Democracy, No Longer as a Value of Freedom

By Ilir Demalia

America facing itself. What is happening with Trump and what will Americans decide in November?

There are moments in a country’s history when a political statement is no longer just a political statement.

It becomes a symptom.

A symptom of a deeper change in society, in politics, in the citizen’s relationship with power and, above all, in the way a society understands democracy.

Donald Trump’s speech in Dallas, at the Republican convention this week, may be one of these moments.

The American president promised that if Republicans keep control of the House of Representatives and the Senate in the November elections, adult Americans would receive $5,000, the so-called ‘Trump dividend’. Trump presented this as a benefit that would come from America’s economic power and tariff revenues. But the financing details, the implementation method and the approval of such a program itself remain unclear and would require Congressional action. (Reuters writes)

But I don’t think the main question is whether Americans will receive $5,000 or not.

The question is much bigger:

What is happening to American democracy?

Because democracy is not just voting. Democracy is choosing. And choosing means comparing ideas, values, programs, characters and visions for the country’s future.

When the vote begins to be tied directly to a financial benefit promised by power, the relationship between the citizen and the state begins to change. The citizen risks no longer being seen as a citizen. They begin to be seen as a voter-consumer.

And the vote, from an expression of political will, risks turning into a transaction. America was not built this way

America did not become America because it had the best politicians in the world.

Nor because it had no corruption, conflicts, scandals or bad presidents. America became a model because it built something more important than the individual: the institution.

The president was not America.

Congress was not America.

No party was America.

America was the Constitution, the law, the institutions and the citizen.

This is why this country survived a civil war, two world wars, the Great Depression, Watergate, presidential scandals, political assassinations, racial conflicts and countless crises.

Presidents came and went.

Institutions remained.

This was America’s power.

And it is precisely here that my concern for today’s America lies.

Not just with Donald Trump.

But with the personalization of American politics.

Trump did not create the crisis. He understood it.

It would be far too simple to say that Trump is the cause of the American crisis.

He is not.

Trump is also its product.

He did not create the distrust of Washington.

He did not create the anger of the middle and working class.

He did not create the immigration crisis.

He did not create inflation.

He did not create the dissatisfaction with political elites.

He did not create the feeling of millions of Americans that American politics no longer hears them.

Trump understood these better than many other politicians.

And he turned them into political capital.

This is his strength.

He spoke to an America that was tired of Washington’s bureaucratic language.

An America that no longer asks only for speeches on democracy, but wants to know:

How much does gasoline cost?

How much does food cost?

How much does a house cost?

How much does health insurance cost?

What will happen to the job?

What will happen to the border?

What will happen to America in the world?

Here lies the paradox.

Trump is strong because the American establishment has weakened.

But precisely because he has become so powerful, the other question arises:

Can a great democracy become too dependent on one individual?

Trump has turned November into a referendum on himself

This is what is happening today.

The November elections are elections for Congress. But Trump is trying to turn them into a referendum on himself.

He has even asked voters to behave as if he himself were on the ballot.

This is a very clear political strategy. Trump knows that in presidential elections his personality mobilizes millions of voters.

But the midterms are different.

They are not voting for the president.

They are voting for Congress.

And historically the president’s party often loses ground in midterm elections.

Therefore Trump is trying to do something unusual: to place himself at the center of an election where his name is not on the ballot.

And this also explains the $5,000 promise.

The message is simple:

‘If Republicans win, you win.’

But democracy should not work this way.

In democracy, the citizen should say:

‘If your program is good, I vote for you.’

Not:

‘If you give me something, I vote for you.’

This is the difference between the citizen and the client.

But Democrats cannot hide behind Trump either

Here we must be fair.

America’s problem is not solved by saying:

‘Trump is bad, so vote for the Democrats.’

This is not an alternative.

This is only opposition.

The Democratic Party has its own crisis of identity, credibility and leadership.

A large part of the American electorate no longer asks only for a fight against Trump.

It asks for an alternative.

It asks for the economy.

It asks for security.

It asks for functional institutions.

It asks for a politics that does not live only from fear of the opponent.

And this is precisely where the great test of the Democrats in November will be.

If they turn the election only into: ‘Trump must be stopped’ they may win some seats.

But if they want to build a new American majority, they must answer the question:

‘What will we do?’

November will be a test of America

The November 3 elections will not be just about the 435 seats of the House of Representatives and 34 Senate seats.

They will be a political test for Trump.

A test for the Republican Party.

A test for the Democrats.

But above all, a test for the American voter.

Today, political winds do not seem easy for Republicans.

Recent polls show that Trump has a negative rating and that Democrats have an advantage in the generic vote for Congress. An Emerson poll in August, for example, placed the hypothetical national vote for Congress at 51% for Democrats versus 43% for Republicans, while Trump’s approval was 40% versus 56% disapproval. (Emerson polling)

But America does not elect Congress with a national poll.

It elects it with hundreds of separate races.

And Republicans still have ways to protect their majority.

Therefore it is too early to proclaim the winner.

And here we return to the $5,000.

Will this promise change Americans’ vote?

Maybe some.

Maybe many.

But the bigger problem is not whether someone will vote for $5,000.

The problem is whether the American vote is losing its meaning as an expression of political freedom.

A vote does not cost $5,000.

A vote costs much more.

It costs the Constitution.

It costs freedom of speech.

It costs independent courts.

It costs a Congress that can say ‘no’ to the president.

It costs a free press.

It costs the peaceful transfer of power.

It costs the dignity of the citizen.

The value of the vote is precisely that it has no price.

And this is what America must not forget.

America facing itself

America today is not on the verge of the disappearance of democracy.

But America is at an important moment of testing its democracy.

Because democracies are not always destroyed with tanks. Sometimes they weaken much more slowly.

When the citizen loses trust in institutions.

When the party becomes more important than the country.

When the leader becomes more important than the institution.

When the political opponent is treated as an enemy.

When elections become a referendum on one man.

And when the vote begins to be treated as a commodity that can be bought.

This is why November will be much more important than a Republican or Democratic victory.

Americans will have to answer a simple but historic question:

What is democracy to us?

A check?

A party?

A president?

Or a value?

America has gone through civil war, economic crises, world wars and countless political crises.

And it has always emerged from them because it had a fundamental conviction: power passes, but freedom must remain.

Perhaps this is also the great test of the America of 2026.

Not whether Trump will win or lose.

Not whether Republicans will keep the Senate or the House.

But whether the American citizen will continue to see himself as the owner of democracy, or will begin to see himself as its beneficiary.

Because the moment the citizen becomes only a beneficiary, democracy begins to lose its meaning.

And if the citizen is the owner, no president can buy his vote.

The vote is not a commodity.

The vote has no price.

And democracy is not a transaction.