The U.S. Democratic Republic Is Broken
How to fix it?
Okay, I’m done objecting to the Trump regime’s lynchings…for now. I kinda broke my own editorial guidelines and ranted.
Back to a more even-keeled, cerebral, bigger picture perspective.
I’ve taken stock of where things stand today in America’s democracy and here are my key observations:
The Trump regime continues to violate and challenge the rule of law and the Constitution.
The Republican Congress has ceded its power to the regime.
The only powerful check on the regime’s power are the courts.
The Democratic party is severely weakened as an opposition party.
Anti-politics is a significant force preventing consensus building and pragmatic policies.
Artificial intelligence is becoming more persuasive than humans12 .
Federal deficit spending is not sustainable at current levels.
I am not optimistic.
Neither political party is addressing citizens’ top issues of concern in any meaningful manner3. Here are the results of a recent survey4…
Most of these top issues are shared by Democrat- and Republican-leaning citizens alike and have been “very big problems” for years.
Our government and political establishment didn’t address or solve these big problems, so it makes sense that people voted for Donald Trump and his MAGA rhetoric. He’s not a member of the status-quo, he’s a disrupter who despises the elite establishment, bureaucrats, global institutions and altruism. He’s promised to undo the damage that led to the nation’s “serious decline”, by taking actions based on “common sense”.5 He promises something different, not more of the same. He is an outlet for voters’ anger, distrust and disgust of a government and political system that has ignored and failed them. Americans voted for him to fix what others couldn’t fix.
But Trump and his regime will fail in making America great again because it won’t solve what voters’ see as the country’s biggest problems.
First, the regime barely addresses these problems at all and actually acts counter to solving many of them. I’ve compared the following 20 promises from the 2024 GOP Platform with the Pew survey’s list of national concerns and marked in bold font those promises that address the very big problems (identified in parenthesis):
Seal the border, and stop the migrant invasion (Illegal immigration)
Carry out the largest deportation operation in American history (Illegal immigration)
End inflation, and make America affordable again (Inflation)
Make America the dominant energy producer in the world, by far!
Stop outsourcing, and turn the United States into a manufacturing superpower
Large tax cuts for workers, and no tax on tips!
Defend our Constitution, our Bill of Rights, and our fundamental freedoms, including freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and the right to keep and bear arms
Prevent World War Three, restore peace in Europe and in the Middle East, and build a great Iron Dome missile defense shield over our entire country -- all made in America
End the weaponization of government against the American people
Stop the migrant crime epidemic, demolish the foreign drug cartels, crush gang violence, and lock up violent offenders (Violent crime)
Rebuild our cities, including Washington DC, making them safe, clean, and beautiful again.
Strengthen and modernize our military , making it, without question, the strongest and most powerful in the world
Keep the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency
Fight for and protect Social Security and Medicare with no cuts, including no changes to the retirement age (Financial stability of Social Security and Medicare)
Cancel the electric vehicle mandate and cut costly and burdensome regulations
Cut federal funding for any school pushing critical race theory, radical gender ideology, and other inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content on our children
Keep men out of women’s sports
Deport pro-Hamas radicals and make our college campuses safe and patriotic again
Secure our elections, including same day voting, voter identification, paper ballots, and proof of citizenship
Unite our country by bringing it to new and record levels of success
These 20 promises address only four of the top 20 national concerns:
Inflation
Illegal immigration
Financial stability of Social Security and Medicare
Violent crime
Trump’s promises ignore the six very big problems of:
Affordability of health care
Drug addiction
Gun violence
Quality of public schools
International terrorism
Domestic terrorism.
The promises ignore and the Trump regime’s actions make worse the 10 very big problems of:
Role of money in politics
Federal budget deficit
Ability of Democrats and Republicans to work together
Number of American living in poverty
State of moral values
The way the U.S. political system operates
Americans’ agreement on basic facts
Impact of natural disaster
Climate change
Racism
Second, Trump will fail because most of his cabinet and members of his administration in senior positions are inexperienced, incompetent or both. Most were selected based on loyalty rather than ability. Their priority is to demonstrate their allegiance and play to Trump’s base, not tackle complex, difficult problems for which they lack the ability to solve.
Third, Trump will fail because he is trying to rule by executive order. Most of the very big problems cannot be solved without Congress enacting legislation. Trump’s attempts to make changes and rule by edict have been and will continue to be thwarted by the courts as overreaches of executive power. The regime is making no effort to work with Congress, only to dominate its Republican members and vilify Democrats.
Finally, Trump and his cabal lack empathy and compassion. They know how attack, vilify, imprison, deport, threaten and extort, but not how to listen, understand and respond. They know what riles their base voters and what plays well on MAGA media outlets and use this knowledge for their own political purposes, not to make things better for those that support them. The regime’s actions demonstrate that it only cares about gaining and maintaining power. It doesn’t give a shit about solving our problems.
So, Trump will fail the American people. But can the Democrat’s do any better? Can they solve the biggest problems? I doubt it6.
