For a long time, the US saw itself as a model democracy: A country to which other nations could look as they built their own democracies after gaining independence or rejecting authoritarian regimes. This idea is manifested in the metaphor “city on a hill”: Politicians from John F. Kennedy to Barack Obama have referred to the USA as a “bright beacon”, catching everyone’s eye. In 1961, President-elect Kennedy said that the world was still looking to the US and its democracy and that “our governments, in every branch, at every level, national, state and local, should be like a city upon a hill”.

On January 6, 2021, the eyes of the world were on the USA. On that day, a mob of far-right extremists, encouraged by then-President Donald Trump, stormed the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to disrupt the Democratic transfer of power after the 2020 election. And in a 2023 poll by the news agency Associated Press in collaboration with the University of Chicago, only 10% of participants said that democracy in the US works extremely well or very well.

So what is the state of US democracy today, ahead of the 2024 presidential election?

Congress does not inspire faith in democracy

“I think it’s accurate to say that Americans don’t have a lot of trust right now in government institutions,” Michael Berkman, director of the McCourtney Institute for Democracy and professor of political science at Pennsylvania State University, told DW. “They’re looking at a Congress that’s not working well at all, and they’re looking at some rather intractable problems that the government hasn’t really addressed, like gun violence and climate change.” Unable to choose a leader, the Republican majority in the House of Representatives paralyzed Congress for weeks in October 2023. But even without a recess like this, the passage of any legislation by both houses of Congress, the House and in the Senate, it is slow because of the deep-seated rivalry between Republicans and Democrats.

“It is extremely difficult, sometimes impossible, to pass legislation even when the overwhelming majority of the public supports a measure,” Vanessa Williamson, a senior fellow in governance studies at the US think tank the Brookings Institution, told DW. “There is a very serious dysfunction in Washington.”

The US hardly saw a peaceful transition of power. The stark polarization, the divide between Democratic and Republican supporters, means that at least half the country is likely to be extremely unhappy with many decisions made by the elected government. After the 2020 election, many Republicans (led by Trump) were so unhappy with the election results that they tried to ignore them. So persistent were they falsely claiming that the election was “stolen” from them that finally, a mob of those who believed this stormed the Capitol. The peaceful transition of power is one of the hallmarks of democracy, and that almost didn’t happen in the US. “I think what happened on Jan. 6 and the refusal of one side to accept the election results is very damaging to a democracy, since the acceptance of the election result is central to democratic politics,” Berkman said.

Winning the popular vote is not the key

It is therefore not surprising that trust in democratic institutions has declined in recent years. But there is more that you might not expect from a country like the US. “In addition to recent forms of democratic erosion, the United States has many long-standing anti-democratic practices,” Williamson said. Chief among them: The winner of a presidential election is not necessarily the one with the most votes. Most recently, Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election even though his opponent, Hillary Clinton, received about 2.9 million more votes than him. The reason behind this conundrum is the electoral college. In the US each of the 50 states has a certain number of electors, depending on the size of its population. The candidate who wins the majority of the popular vote in a state is the one who receives the electoral votes in that state.

Does it sound complicated? Here’s an example: California as the most populous state has the most electoral votes, 54. The candidate who can get the most Californians to vote for him will get all 54 of those electoral votes, even if he won only by a small margin. Smaller states like Vermont or South Dakota only have three representatives in the electoral college, but the system is the same. To win the presidency, a candidate must win enough states to reach 270 or more electoral votes. Someone who wins states by a narrow margin can thus become president, even though more Americans overall voted for the other candidate.

The US Senate, “a profoundly anti-democratic institution”

Another part of the US political system that does not reflect a perfect democracy is the US Senate. Each US state has two senators in the chamber, regardless of the state’s population size. This means that in some states a senator represents a few hundred thousand people, while in another a few million people “share” a senator. When the Senate has to make a decision, each senator’s vote carries exactly the same weight, even though they represent vastly different numbers of people. Berkman calls the Senate “a profoundly undemocratic institution.” And Williamson says that as a result of the way the Senate is constituted, “our most populous districts are deeply underrepresented in the legislative process.”

Ray of hope: More participation

The US may not be a paragon of democracy, but Americans haven’t given up. More people are involved. Voter turnout in the 2020 presidential election was over 65%, the highest it has been in more than 100 years. “You see the increased political participation over the last eight, 10 years,” Berkman said. “And I think that’s important.”

Edited by: Kostas Argyros