Polemic for Democracy

PREFACE

This book might be too late.

I started writing in February 2023 after years of obsessing over American political dysfunction. And after a year and a half of writing this polemic, my opinion of the state of American democracy and American society is largely unchanged. The structural problems that existed then have only grown more obvious and more intractable.

Three events this past summer epitomize the state of play in American politics:

1. Joe Biden’s disastrous debate performance and the Democratic Party’s internecine conflict about whether and how to replace him.

2. The Supreme Court’s series of rulings which pave the way for further consolidation of power within the Executive Branch.

3. An unsuccessful assassination attempt on Donald Trump making political violence a reality and escalation a real possibility.

In response to the structural forces behind these events, this book makes two arguments. First, it argues a Constitutional Convention is the least violent path available to us. Second, it argues for a specific suite of structural constitutional reforms designed to address our present systemic dysfunction.

Events are moving quickly, and it feels like things are accelerating. The paradigm in which this book was written and published may soon be made irrelevant.

But the questions interrogated here go to the core of what it means to be an American and what it means to be invested in the idea of democratic self-governance.

More than anything else, this is a book of political philosophy and, by definition, imperfect. It is my best attempt at coherent political thought in an era of anything but.

This is my country and yours, and together we shall determine our future.

We truly live in interesting times. The 2024 election is here, and only God could know what may happen next.

Zane Gustafson

October 2024

Seattle, WA

PART ONE

FRAMEWORK

Chapter 1

JUSTIFICATION

Our country is sick.

Is anyone in America happy with our political system? Every year, our culture war deepens, and our politics take another turn down the vicious cycle of dysfunction.

The structure of our government is the root cause of our political dysfunction: an unrepresentative Legislature stymied by two-party hyper-partisan gridlock; an Executive, elected by an archaic mechanism, gobbling up the power left in the vacuum of decades of Legislative inaction; and a Judiciary losing credibility with the public due to blatant corruption and its weaponization of its authority by partisan judges for their partisan ends.

Our Constitution is failing us. It’s time to change it.

We pride ourselves on being the leader of the democratic world, yet by today’s standards America is a deficient democracy. And if democracy means equal representation—one person one vote—we have never been a democracy, and we never will be unless and until we address the fundamental contradictions of our founding documents, the Declaration¹ and Constitution.²

In the first, we declare it a self-evident truth that All [humans] are created equal. But in the second, we undermine our declaration by implementing profoundly undemocratic structures of government. These anti-democratic structures of our government were and are intentional, and have worked and continue to work as intended. The early United States was built on the backs of millions of enslaved people, and slavery as an institution was ended only after four years of the bloody Civil War. Part of the reason slavery lasted as long as it did was due to the power of the undemocratic Senate and an unrepresentative House, which granted additional voting power not just to small states but to the enslavers specifically. Slavery is over, but the Senate endures.

The structure of our Constitution limits our government from upholding our inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness: it is failing us on climate and migration, it is failing to defend our human rights, and it is failing us on affordable housing while saddling us with medical and student debt. So, in the language of the Declaration, whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of [certain unalienable Rights], it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government . . .

We can and should build upon the Framers’ Constitution, but only insofar as we deem it worthy, relevant, useful, and fair by our standards today. The Framers brilliantly devised a novel system of government. But they are not gods. Their words are not commandments; their government is imperfect. They themselves knew this. As Thomas Jefferson said,³ No society can make a perpetual constitution . . . The constitution and the laws of their predecessors extinguished then in their natural course with those who gave them being . . . If it be enforced longer, it is an act of force, and not of right. To change the Constitution is forever our right.

In this book, I propose structural reforms to the Constitution to implement a government that tries to live up to that self-evident truth that all humans are created equal. I modeled these reforms by redrawing every Congressional district and found that, with a new system, over three-quarters of Americans would get to vote in a competitive Congressional district, far better than the current 10% of Americans who will have the opportunity to vote in a competitive district in 2024. With so many competitive elections, new parties, with new ideas, would gain representation in Congress. The two-party establishment would be forced to adapt or die. And rebalancing the checks between our three branches of government would usher in a new era of American democracy. An era of political stability and less economically disruptive civil strife.

The powers that be will not like these reforms. But after January 6th and with the 2024 election upon us, America’s political status quo is untenable. As of December 2023, 72% of Americans⁴ were dissatisfied with the working of American democracy! People speak openly of civil war! Disillusionment and cynicism permeate every corner of our politics, and for good reason. I believe the antidote to our political cynicism, if there is any, is a positive and realistic vision of what our government could be.

