Is democracy in peril?

In less than a week, the United States will hold its presidential election, possibly one of the most consequential in its history. Autocratic political leaders seem to be winning elections in Western democracies. The United States is probably next. Donald Trump, who has made no secret of his admiration for Adolf Hitler, may just make it back to the White House.

Trump often expressed admiration for dictators. “Dictators are the smartest people,” he told Joe Rogan in an interview last week. After their summit meeting in Singapore, Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un exchanged their fondness for each other in 27 letters, which Trump described during campaign rallies as “beautiful letters.”

In an interview with The New York Times, General John Kelly, Trump’s former chief of staff, said: “Certainly the former president is in the far-right area, he’s certainly an authoritarian, and admires people who are dictators. Trump commented more than once that, ‘You know, Hitler did some good things, too,”’ With all the big lies during the campaign season and his refusal to be fact-checked, it appears Trump learned political leadership from Hitler’s playbook.

Warnings from American military and civilian leaders who worked with Trump in his first term seem to have no effect on his cult following among voters. American democracy, as the world has known it, may grind to a screeching halt.

American democratic institutions managed to hold up during Trump’s first term. As a Washington Post columnist puts it, “In his first term, the respected ‘adults’ around him not only blocked some of his most dangerous impulses but also kept them hidden from the public.”

But now, even the Supreme Court has ruled that a president can do almost anything with little restraint from Congress or the Courts. Checks and balances as we know them are gone. Trump already called to terminate the Constitution or parts of it.

The New York Times editorial board urged American voters to believe Trump because he is more than capable of doing exactly as he says. Among these are prosecuting his political enemies, ordering mass deportations, using US soldiers against civilian citizens, denying disaster aid to states run by Democrats and abandoning international allies.

Last year, Adam Grant, an organizational psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, wrote an opinion piece for the New York Times titled “The Worst People Run for Office. It’s Time for a Better Way.”

Reading it again reminded me of our own Vice President, Sara, the brash politician who publicly dreamed of decapitating BBM as well as digging up the remains of BBM’s father and throwing them into the West Philippine Sea. She seems to be following the playbook of her father, the former president, who thrived politically by saying the most outrageous things and flaunting his disregard for the rule of law. The worst people do run for office in our country and our voters enthusiastically elect them. That has also made our democracy dysfunctional.

In his op-ed, Grant wrote that “if we want public office to have integrity, we might be better off eliminating elections altogether.”

Grant explains that this is not anti-democratic. “The ancient Greeks invented democracy, and in Athens, many government officials were selected through sortition – a random lottery from a pool of candidates…”

Grant asserts that “a lottery would improve our odds of avoiding the worst candidates…When it comes to character, our elected officials aren’t exactly crushing it. To paraphrase William F. Buckley Jr., I’d rather be governed by the first 535 people in the phone book. That’s because the people most drawn to power are usually the least fit to wield it.”

“The most dangerous traits in a leader are what psychologists call the dark triad of personality traits: narcissism, Machiavellianism and psychopathy. What these traits share is a willingness to exploit others for personal gain. People with dark triad traits tend to be more politically ambitious – they’re attracted to authority for its own sake. But we often fall under their spell.”

Grant reports that “in a study of elections worldwide, candidates who were rated by experts as having high psychopathy scores actually did better at the ballot box. In the United States, presidents assessed as having psychopathic and narcissistic tendencies were more persuasive with the public than their peers. A common explanation is that they’re masters of fearless dominance and superficial charm, and we mistake their confidence for competence.”

Sortition, or choosing our leaders by lottery, just might be what we need, too. It will be a way of dealing with political dynasties that would otherwise rule forever. Political dynasties in the Philippines are exceptional in their persistence and scope. Almost 80 percent of Congress and well over 50 percent of all elected local government officials are from political families, a study led by Ronald Mendoza reveals.

In addition to dealing with dynasties, sortition or random selection of candidates for elective positions will help minimize the possibility that washed-up showbiz types who run for office will be elected. And it will likely prove to be more democratic because, as Grant explains, a lottery would open the door to people who aren’t connected or wealthy enough to run.

“Our broken campaign finance system lets the rich and powerful buy their way into races while preventing people without money or influence from getting on the ballot. They’re probably better candidates: Research suggests that on average, people who grow up in low-income families tend to be more effective leaders and less likely to cheat — they’re less prone to narcissism and entitlement.”

Or maybe we can try a hybrid. Let AI choose the best candidates based on agreed qualifications to constitute a pool of candidates we can choose from.

Charter change, anyone?

Boo Chanco’s email address is [email protected]. Follow him on X @boochanco.