Since the U.S. independence in 1788, the president is chosen every four years. In November, Donald Trump was elected the 45th U.S. President. As a milestone in the modern history of the country, a political outsider has overcome all institutional barriers in the path to this grand prize. The U.S. has the longest-lasting democracy in the world, but it is also marked by lasting contradictions. In this article, we seek to expose this dichotomy and, finally, discuss the contributions that the American example can offer for the Brazilian democracy.
The founding fathers of the U.S. republic advocated for a Constitution based on popular representation and separation of powers, which was a huge innovation in Western political theory.[1] For the first time, they did not put the contradictions between the noble and the ignoble, the aristocratic and the democratic at stake. The U.S. Constitution is entirely democratic because all authority is formed by the will of politically equal citizens. However, in the wake of Western political theory, the founding fathers devoted themselves to erect institutional barriers against the risks of a majority government. The separation of powers and federalism trim interests and make fractioned opinions concur in a system designed to protect the benefits of a minority of status, power and wealth against the representation of the popular majority — as noted by Dahl[2] on the thoughts of Madison.
The president was initially conceived to be part of the division of power, an actor capable of moderating the strength of a parliamentary majority. In the legislative process, all he/she could do was to veto. However, the president’s role has become much broader than imagined by the founders of the republic. The early formation of political parties, which was not provided for in the constitutional framework, allowed the president to perform an organized influence over the Congress.[3] Over the years, the Union has gained competence on matters which were previously and strictly addressed at the state level, and the president has accumulated broad regulatory competences. This process has not been exhausted. In view of a Congress dominated by the republican opposition, Mr. Obama’s administration has become the one issued executive orders regulating such diverse subjects as financial market, environmental protection and civil rights the most.[4]
In addition to the formal power, the president has the advantage of being the only representative who is elected nationwide. He can claim receiving a mandate from the majority of voters to pursue certain policies.[5] This is an important asset in the game of power with the Congress and other political actors, although that was not intended by the founding fathers. They predicted the process of the Electoral College as a number of independent choices, not a national decision. Each state indicates a number of Electoral College members that corresponds to their congressmen in the Senate and the House of Representatives. So, the chosen president is the candidate who obtains the majority of the Electoral College. Two reasons justified the adoption of this process. First, it was meant to ensure the participation of small states in the formation of the Union. Second, the process was designed to facilitate the articulation of national applications, assuming that each state would vote for their own candidates.
Over time, the Electoral College has become more directly linked to a national opinion: its members started to be chosen directly by the citizens, appointments began to be controlled by the parties and the votes to be linked to the state’s decision. Except for Maine and Nebraska, Electoral College members are defined by plurality (winner-takes-all): the candidate of the party with the most popular votes can appoint all posts to which the state is entitled.
The rigid two-party system has an important influence on how the U.S. presidential election works. In part, bipartisanship can be attributed to the adoption of plurality in single-member districts for almost all elections, including the Legislative ones. This electoral system leads to the concentration of the different political groups in the two main forces, given the impossibility that a third party will achieve relevant political representation. In the United States, bipartisanship is especially strong. Since 1912, the Democratic and the Republican parties have dominated the presidential elections, ranking first and second in the popular vote. Since 1957, the House of Representatives has received only 11 congressmen outside the two major parties.[6]
A result of the Electoral College and bipartisanship is the concentration of the presidential elections in the most contested states. In states where the superiority of a party seems difficult to be supplanted, little attention is drawn. As shown by Mr. Trump´s victory in the ‘Rust Belt’, a traditional Democrat stronghold, this perception can be challenged in the course of electoral campaigns. The distortion of this system on the popular preference is generally minimized, because the most voted candidate usually has the greatest number of electors. George W. Bush’s election in 2000 was the first since 1888 in which this did not happen. This year again, Mr. Trump was elected without a majority of popular votes, which increases the concerns about the distortion caused by the Electoral College.
The process of the Electoral College is partially reproduced in primary elections that select the official candidates of the Republican and the Democratic parties. Primaries are a major intraparty democracy mechanism, which can change the correlation of forces in parties and favor the opinion of their common members and supporters. This year, the strong pre-applications of Bernie Sanders, in the Democratic Party, and Donald Trump, in the Republican Party, supported this diagnosis. Both were presented as critical to the traditional policies of their parties.
