The Ballot and the Damage Done

Bernard Mayer writes in The Dynamics of Conflict Resolution:

We can often achieve progress in a conflect, even when disputants have incompatible substantive interests, if we are careful to address psychological and procedural interests.

The U.S. philosophy of government provides an interesting example of how these interests work. At the root of democracy is a commitment to addressing procedural interests, even when substantive interests cannot always be met. Many Americans' governmental values are related to these procedural interests. We in the United States remain loyal to our government, even if we disagree with its policies and have not voted for its leaders, because we fundamentally support the process by which they were selected. The basic deal in a democracy is that we may not always get our way but we will always have our say, and in return we will remain loyal citizens. (p. 19; emphasis added)

The unfortunate corollary is that should there be a widespread perception that the selection process for our leaders has been corrupted or suborned, then the basis for U.S. citizen's loyalty is undermined.

We are all long since familiar with what happened in the 2000 presidential election balloting in Florida: The justices of U.S. Supreme Court intervened to halt the recount of ballots, and thus giving George Bush the presidency. Many people believe that the 2004 has also been stolen by the Republicans, through intervention in the swing state of Ohio (link via Avedon Carol)

David Neiwert at Orcinus documents in some detail the unfolding of the close election for governor in the state of Washington. He draws the parallels to the 2000 Florida presidential balloting, and notes that, while the Republicans followed the same playbook they did in Florida, the key difference is that Washington's Republican secretary of state, Sam Reed, chose to back the process instead of the party (in Mayer's terms, putting procedural interests ahead of substantive ones) and is catching flak from the GOP as a result. Many Republicans, it would seem, think winning is more important than legitimacy. These people are quick to accuse the Democrats of trying to win the election by any means necessary, while not hesitating to use underhanded means of their own.

Each side of the political divide, then, sees the other side as stealers of election, and sees at least some electoral results as illegitimate. At least some people regard it more important to secure power to further their agendas than it is to preserve the integrity of the mechanisms by which power is maintained and transferred. And the result is that a growing number of citizens are convinced that the elections are rigged, that the veneration of democracy and the Constitution that serves as the bedrock of American civic culture is a sham.

The Republic may well be facing its greatest danger since the Secession crisis of 1860; and that danger is not the threat of external attack by the like of al Qaeda, but instead the attack on its legitimacy by those who are desperate to take and keep power.