This book attempts to describe such a vision.

Chapter 2

CYNICISM

Your cynicism regarding the feasibility of actually changing our political system is justified. Your cynicism regarding anyone who purports to have a solution to our problems is also justified, including your cynicism of these very words. I know this because I am you.

My name is Zane. I am from Washington State. I was born in 1992. And over the course of my 32 years I have witnessed our government decline, becoming only more and more dysfunctional.

My earliest political memories are of jokes about the scandalous Clinton impeachment. Then came the 2000 presidential election, in which the winner received fewer votes than the loser. From my childhood perspective, such an outcome was absurd. Ever since, it has been one cataclysmic event after the next: 9/11 and its wars, the Great Recession, the vitriolic 2016 election, and the pandemic.

Around these events, our political discourse moved online to social media and, growing every year more poisonous, split families and ended friendships. With the depth of our political vitriol, has not the past decade felt like a Cold Civil War?

The depth of my cynicism toward the entire American political system cannot be overstated. The people with power—the political, financial, and cultural elite —benefit from the sclerotic status quo. They choose (you choose!) to keep our politics stagnant. With such broken politics, who could blame the 30% of eligible Americans⁵ who chose not to vote in 2018, 2020, or 2022? Our collective political cynicism is like a black hole that absorbs not light but hope, leaving us with only despair.

If you are reading this, it is probably because you are an American and you are fed up with our politics. That is why I am writing this. I have worked in or adjacent to politics for close to a decade, and I am beyond tired. Exhausted. Beaten down by the endless, 24/7 news cycle. And maddened by the regular revelations of more corruption and dysfunction. It is enraging.

Given the choice of the candidates nominated by our two major parties, I understand why some people choose to vote for Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., or not vote at all.

You may be wondering about my political views. At the risk of alienating some readers, I will say that my views on most issues are firmly to the left (at least to the extent that left-right is a useful way to define one’s political views). I used to identify as a Democrat but have grown disillusioned by their political ineptitude. I will be voting for whoever the Democrats nominate in 2024, but I am far from happy about it. And while I genuinely believe that Donald Trump is an existential threat to American democracy, his appeal to tens of millions of Americans is understandable. His appeal is a symptom of our systemic dysfunction!

We need new political parties to choose from. But for that, we need a voting system that allows multiple parties to win representation in Congress.

This is where it would be standard to shift to a more hopeful or optimistic tone. Some inspiring rhetoric about how we can fix our problems if we can just come together. Or how simply through voting, we can make the change we want to see. But I am not optimistic, and the extent of my hope is fleeting.

Our system is rigged. Voting is necessary but not sufficient. Our democracy is so gerrymandered and divided against itself that democracy feels an inappropriate classification. Anything less than structural change is insufficient, yet structural change is not possible without support from the political elite, the people most incentivized to maintain this damned status quo! The cost of their inaction (your inaction!) could be descent into a Civil War. If we keep on our current path, is that not where we end up?

I say again: Our country is sick!

In 2024, all the pieces are in place for political breakdown. Like a runaway train hurtling toward a cliff, the American political system is too large and too cumbersome to change its course. Short of profound constitutional change, I’m not sure how we will make it through the next few years without widespread political violence, whatever that might look like.

Am I overly pessimistic? Perhaps. But America is a tinderbox packed with more guns than people, and 2024 could be the spark that sets it off. Our system forces upon us a binary choice: come November, either Kamala Harris or Donald Trump will win the presidency.

And then, what? If the losing candidate refuses to concede, and the partisan supporters of that candidate refuse to acknowledge the legitimacy of the winner, what happens? Will there be violence? If yes, how much, and of what kind?

I could go on at length about what might happen if the Democrats win and Trump refuses to concede or what might happen if Trump wins and faces mass protests in major cities as he takes office or governs. But it is irrelevant to my purpose here.

The point is this: No matter who wins in 2024, the transfer of power might not be peaceful. In other words, America could find itself in a second Civil War. This time, the battlefield will be both physical and digital; America’s most destructive military tactics turned against itself. In such a war, the frontlines of the battlefield could be anywhere, even extending to the screen each of us carries in our pocket.