The Presidency and the Electoral College were originally thought of as reactive, control mechanisms of the political system. Institutional innovations in the attributes of the president, the two-party system, the popular participation in the Electoral College and the primary elections substantially transformed the choice for president, which became a national and democratic pro-majoritarian instrument. Although the way the president is chosen still causes significant distortions on the principle of political equality (one person, one vote) and decreases the importance of voters in undisputed states, relevant shortcomings to American democracy should be sought elsewhere.
The control over the right to vote is still an open dispute in the United States. Retaking old practices, state laws were passed to hinder the participation of African- Americans and Hispanic-Americans with the adoption of burdensome processes of voter registration and the requirement of certain documents at voting time.[7] The selective disincentive to vote is harmful to the Democratic Party, which usually receives greater support from these social minorities. Another political exclusion mechanism in the hands of state legislatures is the manipulation of the contours of the legislative electoral districts (gerrymandering). Districts tailor-made to favor one party decide the elections before the votes are collected and generate disproportionate majorities. At a national level, gerrymandering favored the formation of republican majorities in the House of Representatives during the Obama administration, which often vetoed policies proposed by the Democrats. Like the rules of enlistment, gerrymandering may have a discriminatory component against minorities.[8]
The means for financing elections are also a source of imbalance. In 2010, a Supreme Court decision authorized the organization of political action committees (known as the Super PAC) not linked to official campaigns of candidates and able to invest with no spending limits. This has allowed greater participation of affluent sectors of society in politics. It should be noted that 158 families, particularly those connected to energy and financial markets, accounted for half of the funding during the early stages of the presidential race this year. On the other hand, some candidates were capable of raising funds directly from citizens, from small individual donations. This strategy was inaugurated by Obama and followed, this year, by Mr. Sanders’s candidacy and, to a lesser extent, Mr. Trump’s.
As a precursor, the United States was the initial example for the political system adopted in the republics of Latin America, including Brazil. Therefore, it is appropriate to wonder which good examples the American democracy can still offer to Brazil. In many ways, the answer is none. The Electoral College is an archaic process, which causes significant distortions. As for the electoral inclusion, the rules of suffrage and those applied to election campaigns, the situation in Brazil is more inclusive, equitable and stable. Conducting primaries as an antidote to bureaucratization in the parties might sound like a proper prescription, but given the fragmentation of the political parties in Brazil, it would be innocuous.
It is precisely in the party system that the U.S. can help to notice an unresolved issue in Brazilian politics. There is a misconception in Brazil that the multiplicity of parties is the only way to give representation to social minorities and ideological divergence. Sanders’s candidacy, with a ‘socialist’ platform, and his influence on the proposals of Clinton’s campaign, is an example of how the process of aggregation of interests in large parties can actually enable ideological innovation. Trump’s candidacy and eventual victory can be understood as a reflection of the wishes of a fraction of the electorate affected by economic insecurity and disappointment with the traditional discourse of the Republican Party and the political system as a whole. Nonetheless, in both cases, large national parties allowed for dissent, made a public discussion possible and presented alternatives. Historical reasons explain the American two-party system, and any attempt to artificially reproduce this system in Brazil would be a mistake. However, institutional changes that favor the concentration of power in national political parties seem indispensable to strengthen the democratic control by citizens in the Brazilian political system.
[1] HAMILTON, A.; MADISON, J., JAY, J. The federalist papers. Oxford: Oxford University, 2008.
[2] DAHL, R. A. Um prefácio à teoria democrática. Rio de Janeiro: Jorge Zahar, 1996.
[3] ALDRICH, J. H. Why parties? The origin and transformation of political parties in America. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1995.
[4] APPELBAUM, B.; SHEAR, M. Once skeptical of executive power, Obama has come to embrace it. The New York Times, New York, 16 Aug. 2016. Retrieved from
[5] DAHL, R. A. Myth of the presidential mandate. Political Science Quarterly, Nova York, v. 105, n. 3, p. 355-372, 1990.
[6] UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. United States House of Representatives. Party Divisions of the House of Representatives. 2016. Retrieved from
[7] RACIAL gerrymandering in North Carolina. The New York Times, New York, 18 Feb. 2016. Retrieved from
[8] WINES, M.; BLINDER, A. Federal appeals court strikes down North Carolina voter ID requirement. New York Times, New York, 18 Feb. 2016. Retrieved from