Legitimacy

[rogerashton]

In the twentieth century, the imperfect system we call "democracy" was very successful. In the 75 Years' War (1914-89) the sides changed several times, but the side the democratic countries supported consistently won against tyrannies often designed specifically to win wars. Despite some major miscarriages of capitalism, the democracies have also done better economically than their nondemocratic rivals.

Why? One reason is legitimacy.

A democratic government has a kind of legitimacy, even with the opposition, that a tyranny cannot have. This is because there is an objective reason for the minority to accept the majority government. The election is that objective reason. And the minority can accept this, because they know a time can and probably will come when they will govern with the same legitimacy. Reciprocity is a very deep motivating feeling for human beings.

However, in recent years, the Republicans have destroyed that legitimacy. First, in the Newt Gingrich period, they denied Bill Clinton the presumed legitimacy of his government as the constitutional winner of the election of 1992 and majority winner in 1996. Second, they stole the election of 2000 by the patently unconstitutional siezure of power by five supreme court justices, sacrificing their own legitimacy. Third, the introduction of black box voting makes the rightful result of the 2004 election permanently doubtful. Even if Mr. Bush earned a real and legal plurality in enough states to receive the electoral vote majority, this can never be known, since there are no paper trails to confirm the legality of the vote. The Bush administration will never have legitimacy in the eyes of its opposition, and thus can never be as strong as it would have been had it won an election that could be objectively verified.

Another important advantage of democracy is that information flows far more freely in a democracy than in a tyranny. We still have that advantage, but free flow of information will not influence a government that will not listen, so, for the next few years, at least, we share the weakness of the tyrannies our predecessors defeated.

How can we recover the advantages of democracy and legitimacy?