Coming at the end of the “decade of democracy,” the 2000 election revealed troubling features of the American political system at the close of the twentieth century. The electoral college, devised by the founders to enable the country’s prominent men rather than ordinary voters to choose the president, gave the White House to a candidate who did not receive the most votes an odd result in a political democracy. A country that prided itself on modem technology had a voting system in which citizens’ choices could not be reliably determined. Counting both congressional and presidential races, the campaign cost more than $1.5 billion, mostly raised from wealthy individuals and corporate donors. This reinforced the widespread belief that money dominated the political system. It remained for future generations to ponder the implications for democracy of the ever-closer connection between power in the economic marketplace and power in the marketplace of politics and ideas.
Another cartoon by Herbert Block, from 2000, suggests that democracy has been corrupted by the influence of “big money interests” on government.
Evidence abounded of a broad disengagement from public life. As governments at all levels competed to turn their activities over to private contractors, and millions of Americans walled themselves off from their fellow citizens by taking up residence in socially homogeneous gated communities, the very idea of a shared public sphere seemed to dissolve. Organizations like parent-teacher associations, the Boy Scouts, and the Red Cross all suffered declining membership and volunteering. With politicians and political parties still in disrepute and neither candidate able to generate much enthusiasm, voter turnout remained far below that of other democracies. Nearly half the eligible voters did not bother to go to the polls, and in state and local elections, turnouts typically ranged between only 20 and 30 percent. More people watched the televised Nixon-Kennedy debates of 1960 than the Bush-Gore debates of 2000, even though the population had risen by 100 million. Both candidates sought to occupy the political center and relied on public-opinion polls and media consultants to shape their messages. Major issues like health care, race relations, and economic inequality went virtually unmentioned during the campaign.