs. mutual distrust
Despite all this separation, checks and balances and general mistrust, including a benign Supreme Court, the exercise of any elected office ultimately depends on the individual holding that office. That is why we speak of ‘holding public trust’: the elected President, Senator, Representative or Elector in the Electoral College, is entrusted with a responsibility to work for the common good. The elected are expected to be chosen as a ‘natural aristocracy’, based on merit, talents and above all, virtue.
To the extent that people were asked to vote on these virtuous people, the states did not initially allow all people to vote. The Constitution is silent on the subject, but initially only white men with some form of property were allowed to vote. Others – women, children, men without property – were deemed too dependent, too vulnerable for malign influences and manipulation, and could therefore not be trusted with the vote. In other words, at least at first, very few people were actually allowed to vote in a system of government that did not trust the people to actually make responsible choices. Only when women were granted the vote with the 19th amendment in 1920 was the democratic system as we know it today, formally complete.
But the mutual distrust between the people and their government, and amongst people in general has only grown, and I would argue, has grown parallel to the path towards the fulfillment of the Promise of Equality. The most tangible and measurable levels of distrust among Americans are related to party identity. In a climate of ‘negative partisanship’ Americans vote more often against the opposing party than in favor of their own. This trend has only increased the last few decades. And it is fair to argue that it is the political class that has often fanned the flames of fear and mistrust.
Distrusting democracy
And there is an even greater concern and that is the loss of trust in democracy itself. It has led to a loss of the American democratic culture that Alexis de Tocqueville praised so highly, namely, the “desire and ability of individuals in a population to participate actively, individually and together, to the government of public affairs affecting them.” Standing in line at a political rally and hearing and seeing the cheers and enthusiasm of the attendees hides the fact that less and less people are civically engaged. 66% of Americans is dissatisfied with how democracy is functioning, especially younger generations. Support for rule by experts or a strong leader is on the rise, and in the US, 15% believe military rule could be a good alternative. In other words, a significant portion of people in democratic countries is willing to set aside democratic governance. Why? It’s not just a consensus that democracy has failed to deliver for the people; democracy just doesn’t seem to be a priority when identity is at stake. Trusting each other is off the table.
In the fourth and final installment: has the Great American experiment come to an end or did it reach a stalemate?
Kenneth Manusama is an international lawyer and America expert. He completed his studies at VU Amsterdam and taught at New York University and Amsterdam University College. Kenneth is a regular guest speaker at various Dutch media outlets and programs, and an expert on the US Constitution and legal aspect of American politics. He is also the host of the podcast Amerikaanse Toestanden and the author of Democratie van het Wilde Westen.
