True Left

Only About 3.5 Percent of Americans Care About Democracy

A recent study reveals that vanishingly few voters will defect from a candidate who acts undemocratically.

You wouldn't know it listening to U.S. media though would you? Listening to Western media you could easily arrive at the conclusion that everyone agrees that democracy is the best thing that has ever happened to humankind, right?

Imagine a candidate you like. This politician has everything: the right positions on taxes, abortion, foreign policy, immigration; sound judgment; enough personal probity to be trusted with your wallet, house keys, or email password. Now imagine that that candidate does or says something antidemocratic. For no particular reason, she shuts down polling stations. Or at a rally, she tells supporters that a particular journalist—standing over there, in the Men’s Wearhouse sport coat—is asking too many questions and might deserve to get rabbit-punched on the way to his car. Care to change your vote?

This purely theoretical scenario, which of course bears no relationship to anything that has happened or is happening in American politics, is the subject of an article in the American Political Science Review by Matthew H. Graham and Milan W. Svolik of Yale University. How much do voters really care about democracy? Nearly all Americans say democracy matters. But how many will actually punish their preferred candidate and withhold a vote when that candidate does something undemocratic?

Graham and Svolik’s answer: About 3.5 percent of voters will defect from a candidate whom they otherwise support, but who does something destructive of democratic norms. Those 3.5 percent come from the right and the left in equal proportions, but they tend to be moderates. (Self-described “independents”—those mysterious, yeti-like creatures who profess to have no political preference at all—vote slightly more like extremists.) If you value democracy, hug a moderate.

“If you just ask people whether they like democracy, there’s a social norm that says they have to answer yes,” Svolik told me. They have been conditioned since grade school to say “democracy is good, 10 out of 10—and we should also stop global warming and save the whales and whatever.” He and Graham surveyed 1,691 people and posed instead a version of the hypothetical question I asked above: You say you like democracy, but will you sacrifice other things you like on its behalf, by withholding your vote for a democracy-bashing candidate? “Some will, but the punishment is small,” Svolik said: those willing to vote for the opposing candidate often do so only if he is similar to the candidate they intended to support in the first place. That means partisanship encourages more antidemocratic action: Stronger partisans will let the thuggishness slide, if they would have to sacrifice more than a small portion of their positions. The greater the number of strong partisan voters and politicians, the smaller the punishment for violating democratic norms, and the more likely the norm-breaker is to get elected.

Read more: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/09/few-americans-care-about-democracy/616534/