The inherent fragility of democracy

In the first chapter of one of the most difficult books I've ever read, Martin Hägglund (2008) describes the philosopher Jacques Derrida's insight that democracy has the inherent property of autoimmunity. Analogously to how with autoimmune disease a living body can attack itself, democracy can likewise attack itself, and contains, paradoxically, the means of its own destruction. "Democracy is autoimmune because it is threatened not only by external enemies, but also by internal forces that can corrupt its principles," Hägglund writes.

One way this autoimmunity manifests is that "it is always possible that a democratic election will give power to a nondemocratic regime." Hägglund highlights Derrida's reminder that "fascist and Nazi totalitarianisms came into power or ascended to power through formally normal and formally democratic electoral processes."

There are more recent examples. Harvard professors of government Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt wrote today that "leaders like Hugo Chávez in Venezuela, Viktor Orban in Hungary, Kais Saied in Tunisia and Nayib Bukele in El Salvador have won decisive electoral majorities — and then used their elected offices to undermine fair competition, making it nearly impossible to remove them from office democratically."

Derrida's book Rogues describes how in 1992 the Algerian state suspended elections because "the elections were projected to give power to a majority that wanted to change the constitution and undercut the process of democratization." Thus democracy itself was thwarted in an attempt to protect it, demonstrating an autoimmune response where the system attacks itself.

Hägglund: "The immune-system of democracy—the strategies it employs to defend itself—may thus be forced to attack itself in order to survive. The effects of such autoimmunity may be positive or negative, but in either case they reinforce that democracy is necessarily divided within itself. The principles of democracy may protect those who attack the principles of democracy. Inversely, the attack on the principles of democracy may be a way of protecting the principles of democracy. There is no way to finally decide whether it is legitimate for democracy to attack or to refrain from attacking itself, since either one of these strategies may turn against it at any moment." [my italics -mb]

Hägglund says "Derrida emphasizes that there can be no democratic ideal that is exempt from autoimmunity, since the very concept of democracy is autoimmune. In order to be democratic, democracy must be open to critique and to the outcome of unpredictable elections. But for the same reason, democracy is essentially open to what may alter or destroy it. There is thus a double bind at the core of democracy. It must both protect itself against its own threat and be threatened by its own protection."

Which is sobering to contemplate as a democratic presidential election nears, in which one candidate has promised to govern in ways that are antithetical to the Constitution, and his former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has called him "fascist to the core."

That might be the cause of the churn in your gut. Our only recourse now is to vote in defense of both democracy and the Constitution.

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