The Trump phenomenon: questioning the virtues of direct democracy

Though an increasing anti-Trump faction is appearing in the Republican party, the historical evisceration of national party organisations ensures the possibility of a second Trump takeover.

Source: Ted Eytan via Flickr

Whilst Trump’s unprecedented second impeachment trial concluded with Senate acquittal, GOP voting patterns - seven Republican Senators found Trump guilty - and intra-party censure revealed a burgeoning rift between Republican politicians and the ex-president. Intertwined with the events of January 6 at the Capitol, whereby Trump loyalists desecrated America’s democratic tradition, one would reasonably expect Trump’s political image sufficiently delegitimised to preclude any hope of returning to the Oval Office.

Yet, the American electoral system eliminates the intermediary and tempering force of political parties in the selection of presidential hopefuls. That is, party leaders and national party organisations, aside from exhortatory appeals, have no effective control over presidential nominees. This, though multi-variate, is almost entirely a function of the triumph of universal direct primaries in the 1980s. By committing to a more direct-democracy, placing the means of candidate selection wholly in the hands of the electorate, the two parties withdrew the previously significant role of party structures. 

Of course, this is a historical discontinuity. As James Bryce, a perceptive political commentator and diplomat, wrote in 1888, “the selection of the candidate from within the party by the party” was an obtrusive element of presidential politics that continued, broadly speaking, well into the 20th century. Undoubtedly, nominating processes dominated by party bosses and political organisations in smoke-filled rooms facilitated chicanery and political intrigue. The nefarious control of national politics by party bosses undoubtedly provided impetus for the democratising impulses of primaries. Indeed, Theodore Roosevelt’s attempted return to the Oval Office in 1912 heartily endorsed a “pure democracy” through presidential primaries in order to overcome such corrupting influences. 

That is not to say this form of selection process was ubiquitously negative. The collection of party sovereigns that gathered at national selection committees, representing disparate state and local-level constituents, compelled a negotiatory process. This typically engendered the selection of a candidate amenable to the widest number of partisans. V.O. Key, a prominent mid-century political scientist, explained that in the traditional process “the nominee symbolizes the terms of the [party] coalition of the moment” – moderation, that is reaching a broad consensus, inhered in the selection of candidates. It is certainly difficult to imagine a Trump-like character, particularly considering the party response in the 2016 primaries, elected by the moderating influence of a party apparatus.

The transition to peripheral status for national party organisations began with the strong leadership of FDR. It was formalised over the succeeding decades through primary elections, engendering a neoteric, perhaps plebiscitary relationship between the president and the people. The corrupting influence of political bosses in the election process was also formally obviated. Theoretically, democracy triumphed. Enabling the selection of candidates for the highest and most powerful office of the U.S. by the citizenry, the legitimate democratic sovereign, seems an axiomatically positive progression.

However, removing the party organisation as a prerequisite for electoral success and elevating primaries has induced critical consequences. Concomitant with the rise of television advertising, needing to appeal to the people via campaigns for several months has become exorbitantly expensive. Candidates are therefore required to accrue substantial funds to achieve nomination, leading them into the hands of wealthy individuals and corporate entities. Though the electoral influence of money became prominent at the turn of the 20th century via William McKinley’s groundbreaking 1900 campaign, the pervasive influence of Super PACs in contemporary American elections is fundamentally distinct. Presidential historian Stephen Graubard explains that whilst “the United States late in the twentieth century lived with the illusion that it had instituted a presidential primary system that gave power to the people”, in reality influence was increasingly offered to “those prepared to contribute substantial sums to the campaigns of those they imagined might in one way or another recompense them for their contributions”. Indeed, the salience of campaign finance appears to have fundamentally altered the democratic process. 

Furthermore, the institutionalisation of the “plebiscitary presidency” and the personification of national government in the presidency, as documented by Theodore J. Lowi, has created expectations for presidential governance that are no-win. The president cannot constitutionally fulfil the expectations of the modern office. The separation of powers and centralisation of legislative power in Congress that is core to the American Constitution makes the realisation of presidential agendas inherently herculean. Therefore, as public expectations of presidential government are perpetually unsatisfied, confidence in government continues to fall. Increasing the intermediary eminence of parties, Lowi explains, hence distributing the expectations for governance and policy initiatives, would allay these issues. The key point to note here is that good intentions, and apparently positive progressions, can, and often do, induce unforeseen negative consequences. This evidently problematises the net utility of presidential primaries, without even addressing the potential selection of demagogic and dangerously polarising candidates feared by the Framers of the Constitution. 

Returning to Trump, the historical legacy is patent. Whilst a strong contingent of the Republican party continues to distance itself from the incendiary ex-president, their capacity to impact the outcome of his prospective 2024 presidential bid is insignificant. Far from being a tendentious diatribe, Trump’s perpetual dismissal of political propriety and democratic traditions, culminating in the egregious incitement of violence at the Capitol on January 6, should imbue all proponents of democracy and the American constitutional system with outrage and contempt.

This leads one to question the putative virtues of a more direct democracy. It remains patently unclear that the presidents elected by delegates via the traditional convention system – including Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, and John F. Kennedy – were inferior to those of the modern system – Reagan, Bush 1 and 2, Clinton, and Trump. In the Twitter epoch, what an acerbic commentator referred to as “the post-literate generation” where “hyperbole rules”, and the vicissitudes and vacillations of the vox populi reach new extremes, perhaps the direct presidential primary is not the most effective mode of election. A party-controlled convention system would certainly prevent a Trump re-election, support a return to normalcy, and perhaps enable moderation within the Republican party, restoring commitment to the institutions of law central to the conservative tradition. Ultimately, a more unmediated democracy is not inexorably congenial to better governance.

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