Crisis of Liberal Democracy in the United States

Abstrakt

The Trump administration’s second term policies have created a surge in criticism from the liberal establishment claiming that the US democratic system is under attack. However, Trump, claiming a popular mandate from American voters, is using his executive power against what he calls the unelected and undemocratic deep state government bureaucracy. Nevertheless, public trust in all branches of the US government is at an all-time low. It seems that while American voters want their government to be run like a business, they are not pleased with business-as-usual. The central question I address in this paper is whether the current democratic crisis is something new, or whether the US liberal democracy has always been in crisis. While the American establishment and most of the public do not question the political system’s democratic credentials, there have always been critical voices arguing that the US liberal democracy has never reached its lofty ideals. I examine those critiques in this paper looking beyond the myths of US democracy to how it is practiced. By focusing on historical critiques and detailing the overwhelming influence of economic elites in US domestic and foreign policies, I hope to show that the US system is in fact a tyranny of the minority. I argue that the US liberal democracy has always been in crisis, if it ever existed in the first place.