A second Civil War would bring chaos not just to America but to the world. United, America is the most powerful country in the world. Divided, not so much. Would China use the opportunity of an American Civil War to invade Taiwan? Would Russia escalate its ground war in Ukraine or even threaten other European countries like Poland? What about the Middle East? Could a U.S. Civil War spiral into WWIII? Around the world, everyone is watching us, waiting to see which way the coin flip that is our 2024 election lands. My point here is not to argue about foreign policy but rather that our domestic political situation influences global events, which will, in turn, affect us.

I fear we are trapped in a doom spiral of our own creation. I abhor violence. Yet I observe our ever-escalating political rhetoric, and it feels inevitable that someone, or some group, will resort to political violence. The investigations into the motivations of the gunman who came within two inches of assassinating Donald Trump are so far inconclusive, revealing contradictory evidence as to his political ideology or if he was politically motivated at all. The national dialogue following the assassination attempt was full of violent rhetoric, or excuses, from all sides of the political spectrum. If the gunman had been successful, would there have already been more violence?

Maybe I am overly alarmist. Perhaps the 2024 election and its aftermath will be peaceful, and our normal level of dysfunction will persist.

Does that seem likely to you? If not in 2024, what about 2028, or 2032? One thing is certain: without reform, the structural issues will remain. And the continuation of our status quo is unsustainable!

In the long term, a Constitutional Convention might be the only way to avoid bloodshed. But this is a Hail Mary. The work to call a Convention, and then to write and negotiate a new Constitution that lives up to our supposed ideals, is immense. Constitutional change of this magnitude requires a movement of thousands working to convince a country of millions. And this across every state, across every county, across every acre of America.

In addition to a massive grassroots movement, we need people with real power —political, financial, cultural—to speak up and call for a Convention. We need our politicians at every level to speak up and put their (your!) political capital on the line.

My cynicism tells me this will never happen. I expect nothing from our political establishment. In their (your!) shortsightedness, perhaps they believe it is in their self-interest to maintain the status quo. But the status quo is corrupt, and broken, and held in place by its inertia. In sharing drafts of this polemic with close friends, every person has told me some version of, It’ll never happen. Perhaps you are thinking along these lines, too. Fair point. Your cynicism is justified.

But the danger lies when your cynicism turns to apathy. Too many Americans are so disgusted by our two-party system that they have simply tuned out from politics. Perhaps that is you. But the reality is that politics will impact you no matter how much you ignore it. The corporate oligarchs desire nothing more than to profit off your apathy and your cynicism.

My cynicism tells me to give up hope. But I love my country. I know our politics and politicians can be better, if only they were incentivized to do so. The purpose of this book is to design and describe a system to incentivize better politics. After all, no desired political change is feasible until its idea has been expressed! At the same time, expressing an idea is insufficient to make it reality. Coordinated, democratic action is required to make such change a reality.

Despite my eternal cynicism, I believe in the possibility of constitutional reform. I truly believe a new Constitution and multiparty political system would solve our political dysfunction.

As a final answer in response to my cynicism and yours, an axiom:

Constitutional reform is necessary, therefore it is possible.

Chapter 3

LET THE GOOD OF THE PEOPLE BE THE SUPREME LAW

In America, we, the people, are sovereign. At least, we should be. As it is now, the superstructure of our political system itself acts as sovereign, resistant to change even when desired by a supermajority of the people.

Our longstanding dysfunction, and our democracy’s failure to address our problems, heightens the appeal of a strongman who will use executive authority to break through the existing structure.

But such a path is treacherous. In an impossible best-case scenario, the strongman who dismantles democracy rules for life as a benevolent dictator and solves the nation’s problems fairly and quickly. And even then, what happens when the benevolent dictator dies? Would democracy return? Or would another dictator, perhaps this time less than benevolent, take control and usurp sovereignty from us, the people? History returns a clear verdict to these questions: dictatorships are rarely benevolent, and even when the dictator governs well, such a government rarely lasts beyond the dictator’s death.

When asked what kind of government the Constitutional Convention of 1787 had created, Benjamin Franklin replied, A Republic, if you can keep it. ⁶

We must find a way to reform our government to make our democratic republic functional and not give in to the temptations offered by the empty rhetoric of the would-be strongmen.

I believe the best way forward and to renew our democracy is through a Second Constitutional Convention.

A. What Is An Ideal Democracy?

It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time. So said Winston Churchill ⁷ in 1947.

I believe representative democracy to be the least imperfect form of government yet created. No form of government can be perfect because every political system ultimately relies on the independent and collective wills of human political actors, with their human virtues and flaws.

(Do not interpret the above as an argument for AI government. That is