American Democracy: An Incomplete Experiment

Sir Winston Churchill, on November 11, 1947, is famously quoted as having said, “Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe… democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms…”

So why would a former British prime minister, who was a public servant for the better part of a century, a Nobel Prize winner and the first honorary citizen of the United States – the oldest democracy in the world – say such a thing? A simple conversation with an average voter or a look at a newspaper will highlight the inherent problem with American democracy.

Effective policy is, to most Americans, boring; scandal and sound bites are much more entertaining. Americans are, and always have been, driven by emotion. People don’t get excited when the VA releases a report that they have many of the highest performing hospitals in the country or that Medicare overhead costs are nearly ten times lower than the average health insurance plan, which are both true; but the first time one of these programs does not work perfectly, it is “proof” that government is fundamentally “broken.”

Don’t get me wrong. Government should be held to a higher standard in providing for the public good, but not at the expense of recognizing the positive impact government has on our lives. Capitalism is driven by business failure, but the first time government – which free-market proponents argue should be run more like a business – fails, everyone is up in arms, quickly forgetting businesses fail more often then they succeed.

Elected officials and media understand this public appetite for scandal and controversy. The people want to know why Tiger Woods cheated on his wife, why Peter Orszag has a child on the way with someone other than his fiancée and why Senator Vitter and former Governor Spitzer turned to prostitutes. This is why elected officials prefer to bash an opponent’s personal shortcomings than talk about long-term solutions to our most important challenges; it is simply easier to divert the conversation with an attack than to counter sound policy proposals.

Americans are never going to quit reading about scandal (for various reasons), but they should also make sure they base their votes and opinions on something more substantive. When that happens and voters are voting for candidates for the right reasons, democracy shines and we prove that it is, as Sir Churchill argues, (at least) better than the other forms of government.