The Democratic Party is dependent on money in politics and the political system staying as it is. They expand healthcare without addressing its cost. They amplified recent high inflation through profligate spending in an economy running at near capacity (adding insult to injury by calling their spending bill “The Inflation Reduction Act”, an Orwellian title if ever there was one), the federal deficit exploded during Biden’s term, and they are just as hyper-partisan as Republicans. I believe Democrats have good intentions and they say a lot of good things about gun violence, climate change and education, but we haven’t seen them deliver tangible improvements. Their identity politics and “woke” rhetoric makes racism and other divisions between Americans worse.
The Democrats seem to be seeing the error of their ways, why they lost the 2024 election, how poorly regarded they are by the public but, as of today, have not articulated a way forward. They bicker among themselves while waiting for Trump to fail and, their fingers-crossed, to be voted back into office with mostly the same-old, same-old policies.
So we’re stuck, gridlocked in a political system that isn’t working for us, isn’t solving the very big problems.
I wrote an article about anti-politics, citing a post by The Liberal Patriot which predicts three outcomes to voter frustration and apathy with a system that does not deliver:
Right-wing anti-politics dominates through Trump’s successors.
Left-wing anti-politics gains ground if Trump fails and Democrats shift left.
A moderate return to normalcy arises, though likely short-lived.
None of these outcomes will result in the effective democratic processes and public deliberation required to resolve big national problems. Right-wing or left-wing populist victories will result in continued disruptive political action, rather than the steady work required to solve problems through majority, bipartisan legislation. A moderate administration’s priority will be damage repair and getting things back to normal, not to enact the radical government reforms necessary to solve problems. This will anger voters again and they will turn again to a right- or left-wing populist disrupter. Wash, rinse, repeat.
The sad conclusion of this analysis and prognosis is that our democracy is failing because it cannot effectively respond to citizens’ big concerns. A large proportion of citizens has lost faith in democracy and more will continue to do so unless there is real change that gets to root of its failure.
What would a better, more responsive, responsible and effective democracy look like, how would it work?
I’m going to try and figure that out and write about what I discover. I’ll use my skills and experience as an engineer to define, investigate, analyze and design solutions to problems. I doubt I’ll come up with anything revolutionary or particularly exciting, more likely just pragmatic, common-sense, good-enough recommendations. Perhaps not politically feasible ones. So my ideas will likely go nowhere, but as a vigilant citizen, I feel like I should be able to offer solutions if called upon. And I’d rather them be my DIY ones than just pulling ready-made ones off the shelf.
To be clear, here is my concise definition of the problem:
The United States government does not adequately address the foremost concerns of its citizens.
I’m going to constrain my analysis and design to our current form of government, a democratic republic and not consider other forms because they involve compromises to personal freedoms.
Why doesn’t our democratic republic properly represent its citizens and adequately address their concerns?
I see three major impediments on which to focus investigation:
The power of money
The power of the political party duopoly
The power of lies
I propose that for our government to represent and work towards the interests of its citizens, we need to reduce the power of these three impediments and increase the power of the citizen.
That’s as far as I’ve gotten. I’ll continue documenting my quest in the Vigilant Citizen. Comments, criticism, encouragement, questions, ideas? Please, leave a comment.
“…when faced with an LLM that has access to demographic information allowing it to personalize its argument, humans are 81.7% more likely to agree with the arguments when compared with a human adversary.”
“…AI comments were between three and six times more persuasive in altering people’s viewpoints than human users were, as measured by the proportion of comments that were marked by other users as having changed their mind.”
One could argue that concerns about illegal immigration are being meaningfully addressed, with an 83% decrease in illegal border crossings and apprehensions nationwide over the first four months of 2025 compared to the same period in 2024. However, even though much, much higher than during President Biden’s term, only 47% of Americans approve of the president’s immigration policies, which means that 53% disapprove.
Pew Research Center, “Americans Continue to View Several Economic Issues as Top National Problems”, February 20, 2025
To be fair and consistent, I took a look at the ‘24 Democratic Party Platform to compare it’s promises to the very big problems of the Pew survey but it is a goddamn 91 pages long (compared the GOP’s succinct 16 pages!) and it doesn’t list promises made. It seems to be a rambling narrative, filled with great intentions, short on details, something-for-everyone but no clearly stated commitments. It’s hard to make sense of it. No wonder Democrats lost the election and the support of voters without college degrees! I’ll go through it more carefully and see if I can extract promises to compare with the survey and report back in a future post.
Insightful points from the research but just points to the problem of politics as usual doesn’t solve anything. Both Republicans and Democrats are only in office for their own power and fame. They are no longer in public service but to serve themselves. Honesty, I think climate change is number one and can only be solved by all countries working together rather than isolating and pissing them all off as Trump is doing. If we keep increasing the earth’s temperature, depleting topsoil, and poisoning our water, we will be extinct soon anyway. I know my daughter and her generation are reluctant to bring children into this dying world. Musk, Bezos, and other billionaires want to escape to Mars and mine other planets and asteroids because they’ve given up on a sustainable Earth. The constant need to grow an economy is not sustainable. A dystopian future is just around the bend. That is why people are feeling so powerless, in my opinion.