If democracy were to fail in the United States as a form of viable government what do you think we could expect to happen in the short and/or long run?

We’re not a democracy. We’re a constitutional republic. Pure democracy is unfeasible in a population this large, I think.

http://www.slate.com/id/2176185/
http://www.slate.com/id/2195384/

Short term: Riots

Long term: Maybe we could be like Switzerland?

THIS will happen!

What would happen? The same thing that happens in other countries when their central governments fail. Check the nearest history book for details. :)

The only semi-realistic things that I can think of off the top of my head that might cause our federal government to suddenly fail are total economic collapse, all-out nuclear war, or pandemic disease.

In either case, then in the short term, the military (and/or the DHS, here in the US) would very likely assume control, and we’d be a de-facto dictatorship. Depending on the exact circumstances, we’d either then continue as a dictatorship, or a democratic government of some sort would eventually be re-established – probably with a new (or at least modified) constitution, and with significantly less real power, no matter what powers the founding documents ostensibly gave it, with the military retaining significant actual decision-making power.

In the process, there’d be riots, pockets of the country controlled by local forces, economic breakdown, hyperinflation (if that’s not what caused the failure in the first place), food shortages, energy shortages, and general mayhem. Depending on how bad the failure was, there might be civil war – for instance, if the west coast decided to try to set up its own nation, or Texas decided to secede, or if there was large-scale disagreement about how the country should be put back together; fortunately, although we complain about poor race relations here in the US, our problems in that regard are in reality minimal compared to the centuries-old tribal disputes and rivalries that exist in some other parts of the world, so I think full-scale civil war would be less likely here.

But maybe you didn’t mean sudden failure, but rather what would happen if our democracy failed slowly, over the course of decades or even generations?

In that case, you’d also see things here that we’ve seen in other countries where that’s happened: the civil government, though technically still in charge of the country, would slowly lose real power and prestige until some other nexus of power would, pragmatically speaking, actually be in control. In that scenario I think you’d see the federal government become gradually more controlled by powerful and well-funded institutions like the military or possibly very large corporate interests; the government would never really “fail” or “fall”, per se, it would just cede control slowly over time. The end-game in that process tends to be either dictatorship or fascism; in either case, the elections would either get shut down, or become so thoroughly controlled/corrupted that they had little real effect, and the press would no longer free, but rather controlled by the ruling interests, whoever they were.

I suppose an argument could be made that a process much like that is already underway in the US..

That’s right jholler.

It’s irritating when people call the US a democracy.

We’re a federal constitutional republic.

People think if we have socialized healthcare we will become “socialists” but the definition itself when applied to a country is much more complex than one simple issue of healthcare.

I do believe, however, that if our constitutional rights continue to be eroded (ie wiretapping, etc.) and in light of the fact that the administration has conducted itself contrary to people’s wishes (ie current rating of 20% and declining, and most people polled want us out of Iraq), we are looking at a fascist state, aka dictatorship in sheep’s clothing. If the next government, and governments thereafter continue to chip away at our constitutional amendments, I believe it is very possible in our lifetime to see a major shift from democracy to a fascist off-shoot. The “checks” and “balances” need to be removed sufficiently (ie people muzzled).

I think the Constitution and some of it’s protections took a real hit when the Patriot Act was enacted. I saw a couple of documentaries a while back called “Unconstitutional: The War On Our Civil Liberties” and another called “America: Freedom to Fascism” and both were quite disturbing and sobering.

And I guess when I first posted my question above, I should have started it with “If the Constitutional Republic were to fail in the United States…....”

Since we’re not a democracy, the definition of it doesn’t apply to us at all then?

Well the form of government is not Democracy, but there is a ‘democratic process’ in the United States, so I’ll assume you are talking about that… But then, most people in the world consider that to have already failed, so…. the answer is: this?

If I was running the show, I’d abolish the ridiculous ritual of elections and have non-partisan civil servants populating the entire government, with a continuous democracy where people can vote electronically about any issue that concerns them. Of course, we wouldn’t put every single issue out to vote, but I’d say if 250,000 people (or some number) asked for a plebiscite, it would be done nationwide. Obviously at regional/state/county levels there would be relevant local issues for voting, too, on smaller scales.

So you might have a county full of homophobes who vote homosexuality illegal, but this would cause enough outrage in the state or federation, that a plebiscite would be called, and the federal law would override the county law. Where it is not an issue of human rights or significant moral implications, people would be much freer to legislate at the local level and live in the kind of societies they want to.

Of course, this would take the justice system to another level, but I’ll work that out later…