As I’m sure we’ve all seen, former President Donald Trump survived an assassination attempt at a rally in Butler, Pa. on July 13. While this historical event has rightfully shocked Americans, the narratives espoused on our airwaves did not fully reckon with the shortcomings of democracy in the United States. Rather, many focused on denying the fact that our democracy is faltering. In a press conference held hours after the assassination attempt, for example, President Joe Biden told viewers that “this is not America” and that there was “no place for this kind of violence in America.”
However, more often than not in the last few years, political instability and democratic turbulence have been a regular occurrence. From the “Stop the Steal” protests in 2020 and Capitol insurrection in January 2021 to a 2024 election where candidate and former President Donald Trump still denies the 2020 election results, the country has faced significant challenges to its democratic values. Despite this, Americans continuously assure themselves that the United States is distinctive, unique and in many ways exemplary to other countries as a functional democracy.
The image that the United States has of itself is one that unabashedly touts its democratic and economic prominence. To quote the Financial Times, the United States “ is rich and has a huge internal market. It has the best demographic profile of any developed economy. It has immense resources, both natural (oil and gas) and human (education and research).” Politicians point to the United States as a model for democracy around the world. Most notably, Biden even claimed in a speech on the third anniversary of Jan. 6, 2021 that “democracy is still a sacred cause. And there’s no country in the world better positioned to lead the world than America.”
Even in the summer of 2020, amid the landscape of an extremely polarized United States, Trump said in a Fourth of July speech that “the American Republic stands today as the greatest, most exceptional and most virtuous nation in the history of the world.”
Many take it for granted that the United States is the world’s superpower and will continue as such, unchallenged, in perpetuity. But to what extent is our nation’s self-image accurate?
To start, the United States ranks 36th in the world on the quality of democracy, according to the University of Wurzburg’s democracy matrix — which uses data to compare political systems worldwide. The same study labels the United States as having a “deficient democracy.”
While it’s easy to gloss over these claims — and instead highlight the United States’s superiority when it comes to factors such as economic prosperity or military might — it’s imperative to understand one fact: the United States is not immune to the challenges faced by any democracy — or any government, for that matter.
Over the last few years, this fact has strongly revealed itself. From the rise of radical political factions, violent riots — including the Jan. 6 insurrection — and heightened division approaching the 2024 election, the United States has shown us the volatility of this democracy. The result has been an all-time low trust in American institutions that before served as a model to the world. Americans’ confidence in government institutions like the military, judiciary and electoral system is the lowest compared to other wealthy nations. Additionally, according to a Gallup poll conducted in 2023, satisfaction with the functioning of our democracy has recently been at its weakest.
But the issue I raise is less concerned with the challenges our democracy faces and more so the lack of acknowledgement of these challenges. American leaders strive for a version of America that perhaps cannot be realized, while sweeping issues under the rug by maintaining a conviction that the United States is a model for nations around the world. In Biden’s speech announcing his decision to drop out of the U.S. presidential race, he spent a few moments reflecting on the idea of the United States: “The idea of America lies in your hands. You just have to keep faith — keep the faith — and remember who we are. We are the United States of America, and there [is] simply nothing, nothing beyond our capacity when we do it together.”
The idea of America that Biden and other politicians focus on is unclear. Sentiments that the United States is a guardian of democracy are met head on with a population afraid, in conflict and often without hope. Each election is more pivotal than the last, and it feels like the practices of our country stray further away from the ideas that many people hold. The perception of the United States as a global leader has hindered our ability to acknowledge our true national status and the challenges facing our democracy. It’s time to face the truth: our democracy is faltering, and idealized visions of the United States won’t save it.
Opinion articles represent the views of their author(s), which are not necessarily those of The Dartmouth.
