Letters | US democracy in decline? Not if its purpose is understood

Readers discuss America’s constitutional foundation of federalism, the arrests of Vietnam’s environmental activists, and the significance of China’s trade expo success

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Flags fly in front of the US Congress building in Washington in May 2022. America operates as a representative republic built on a constitutional foundation of federalism – a formal power-sharing arrangement that recognises the co-equal value of the individual and the sovereign state. Photo: EPA-EFE

Published: 11:30am, 22 Nov 2023

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Jonathan Power is an accomplished European, nine years my senior. My American bio includes three terms as a legislative staffer and an ongoing student of history and public policy. Having read Power’s opinion on “declining US democracy”, I respond from my context.

Power’s use of the term “democracy” is disconnected from our use. Beyond the one-person-one-vote democratic model, America operates as a representative republic built on a constitutional foundation of federalism – a formal power-sharing arrangement that recognises the co-equal value of the individual and the sovereign state.

During Donald Trump’s term, America had no new long-standing military entanglements. He renegotiated international partnerships. The Abraham Accords built bridges between Israel and its neighbours. Faced with Trump’s unpredictability, world dictators generally behaved. He urged Germans to avoid energy deals with Russia. No missiles were dropped on Ukraine.

America doesn’t have “national” elections or a “people’s president”. POTUS stands for “President of the United States”. President Abraham Lincoln won the Electoral College while losing the popular vote. Americans remember the 2020 election controversies in a handful of states. Thanks to the Electoral College, the 20 states that border the ones in question were unaffected by those disagreements.

As for Wyoming versus New York, we ask, does Wyoming have an equal right to exist with a mega state? In Federalist No 62, James Madison writes of “people thoroughly incorporated into one nation”, “a compound republic, partaking, both of the national and the federal character” and “principles of proportional and equal representation”.