The vitriolic rhetoric and the employment of scandal from both candidates during the US presidential elections is nothing new. Indeed, decrying the nasty state of American politics is a common pastime. However, the 2016 presidential elections were different in that one of the two candidates called into question the validity of the US system and institutions thus posing a serious threat to American democracy, especially if his views gains popular support.

In a presidential election year, supporters of the two major-party candidates launch a never- ending stream of insults, calling into question the character of both candidates by attacking everything from their religion to their heritage to their sexuality. One candidate paid for an advertisement that called his opponent “a person without abilities, and without virtues...[a hideous character] which has neither the force and firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman.” The other’s supporters suggested that “should the infidel…be elected to the Presidency, the seal of death is that moment set on our holy religion, our churches will be prostrated, and some infamous prostitute, under the title of the Goddess of Reason, will preside in the Sanctuaries now devoted to the Most High.”[1] The year was 1800.

Scandal has also been prevalent in the history of American democracy, from Aaron Burr’s conspiracies (while sitting as Vice-President) with Britain and Spain to obtain part of the American sub-continent for the disgraced Burr’s personal advantage to the scandal-ridden election of 1888, in which Grover Cleveland’s illegitimate child was a subject for Republican taunts and slogans from coast to coast.[2]

Thus, the vitriolic rhetoric and the scandal surrounding both candidates, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton in the 2016 elections was faced with continuous criticism,[3] especially because they represented an insult to the American presidency itself. Both candidates have been dogged by scandal, from Hillary Clinton’s email practices while Secretary of State to accusations of bribery against both candidates, mostly recently in response to a $2,500 fine assessed against Donald Trump by the IRS over his donations to the Florida Attorney General investigating Trump University.[4]

This analysis argues that neither vitriol nor scandal threaten the future of the American democracy unless the actions of candidates or political figures call into question the durability of the country’s institutions. Democracy is secure when the failings of any individual or party are constrained by institutions. The US will survive the current election, unless its aftermath weakens commitments to American constitutional order. If a majority of the American people no longer accept fundamental rules as given, and no longer believe in the political system, the American political project is truly in jeopardy. This analysis focuses on reviewing the history of speech and partisanship in U.S. politics as well as the potential consequences of a zero-sum mentality that distrusts American institutions from scholarly literature on democracy and institutions. This article concludes by considering how American democracy might avoid grave damage from the 2016 election.

FIRST- Root Reasons of Invective Political Rhetoric

The framers of the US Constitution expected the many interests in the new country to balance each other out, leading to a relevantly enlightened government. Writing in the Federalist papers, James Madison took partisanship and bad intentions as a given based on human nature. However, he hoped that a “multiplicity of interests” would result in “a coalition of a majority of the whole society could seldom take place on any other principles than those of justice and the general good”—an expectation that quickly receded as the authors of the Federalist Papers took opposing sides in America’s first partisan skirmish between the Federalists and the Democrat-Republicans.[5]

Solutions at regulating speech such as the Sedition Act proved, as Madison predicted, “worse than the disease,” as offense became an excuse for political persecution.[6] Eventually, the United States became a country where the speech protections of the First Amendment are nearly absolute. Absent speech that encourages “imminent lawless action,” the government’s power to regulate speech is nearly absent—a freedom that is unusual even in other Western representative democracies. Laws against slander and libel are similarly restrictive.[7] This means that in the United States, political rhetoric can easily take on a strident, sometimes even vicious tone. Yet despite a history of ugly rhetoric, Americans have generally retained confidence in electoral results even when their favored candidate loses.

Thus, while much of the 2016 election differs in scope of its nastiness from past campaigns, rhetoric from Donald Trump that call into question the validity of the U.S. system and statements that could be interpreted as legitimating violent resistance to a Hilary Clinton administration are fundamentally different than the recent American political experience. This set a precedent in the history of US elections. Neither Al Gore in 2000 nor Richard Nixon in 1960 called the election “rigged.”[8] The authority of the Supreme Court to judge the validity of recounts in Florida in 2000 was not seriously questioned, and arguments that George W. Bush had not truly won his first presidency (2001-2004) were restricted to a fringe minority.

Trump argues repeatedly that the electoral process may not be fair to his interests, notwithstanding independent polls that show him losing in states that he insists he is winning, while suggesting “Second Amendment people” (The Second Amendment gives Americans the right to bear arms) could stop Clinton if she were elected, the American system may indeed be in danger—if many Americans indeed share these views.[9]

SECOND- Constitutionalism Defeating Partisanship

While bitter partisanship has been the hallmark of many elections, partisans have, as a general rule, placed their faith in the American system above partisan concerns, even at a time when those institutions were in their infancy. In this regard, the precedent of the bitter election of 1800 is instructive. After it became clear New York would choose electors affiliated with the Democrat-Republicans, prominent New York Federalist and former Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton wrote his fellow Federalist John Jay to recommend a late change to the electoral rules that might return the delegation to Federalist hands, and possibly swing the election for John Adams. Hamilton and his fellow Federalists thought Jefferson was a dangerous man, possibly harboring sympathies for the French Revolution, and likely to provoke a war with Britain even while failing to prepare the nation for it.

