Under-Promise and Over-Deliver to Restore Trust in Our Democracy

Restoring Trust in Our Democracy

We can restore our democracy, but to do that, we will have to restore our people’s trust in our system of government, and that will not be easy. Voters don’t believe the promises that politicians make during elections. So, promises will not help. We will have to deliver real benefits that are big enough that working Americans stop believing that our system is rigged against them.

The Subtle Balance on Which Trust in Our System Depends

Our system depends on a subtle balance between market capitalism and representative democracy, and the problem is that we have failed to maintain that balance, which requires that the combined economic and political system deliver an acceptable level of living to most of the people.

What are the elements of an acceptable level of living in a stable democracy? In The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism, Martin Wolf suggests that they include:

• Prosperity
• Opportunity
• Security
• Dignity

How Has Our System Failed?

Our capitalist system provides prosperity but falls very short on the other dimensions of an acceptable life. Opportunity in the United States is very unequally distributed. There are plenty of opportunities for people with post-secondary educational degrees, but the situation for people with less education is bleak. Security is also very unequally distributed. Workers who lose their jobs will likely get very limited unemployment benefits, and in addition, they will lose their health insurance. That is why health care costs are the number one cause of personal bankruptcy in the United States. Finally, changes in our economy have robbed millions of people of their dignity. Millions of men can no longer provide for their families, and millions of single women with children are even worse off.

Mr. Trump's election is a symptom of our political system’s failure to deliver an acceptable level of living to many of our people. As a result of that failure, people have lost faith in our system’s fairness, and they have turned his antidemocratic message and policies.

What Should We Do?

If we are to restore that faith, we are going to have to restore the system’s ability to deliver an acceptable level of living. Otherwise, the problem will continue to fester, and our democracy will become more and more unstable. The key to restoring our people’s faith is to under-promise and over-deliver improvements in people’s lives. By “under-promise,” I mean that we should avoid making big campaign promises, because they will not be believed. Campaign promises mean nothing to people who have lost faith in the system itself. People who believe that all politicians are liars will ignore campaign promises. So, we should be very sparing in our campaign promises.

Being sparing in the promises we make will allow us to over-deliver on them. We will be able to deliver more than we promised because we didn’t promise much. For example, we can probably take control of Congress this year just because people are suffering under the current administration. If we do take control, we will be able to deliver a bill that would - if it passed - really helped people with the cost of childcare. Trump would of course veto the bill, but then, we could run on it in 2028 and deliver real benefits after that.  We should take a similar path in other policy areas: promise little but deliver a lot. That is our path to victory in this year’s elections, and that is the path to turn that victory into a bigger victory in 2028. Don't promise much on the campaign trail, but take action when we are in office.