Newsletter #256 — July 22, 2024
By Guy Burgess and Heidi Burgess
The hyper-polarized United States is now heading into an especially bitter election season in which large numbers of voters view the possibility of electoral defeat in truly apocalyptic terms. For those worried about the health, or even the viability, of our democratic institutions, the situation is truly alarming. We have been thinking about — and invite you to join us in considering — what realistic steps might be taken to help heal our society following an election that, no matter who wins, is going to leave a great many of our fellow citizens with a pervading sense of despair and hopelessness.
We have developed a thought/discussion exercise which we think can play a useful role in helping us think how we might be able to limit the pervasive sense of fear that now surrounds US elections. It can be done privately by individuals or, better yet, in groups (ideally groups composed of people from left, right, and moderate perspectives talking together).
Starting Point
The exercise starts by asking participants to think ahead and imagine that this fall's election has now been concluded (though perhaps by a narrow margin). Assume their side has won. (But "their side" can be either the left or the right. This applies to both. It would be particularly enlightening to compare answers, if participants span the political spectrum.)
Question #1
Think about how you would want the OTHER SIDE to respond to your side's victory (assuming that your goal is to strengthen, not further weaken, American democracy). Focus on how you think the other side SHOULD react to the efforts of your party to follow through on the promises it made to voters.
- Keep in mind that we are not asking how you think that the other side WILL respond. (There are certainly reasons to fear that either the left or the right might respond in antidemocratic ways). We want you to focus on what they SHOULD do, as part of the orderly transitions of power that are essential to the success of democratic societies.
- Also resist the temptation to think that the other side should just come around and support all of your side's policies. They will not. Assume (correctly) that deep fact, interest, and value differences will continue to exist and that a constructive way of working through these continuing tensions is needed.
- We want you to describe, in a fair amount of detail, what a constructive response to electoral defeat in a healthy democracy should look like. As a starting point for discussion, you might consider what ground rules for interaction you would want your opponents to follow. For instance, you might conclude that they should treat your side with respect (avoiding name-calling, for instance). You might conclude that they should acknowledge the legitimacy of your points of view (even though they most likely will still strongly disagree). Further expectations might include a willingness to forsake violence and threats of violence, and disavow extreme political tactics that would use non-democratic means to block your side from implementing the policies that your candidate promised to the voters. We leave it to you to expand and get much more specific about the behaviors you would like to see (and not see) from the losing side.
Question #2
Next, we ask you to consider what commitments YOU AND YOUR SIDE (as the winners) would be willing to make to the other side to allay their fears that your victory will be a catastrophe for them and to assure them that they will still have a welcome and secure place in the shared society. Why should you do that, you might ask? We think you should do that because fear leads to resistance and backlash, and will just make it harder for you to accomplish any of your own policy goals. More importantly, however, we believe it is the right thing to do.
You might, for example, promise to refrain from using "tyranny of the majority" tactics that would allow you to use your majority status in exploitive ways, unfairly extracting from the losers as much as you possibly can. (While such strategies might win substantial short-term support from partisans on your side, they are likely to strengthen opponents in ways that could easily cause you to lose a coming election, and, with it, much or all of what your side may have gained.) Similarly, you might also promise to protect their cherished rights and freedoms. Why? Because you are likely to want them, later on, to protect yours. After all, the willingness to protect each others' rights and freedoms is a cornerstone of all healthy democracies.
This question is not as easy as it might seem. Elections do have consequences. Since, in a democracy, they do much to determine whose views guide social policies, the losing side will, no doubt, be bitterly disappointed. The question that we are asking you to address is what voluntary limits you are willing to place on your ability to exploit the majority power that comes with being a winner. When considering your answers this question, you may find it useful and appropriate to embed quid pro quo's in your answers. You might, for example, condition some conciliatory behaviors on the willingness of the other side to engage in similarly conciliatory behaviors.
Question #3
Now comes the hard part of this exercise. We ask you to reverse the scenario and assume that the other side has won. We then want you to ask the above two questions again. Start by again asking what should the WINNERS of an election have the right to expect from YOUR SIDE, (in this case, the losers). Are your answers the same as they were above? If so, do you honestly think that you would be willing to do the things that are being asked of you? If not, why not? What would you do instead? How do you think that would affect your side, the other side, the society, and democracy going forward?
Question #4
Follow this up by asking what commitments and assurances the winners under this scenario (again, the other side) should be willing to make you? Is there anything you could do to encourage them to make such commitments (and then carry them out)?
Reconciling Your Answers under the Two Scenarios
In answering the above four questions, we suggest that you start afresh each time with a blank sheet of paper. Don't take the shortcut of superficially concluding that the two scenarios should be treated in identical and parallel ways. Honestly consider what you would expect and be willing to do under both scenarios.
In this fifth part of the exercise we ask you to compare your two sets of answers and explore the tough questions that are likely to arise in cases where your answers are not, in fact, parallel. As you do this, look for a fair set of principles that will explain why approaches that aren't parallel still are fair and sensible.
Optional Extra Question #1: Dealing With Anti-Democratic Elements
Obviously, in the aftermath of these two scenarios, there are going to be bitterly disappointed activists who are going to conclude that electoral defeat means that the system is hopelessly broken and corrupt and that the only alternative is to resort to more extreme and anti-democratic strategies aimed at overpowering the alleged winner, who is assumed to have used illegitimate, anti-democratic strategies to win in the first place. How should the winners deal with such opponents? How should the more moderate people on the losing side try to stop their more extreme voters from undermining democracy with their responses to the election?
Optional Extra Question #2: Contested Elections
If you have additional time and energy, you might consider how the answers to the above questions would need to be modified if the results of the election were in some significant way contested.
Optional Extra Question #3: Involving Political Leaders and the Media
Third, you might consider how to persuade political leaders and those in the political media to adopt the principles that you suggest.
The Bottom Line: This is, in essence a "Golden Rule" exercise. If we win, are we willing to treat the losers as we would want to be treated if we lose? And if we lose, are we willing to treat the winners as we hope they will treat us? If the answer is "no," we should at least consider why that is so, whether failing to follow the golden rule is really going to do either side — or the democracy we each claim to hold dear — much good.
Feedback Request
We are just now formulating this exercise and haven't yet tried it with groups, or gone beyond our preliminary, personal thinking about how these questions might best be answered. We would very much appreciate your thoughts about whether these ideas make sense and hearing about any similar efforts that you might be aware of. We would also be very interested in hearing about anything you might do to actually implement these ideas. If there is sufficient interest, we could create a series of webpages describing how different groups answer these questions.
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