OPINION: DEMOCRACY AND THE PANDEMIC

Bill Kaizen raises the question that has been on the minds of many: how much erosion of our civil liberties can a democracy abide during a crisis?  For all small-d democrats this has always involved a paradox: we believe in an active government not only to protect those liberties but also to provide the economic, political and social guarantees that they will be available to all citizens.  But the same machinery of government that we have erected to protect our liberties can be used to limit or even deny them. Tyrants hold elections, and at the beginning of their reigns at least have the support of democrats who prefer order to chaos even if at the expense of rights.  Small-d democrats embraced the New Deal as the way to get us out of the Great Depression even as it curtailed personal liberties. Similarly, during World War II we accepted deprivations and restrictions imposed by FDR, a man whom many of us regarded as our savior. 

Democracy has many enemies; in bad times it is threatened by authority, in good times it is threatened by indifference.  Right now is a very bad time, but small-d democrats are asking for the federal government to take charge and be active, while our authoritarian president is leaving the response to the pandemic largely in the hands of the states.  Paradox indeed.

I would suggest to Bill and to all of us that we would do better to worry about democracy when times are good, or at least better.  That is when the twin threats of authoritarianism and indifference are both insidious and invisible. Insidious, because when “our side” is in power we approve the authority.  Invisible, because when times are good, we don’t pay much attention to our government. And our government tends to think that is just fine.

I will gladly give the government (national or local) more power, as long as I have the means of taking it back when it is no longer needed.  Elections alone are not a sufficient mechanism, as both national and local politics demonstrate. We can only vote for names on the ballot, and how easily names can get there and how willingly people from diverse backgrounds run for office is the important thing.  

But even ballot diversity is not a safeguard.  As long as we have a Supreme Court which believes that money is speech and as long as we have PACs that are happy to unbalance the playing field democracy is not safe.

The Founders believed that a system of checks and balances was a sufficient safeguard against authoritarianism but, alas, they also felt that it was a safeguard against democracy.  Perhaps they were right on both counts, and their gift to us was this unresolvable paradox.

So I would say several things to Bill Kaizen.  First, thank you for the light you shine on our local government.  Second, accept the need for a decisive and active government during this crisis, but never stop watching for signs of authoritarianism.  And last, cherish your worries, so that when this plague is over you can continue to prod our town government towards democracy and our town residents towards participation.