How well does US democracy really work?

For a long time, the US viewed itself as an exemplary democracy: a country other nations could look to when building their own democracies after gaining independence or shedding authoritarian regimes.

That idea is manifested in the "city upon a hill" metaphor. Politicians from John F. Kennedy to Barack Obama have referred to the United States as a glowing beacon, drawing everyone's eyes. In 1961, President-elect Kennedy said 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, must be as a city upon a hill."

On January 6, 2021, the world's eyes were on the United States. That day, a mob of right-wing extremists, encouraged by then President Donald Trump, stormed the US Capitol in an attempt to interrupt the democratic transfer of power after the 2020 election.

And, in a 2023 poll by the Associated Press news agency in cooperation with the University of Chicago, only 10% of participants said that democracy in the United States was working extremely or very well.

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

US Congress doesn't inspire faith in democracy

"I think it's fair to say Americans don't have a lot of trust right now in governmental institutions," Michael Berkman, director of the McCourtney Institute for Democracy and a political science professor at Pennsylvania State University told DW. "They're looking at a Congress that is not functioning well at all and they're looking at some rather intractable problems that government has not really addressed, like gun violence and climate change."

With their inability to choose a leader, the Republican majority in the House of Representatives paralyzed Congress for weeks in October 2023. But even without interruptions like this, getting any laws through both chambers of Congress — the House and the Senate — is slow going because of the deeply entrenched partisanship between Republicans and Democrats.

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

US almost didn't see a peaceful transition of power

The harsh polarization, the gulf between Democratic and Republican supporters, means that at least half the country is likely to be extremely unhappy with many decisions the elected government is making.

After the 2020 elections, many Republicans (lead by Trump) were so unhappy with the election results that they tried to ignore them, falsely claiming the election was "stolen" from them so vehemently that eventually, a mob of those who believed it stormed the Capitol. A 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 January 6 and the refusal of one side to accept the results of the election is very damaging for a democracy, since accepting the outcome of an election is pretty much central to democratic politics," Berkman said.

Electoral college: Winning the popular vote is not key

It is not surprising then that trust in democratic institutions has gone down in recent years. But there's more you might not expect from a country like the US.

"In addition to the recent forms of democratic erosion, the United States has many anti-democratic practices of very long standing," Williamson said.

Chief among them: The winner of the 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, garnered roughly 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 its population size. The candidate who wins the majority of the people's votes in a state is the one who gets the state's electoral votes. Sounds complicated? Here's an example.

California as the most populous state has the most electors in the electoral college: 54. The candidate who can get the most Californians to vote for them will receive all 54 of these elector votes, even if they only won the popular vote in California by a narrow margin. Smaller states like Vermont or South Dakota only have three electoral college votes, but the system is the same.

To win the presidency, a candidate must win in enough states to bring his electoral college vote up to 270 electors or more. Someone who wins states by small margins can thus become president, even though more Americans in total voted for the other candidate.

The US Senate — 'a deeply undemocratic institution'

Another part of the US political system that does not reflect a perfect democracy is the upper chamber of Congress: The US Senate. Each US state has two senators in the chamber — no matter the state's population size.

That means in some states, one senator represents a few hundred thousand people, while in another, a couple of million people "share" a senator. When the Senate has a decision to make, each senator's vote holds exactly the same weight, even though they represent vastly different numbers of people.

Berkman calls the Senate "a deeply undemocratic institution." And Williamson says that as a result of the way the Senate is set up, "our most populous regions are profoundly underrepresented in the legislative process."

Silver lining: More participation

The US might not be a model democracy, but Americans haven't given up on it. More people are getting involved.

The voter turnout in the 2020 presidential election stood at more than 65%, higher than it had been in more than 100 years.

"You see increased political participation over the last eight, 10 years," Berkman said. "And I think that's important."

Edited by: Andreas Illmer