The rise and fall of open elections in America

Party leaders control which choices voters get

Abraham Lincoln promised ‘government of the people, by the people, for the people.’ But a century later, in the 1960s, both main parties were top-down machines. Internal democracy was limited: party elites chose candidates and platforms, and voters then chose between the options given to them.

I was born in Ireland during that era of American party bosses. I came of age watching on the telly the democratic reforms and competitive primaries of the seventies. And I now see via the Internet that both main parties are theatrically democratic, but increasingly top-down in practice.

Many decent people, in both parties and in the media, help keep this system going. Some believe they are protecting society from something worse. Others are pressured into doing so. But whatever their reasons, their behaviour undermines democracy.

1968: a democratic breakthrough

1968 was a time of global political protest. Students occupied campuses in Paris, and Soviet tanks rolled into Prague. Meanwhile in Chicago, cops beat and tear-gassed anti-war protesters outside the Democratic convention. The party nominated veep Hubert Humphrey, who had won no primary contests, over anti-war candidate Eugene McCarthy.

Under pressure from members, the Democrats created a commission to ensure fair nominations. It established binding primaries or open caucuses in all states, requirements for diversity and transparency, and limits on insider control. Under public pressure, the Republicans also gradually shifted towards binding primaries.

1970s-1990s: competitive primaries

Watergate amplified the demand for ethics and transparency. A new law regulated election finance limits and disclosure. The primary fields became more competitive. In 1976, peanut farmer Jimmy Carter won the Democratic nomination, while president Gerald Ford only narrowly beat governor Ronald Reagan on the Republican side. The elites were no longer in control.

In 1980, I was absorbed by then-president Jimmy Carter’s nomination win over senator Ted Kennedy, whose concession speech encapsulated my own grass-roots liberal passion: “The work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die.”

After that intense convention, the Democrats introduced superdelegates to give party leaders more influence on results. But in 1992, governor Bill Clinton won the Democratic nomination as a charismatic outsider. The public liked him and his message despite his personal scandals.

2000s: the party elites fight back

By the 2000s, the party machines were back in control, dictating debate schedules, ballot access, and funding issues. In 2008, the Republicans even changed delegate rules midstream to marginalise libertarian Ron Paul.

The last decade has been dramatic. In 2016, the Democratic machine helped establishment senator Hillary Clinton defeat left-wing senator Bernie Sanders. Meanwhile, outsider Donald Trump won the Republican nomination despite the party elites. Trump then had the party rules changed to consolidate his unexpected control. The elites are dead, long live the elite.

In 2020, both party machines effectively gave president Trump and former veep Joe Biden a free run. They looked like repeating this last year before Biden dropped out for health reasons. The Democrat machine then quickly consolidated around veep Kamala Harris as the candidate, leaving little input by grassroots members.

2025: where are we now?

We now have the theatrics of democracy but with top-down control in reality.

The Democratic party rules say the presidential nominee will be selected by a fair and equitable process. All members have full, timely, and equal opportunities to select candidates and formulate policy. In practice, this does not happen, and certainly not with the nomination of Kamala Harris.

The Republican party rules ensure the broadest possible participation in delegate elections and selection. And the national convention will adopt a policy platform. In practice, the party unites around the shifting wishes of Donald Trump, and the convention didn’t adopt any new policy platform in 2020.

If the main political parties do not have internal democracy, that undermines democracy at a national level. There should be open primaries, transparency rules, no superdelegates, and independent debate commissions.

Finally, and ideally, voters at national level should have more than a binary choice. Outsider Ross Perot shook up the system in 1992, taking votes that might have changed the result in his absence. The emergence of a credible third national level party, with single transferable votes deciding presidential elections, could change everything.

Thanks for reading my return to regular writing. I’ll be blogging about happiness, humour, reason, atheism, and secular liberal politics.