However, Jay never acted on Hamilton’s letter, writing on the letter in his papers that it advanced “a measure for party purposes which it would not become me to adopt.” And Hamilton himself rapidly had a change of heart, as he eventually urged his fellow Federalists to back Jefferson over the less doctrinaire but also, in Hamilton’s view, less trustworthy Aaron Burr.[10] In the end, the Federalist’s faith in American institutions overcame their ideology; their party never again won the presidency, but American constitutionalism survived.

American institutions have, as a rule, proven just as resilient to scandal as they have to partisanship. From Teapot Dome to Watergate; the Reynolds Affair in the first George Washington Administration to the Lewinski affair in the second Bill Clinton administration; [11]Americans have generally trusted their institutions to remove corrupt and venal officials from office when necessary. Remarkably, there have only been two presidential impeachments in American political history, both of which failed. In both cases, the party in opposition both largely accepted the failure of the impeachment process and went on to win the next election.

THIRD- Threats to a US Exception to the Flaws of Presidentialism?

Political scientist Juan Linz, writing about presidential democracies in the American style, argued that most of them have a worrying tendency toward all-or-nothing politics. Victory in the next election gives the winner outright power and other parties nothing.[12]

When elites and publics believe that an election is a zero-sum game where their fundamental interests (life, liberty, property) will not be secure if they lose, and that the electoral process is not fair, they may turn to undemocratic solutions to their problems.[13]

Linz argues that the U.S. has been exceptional because of the broad sets of views inside its big-tent two-party system and the moderation of its electorate.[14] Yet the American system has become more “responsible,” with party-line voting reaching some of its highest levels in U.S. history. Two leading scholars of the American political system have argued that hyper-partisanship is threatening to undo America’s history of constitutional order.[15] In the context of the partisan environment, the repeated aspersions against the integrity of the American electoral process and against U.S. institutions could have calamitous results if not rejected by the majority of American citizens.

FOURTH- Receding Statesmanship, Social Capital

One of the authors of this piece studied with Mark Hatfield, the late Oregon senator who was one of the first opponents of the Vietnam War. Hatfield recounted his simple reason for standing in opposition to U.S. involvement in Vietnam despite the war’s popular support at the time—doing what he believed to be right was more important to him than reelection.[16]

Unfortunately, few political figures in contemporary American politics have exhibited this form of statesmanship. A handful of Republican senators, from conservatives such as Ben Sasse and Mike Lee to moderates such as Mark Kirk, have taken long-standing, principled stances against the strident rhetoric and, from their perspective, troublingly anti-constitutional stances of their Republican nominee Donald Trump.

Yet for the most part, despite widespread discontent with Mr. Trump in many Republican circles and some polling that indicates that almost 50 per cent of Republicans would prefer a different nominee, the partisan rallying effect has been strong and demonstrable, as most politicians assert that, for all his flaws, Trump is better than Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.[17] Likewise, almost all Democrats have rallied around their nominee, despite some having serious misgivings about Clinton, in order to stop Mr. Trump.

How can we explain the fact that, while hyper-partisanship and scandal have not threatened American institutions in the past, warning signs indicate that threats could be increasing in this cycle? Part—and his critics might argue all—of the answer lies with Mr. Trump himself. But two related factors seem to be driving the increasingly polarized and tribal nature of American politics.

First, scholars such have long discussed the decline of social capital in America, a development which Putnam correlates with the rise of television.[18] Television makes Americans social consumers rather than social capital producers, where social media accelerates this trend. Indeed, the self-selecting nature of social networks allows Americans to be quite fickle consumers, leading to an “echo chamber” where many Americans edit out narratives that conflict with their view of the world.[19]

Second, as many political scientists and demographers across the political spectrum have argued, American society is becoming class stratified in ways that it has not been previously.[20] Examples from the Latin American context demonstrate that class polarization—particularly a shrinking middle class—and strong presidentialism are a toxic mix.

Conclusion

Writing in early September, Hillary Clinton’s lead in the polls make it likely that she will be the next president.[21] Will this result in many Americans rejecting the political order? Trump ally Roger Stone believes this will be the case, arguing that “[t]he government will be shut down if they attempt to steal this and swear Hillary in. No, we will not stand for it.” [22]

Yet there are reasons for guarded optimism. A majority of Trump voters reject his most extreme claims. The well of antipathy toward Hillary Clinton on the right runs deep, but this has, since Trump’s nomination, masked very real ambivalence about the man on the part of his supporters. Half of the Republican electorate claimed they would have preferred a different nominee in polling taken not long after the conclusion of the primaries.

Also, while many more hysterical observers expected a violent reaction with the election of President Barack Obama, such an organized, violent rejection of American institutions never came. Despite its problems, many Americans still believe in America, and reject the zero-sum rhetoric of its political class. Thus, if this pattern of acceptance of unfavorable outcomes, which is a hallmark of America’s robust democratic institutions, is maintained, it will be a result of the statesmanship of ordinary Americans, and not a political class that has far too often prioritized access to power over principles.

*Greene is Associate Professor at the National Defense College (UAE) and the Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies. Nolte is a PHD Candidate at the Catholic University of America. The views expressed in this article are the authors’ own and do not represent their institutions or any other entity. The authors thank Dan Baltrusaitis, Gerard Hall, and Dan Curfiss for helpful comments on a draft of this paper.