2024: Judgment Day for Democracy

If the democratic way of life survives 2024, it will be thanks to likely unsung heroes who opt for higher values and principles than mere victory at the polls.

The Statue of Liberty under a dark sky. Khürt Williams.

In 1800, less than thirteen years after the Constitution was written and ratified, incumbent President John Adams implemented the moral high ground of principle over self-justification and legitimized American democracy for the next 220 years. In an election year fraught with mudslinging, deception, and potential fraud, John Adams and his ex-friend Thomas Jefferson feuded into a political rivalry for the ages during that tumultuous election year. 

According to the National Constitution Center, “At one point in that race, Jefferson’s supporter, notorious pamphleteer James Calendar, claimed that Adams was a hermaphrodite, while Adams’ people said Jefferson would openly promote prostitution, incest, and adultery.” In the end, the deeply partisan election ended in a tie. A runoff in the House of Representatives resulted in the election of Thomas Jefferson as America’s third president. More significantly, rather than holding onto power that he felt was unjustly stolen from him, John Adams, the second president of the United States, offered his greatest contribution to the young experiment in democracy and became the loser in the nation’s first peaceful transition of power from one political party to another. Adams set a standard that was followed all the way to 2020. 

During those two centuries, many losing candidates felt cheated and treated less than fairly at the polls, but they followed the pattern set by Adams. The nation as a whole was the beneficiary of such sacrifices of personal ambition for the national good. This standard often distinguished the United States from other young democracies that failed this essential test. The whole was greater than the part, the people more significant than the individual. Our national esteem and dignity could only be secured for posterity through individual sacrifice. 

Then came 2020. To date, former president Donald Trump still refuses to recognize the victory of Joe Biden in our last presidential election. Even worse, according to a poll this summer, 3 in 10 Americans still believe President Biden’s victory was fraudulent. Absent evidence of such fraud but loaded with outrage, thousands of supporters of the former president headed to Washington DC, on January 6, 2021, to “stop the steal.” Egged on by their defeated candidate that day, the images and scenes at our nation’s Capitol have now been etched into history and wrought untold harm into our already divided society.

January 6 was a milestone, but it was not the beginning of our anger or the system’s failings. The experiences of recent decades have made us all too familiar with the sense of betrayed hopes and failed promises. Embarrassing and irresponsible withdrawals from Iraq and Afghanistan left us asking what it was all for. Economic meltdowns followed by artificially stimulated debt-bloated economies left us waiting for the next shoe to drop. The pandemic revealed not only the utter incompetence of our government but the incredible fragility of our divided society. We learned to distrust and despise our leaders through all these storms, even as we hoped things would improve tomorrow. 

But what if it doesn’t get better? What if this is merely a system accelerating beyond decline and into the terrain of outright collapse? In 2024, we may find the answer to such questions as nothing less than that the credibility of democracy itself stands in the balance for much of the world. 

The US elections appear headed toward a rematch between President Biden and former President Trump. While courts and investigations continue to dig through the happenings of January 6, 2021, the real issue is more profound than Donald Trump. American democracy was tested to its limits in that election cycle, but four years later, our leaders have presented no reforms, our society no repentance, and our system no repair. Thus, as we begin this new election year, there is little reason to believe anything will improve in 2024 and plenty to suggest it will worsen. 

The fate of democracy is not only an issue of great consequence in the United States in 2024 but around the world. An unprecedented number of elections will be held this year on every continent in almost every democracy. More than 2 billion people, a quarter of the globe, will head to the polls this year and cast their votes. In many nations, the themes and credibility at stake in their national elections mirror the same levels of consequence as what we see in the US. 

In India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a far-right Hindu nationalist, will stand for reelection. In South Africa, the African National Congress, which has held power since the end of apartheid in 1994, faces the strong potential of losing power. In a government that has been racked with corruption and economic inequality, will they step aside if they lose? The European Union will hold the world’s largest transnational election across 27 nations as 400 million voters cast votes for 720 members of the European Parliament. Amid the growing crises of immigration, war in Ukraine, and rising food and energy prices, many European nations are tilting toward the right on the political spectrum as well.  

Might 2024 be the year when democracy itself fails us? Less than two decades after his loss in the presidential elections of 1800, John Adams wrote, “Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” 

The actual value of democracy has always been about more than individual rights and votes. Beneath these standards rest the higher principles that facilitate the foundation upon which any true democracy must function. When observing American Democracy in the 19^th century, Alexis de Tocqueville noted, “Society is endangered not by the great profligacy of a few, but by the laxity of morals amongst all.” If the democratic way of life survives 2024, it will be thanks to likely unsung heroes who opt for higher values and principles than mere victory at the polls. 

From America to Europe, Asia to Africa, South America to the Pacific, 2024 may show mankind whether we deserve and can maintain our democratic ideals. 

JB Shreve holds degrees in International Relations and Middle East Studies from Fulbright College and the King Fahd Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Arkansas. He is the host of the End of History podcast and blog and is the author of the newly published Politically Incorrect: Real Faith in an Era of Unreal Politics.