Governing wisely

In 1896, the head of the Democratic Party was concerned. The presidential election was over but not settled. It was “one of the closest contests that the people have been called on to determine in recent years,” he wrote. States were “in doubt, in which we knew there had been many frauds, and from which there were evidences of tampering with the returns.” 

Yet that year, the Democratic candidate, William Jennings Bryan, began the modern tradition of presidents publicly conceding. Since then, every losing U.S. presidential candidate has formally acknowledged his or her opponent as the victor. Until President Donald Trump.

The March 13 cover story looks at the woman who is perhaps Mr. Trump’s nearest protégé. Kari Lake lost the 2022 Arizona governor’s race by 17,000 votes but has yet to concede. Like Mr. Trump, she claims fraud. And as with his claims about the 2020 election, no credible evidence suggests the election was stolen. 

Allegations of fraud and stolen elections did not begin in 2020. Yet refusing to accept election results – at least at the presidential level – did. What happened?

One factor is that Americans’ trust in government is at historic lows. That makes it easier for politicians to impugn the system – courts, parties, and institutions. But is government actually worse? One can argue that the government has changed less than our perception of it. Trust began to decline during America’s first televised war (Vietnam), accelerated through Watergate, and has bumped along in the doldrums throughout the internet era.  

Speaking of the world generally, futurist Ray Kurzweil said: “People think the world is getting worse. ... That’s the perception. What’s actually happening is our information about what’s wrong in the world is getting better.” The same could be said of government.

But there’s another factor to consider. At the establishment of the American republic, the nation’s founders gave sovereign power to the people, but didn’t know how much to trust them. Voters did not elect presidents; electors did. Nor did voters elect U.S. senators; state legislators did. In 1789, some 4 out of 5 Americans couldn’t vote, according to one estimate. American democracy was not very democratic. 

Today, in some ways, the United States faces the opposite challenge. The political reforms of the early 1900s created ballot initiatives, where voters could make law themselves. And in the era of cable news and Twitter, legislators are given an increasingly shorter leash, threatened with primary challenges if they don’t do exactly what voters sent them to Washington to do. 

America’s democracy is becoming more direct. In other words, there are fewer layers of insulation between voters and lawmaking. This can be good, holding lawmakers to account. But it also means that when Mr. Trump and Ms. Lake make their false claims, there’s not much the parties or the system can do to stop them. That power lies with voters.

In 2022, the voters largely rejected those who aggressively claimed election fraud. Similar tests will likely come in 2024 and beyond. In a sense, U.S. elections are now referendums on whether we can govern ourselves wisely.