President Joe Biden announced Tuesday morning that he’s running for reelection. His three-minute campaign video came on the four-year anniversary of when he declared for the White House in 2019 with a promise to heal the “soul of the nation.”
“I said we are in a battle for the soul of America, and we still are,” Biden said yesterday.
His religious language should not surprise us: 90 percent of Congress identifies as Christian, contrasted with 65.4 percent of US adults. Less than 4 percent of Congress members say they’re unaffiliated with religion, compared with nearly 27 percent of the general public.
This is just one disparity between our lawmakers and the people who elected them, an issue that reveals a vital fact about our culture and our future as a democracy.
How to be nominated for president
Prior to 1968, presidential primaries were testing grounds for a candidate’s popularity, but the party’s national convention made its nomination based on the person most likely to be elected. However, after the 1968 Democratic National Convention ignored primary results and nominated Hubert Humphrey for president, the party adopted new rules giving more power to primary elections in selecting a nominee. The Republican Party then rewrote its rules in a similar way.
As a result, to win the White House, a candidate must win the primaries. However, less than half of those who vote in the general election also participate in the primaries; in 2020, around a third of eligible voters selected the candidates who won their party’s nomination.
In the vast majority of the states, a candidate need only win a plurality to win that state’s delegates to the national convention. In these states, you might only receive 20 percent of the total, but if that’s the highest percentage of any candidate, you win all of that state’s delegates. In addition, early primaries are typically crucial for building momentum and thus winning a party’s nomination.
All this to say, a small number of Americans—those who vote for the most popular candidate (though not necessarily the majority winner) in the early primaries—select the nominees between whom we choose when we vote for president. (President Biden is facing no primary opposition so far for reelection, but he was nominated in 2020 through the same process.)
Should Biden and Trump run again?
This unusual process is significant not only for our governance but also for our faith in our governance.
A new poll found that 70 percent of Americans, including 51 percent of Democrats, say Mr. Biden shouldn’t run for president again. In the same poll, 60 percent of Americans, including a third of Republicans, said Donald Trump should not run again, even though he has widened his lead over his rivals for the 2024 Republican nomination.
Add the fact that 49 percent of Americans now consider themselves to be independents—the highest percentage in the history of Gallup’s polling on the question—and they are split evenly in the party to which they “lean” (43 percent for Republicans and 43 percent for Democrats).
It seems clear that many Americans are less than committed to America’s two political parties and their leading candidates for our highest office. Here’s why this will matter long after the 2024 elections are over: it’s hard to be confident in your leaders if you’re not confident in the process that elected them.
Accordingly, per Gallup, only 23 percent of Americans have a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in the presidency, the lowest percentage since 1975. Only 7 percent of us have confidence in Congress. In a system of governance that depends on its participants’ faith in the system, this is a foundational problem.
The only thing worse than democracy
Paradoxically, the less we trust our elected leaders, the more we need elections to hold them accountable to those who elect them.
In his essay “Equality,” C. S. Lewis notes: “A great deal of democratic enthusiasm descends from the ideas of people like Rousseau, who believed in democracy because they thought mankind so wise and good that everyone deserved a share in the government.” According to Lewis, “The danger of defending democracy on those grounds is that they’re not true.”
He cites himself as proof: “I don’t deserve a share in governing a hen-roost, much less a nation.” As a result, “The real reason for democracy is just the reverse. Mankind is so fallen that no man can be trusted with unchecked power over his fellows.”
This is why Churchill was right to label democracy “the worst form of government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.” The only thing worse than living in a country led by people and parties for whom we did not vote is living in a country where we have no vote at all. Having traveled widely in such countries, I can testify personally that I am grateful to live in our democracy.
Here’s the problem: our system of governance, while it holds our leaders accountable to the people they serve, has no ability to produce the character our leaders and people need most.
The path to our best future
The path to our best future lies not through the voting booth or the Oval Office but at the “throne of grace” (Hebrews 4:16). Only Jesus can forgive our sins, save our souls, and transform our lives. Only he can make fallen people holy. But because he honors the freedom he gave us, he waits to be invited onto the throne of our hearts.
To elect Christ your king, pray these words: “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10). Pray them right now. Mean them as you pray them—whatever he asks, whatever it takes, whatever the cost. Then take your next step of obedience to your king.
Jesus can empower Americans and thus America to be a nation God can bless.
Can he start with you?
NOTE: This is the last note about our latest book, The Path to Purpose. In this new book, my son Ryan and I delve into Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus offers deep insight into how to be his disciple. We wrote this book to encourage believers like you to seek God’s character-forming ways so that, as Ryan writes, God might bless you to be “a force for the kingdom in the world around us.” Request your copy of The Path to Purpose today while our first printing is still available.
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