Institutions Matter

E lections matter. Or do they? Recently people who should know better have been casting preemptive doubt on the 2020 presidential elections. Hillary Clinton offered this advice: “Joe Biden should not concede under any circumstances.” Donald Trump, for his part, has expressed deep skepticism about the process, especially as the COVID-19 situation will likely induce many to vote by mail. He tweeted: “Because of MAIL-IN BALLOTS, 2020 will be the most RIGGED Election in our nations history.” This week he stoked the fires again. When asked if he was committed to a peaceful transfer of power, Trump was vague: “We’re going to have to see what happens.” According to Axios, a Democratic research firm called Hawkfish, funded by Michael Bloomberg, found that “it’s highly likely that President Trump will appear to have won — potentially in a landslide — on election night, even if he ultimately loses when all the votes are counted.” Of course, “all the votes” consist of the mailed-in ballots about which Trump has voiced concern.

“Do not concede.” “Rigged election.” “Ambiguous results.” If these narratives take root broadly — and there are good reasons to think they already have — the United States is in for a rough time, for the very legitimacy of the democratic process is being thrown into question. In other words, it is one thing to rail against the qualifications or integrity of one’s opponent; it is entirely another thing to denigrate the very process by which our leaders are chosen. Such skepticism will serve to erode an indispensable democratic institution.

Every intact society rests upon a set of common institutions. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, an institution is “an established law, custom, usage, practice, organization, or other element in the political or social life of a people; a regulative principle or convention subservient to the needs of an organized community or the general ends of civilization.”

Skepticism about the legitimacy of our basic institutions is the logical result of the Left’s revolutionary “long march through the institutions” that commenced a half century ago. The goal was to infiltrate and transform key institutions that were impeding the social revolution — a revolution that was the ultimate aspiration of the cultural Marxists. The academy, media, and entertainment had to be transformed. Churches were also an obvious target as were industry, unions, and political parties. The underlying assumption of this tactic was simple: Institutions are nothing but instruments of power, and they must be co-opted either by direct assault or, as was generally the case, by employing a patient, persistent strategy of gradual transformation.

If institutions are nothing other than the instruments of power, then voting is simply a power game, and gaming the game is a logical extension of the process. The morality of the democratic process can be affirmed when convenient, but any such claims will be jettisoned when the need arises, for moral categories themselves are merely instruments of power by which one group subjugates another.

There is, of course, a moral logic deeply imbedded in the democratic process. Even if a society rejects an explicit commitment to a fixed moral law, a democratic system is based on a tacit moral principle: majoritarianism. The majoritarian principle affirms that each individual’s voice carries the same weight, and the only legitimate way to determine outcomes is by counting votes (either directly or the votes of representatives).

But if moral categories are merely fabrications of the powerful, then majoritarianism itself is merely a fabricated moral principle that can be jettisoned when the need arises and the opportunity presents itself. Democracy will be revealed as a splendid façade masking the hard fist of political power.

Democracy cannot survive without trust, and this trust includes two aspects. First, citizens must trust their institutions. While no institution is perfect (for instance, voting irregularities will never be completely eliminated), it is necessary that citizens believe that their institutions are generally reliable and just. When the reliability and justice of institutions are systematically called into question, the legitimacy of the entire system is undermined. Second, a healthy democracy requires that, by and large, citizens trust each other. This sort of mutual confidence can certainly be overstated, but a degree of social trust is a vital part of a stable society. Citizens must believe that most of their fellow citizens will, most of the time, act decently, obey the law, and act within the parameters of our given institutions. If that trust is degraded or lost, society will invariably degenerate into warring factions where politics, rooted in good faith and compromise, will be replaced by the wholesale pursuit of power, the silencing of debate, and the rejection of any notion of protection for political minorities.

Ultimately, the erosion of institutions signals the erosion of a common culture, which may in fact be the soft and vulnerable underbelly of any pluralistic society. Of course, a degree of pluralism is good. Variety and the space necessary to exercise autonomy is valuable individually and socially. But if the pluralism is achieved at the expense of any common ties that bind citizens together, the price is too high, and paying it will prove fatal to the polity.

What binds us together? What does it mean to be an American? It goes without saying that our mutual disdain for each other is an inadequate binding agent. A common commitment to the basic institutions we have inherited as Americans — free speech, representative government, federalism, free markets, education, the family, religion — is necessary. Living in accordance with these common institutions is a primary means by which Americans learn to trust each other. Of course, these institutions often seem less than perfect and are at present badly frayed. But they are worth preserving and improving. They are, indeed, the basic structures around which we can build our common lives together as Americans. To neglect or reject these American institutions is to play the role of the ingrate, despising a good gift because it is not a perfect gift. It is to admit that the cultural revolution’s long march through the institutions was a triumph. And finally, it will signal the ignoble death of a once noble experiment in self-government. Institutions matter.