The ongoing attempt by President Obama and congressional Democrats to reform American health care has proven intensely controversial. As interesting as the reaction to the proposals has been the reaction of liberals to the groundswell of opposition. The reaction to the reaction has been to attack the American people themselves. It would seem that such a tactic is political suicide in a democracy, yet the attacks persist. Many have commented on this phenomenon and attempted to explain it. The explanation lies in the progressive understanding of democracy held by American liberals.

Modern liberalism finds its origins in the political thought of American progressivism, so it is to progressive thought that one must turn. Democracy is not an institutional arrangement, but a stage in the political development of a people. The fundamental characteristic of a mature, modern democracy is "a sense of unity, of community of thought and purpose, among the people," according to Woodrow Wilson. The people are part of a social organism, where all the parts work together to achieve what is good for the organism. Until they focus on this social good, there is no true democracy, no true self-government. The people "become Sovereign only in so far as they succeed in reaching a collective purpose," declares the progressive intellectual Herbert Croly. Otherwise, people are slaves to their own private or selfish interests, needs, or wants. Democracy means being mature enough to subordinate those private considerations to the good of the whole.

Herein one sees the rejection of democracy as majority rule. The problem is that "the will of majorities is not the same as the general will." Democracy is not simply a matter of allowing everyone to vote, tabulating the results and thereby arriving at a policy choice. Majority rule is simply the rule of the agglomeration of selfish, private, individual wills. As Croly notes, "the popular and the national interests must necessarily in some measure diverge" so long as we remain committed to the conception of democracy as majority rule. People will still connect themselves to their individual will, and not to the collective, general will. In Wilson's formulation, "modern democracy -- is not the rule of the many, but the rule of the whole."  The society has a life and a will of its own, distinct from any individual or group of individuals. It is this universal will that rules in a modern democracy.

The problem is how to discern and pursue this universal will most effectively, how to effect the rule of the whole. Democracy does not mean that the people themselves as a whole govern, but that the will of the whole governs. Here one sees the fallacy of the older conception of democracy. Wilson proclaims that "I believe in the people: in their honesty and sincerity and sagacity; but I do not believe in them as my governors."  The people are too submerged in their private concerns, and lack the advanced training in government, to govern themselves directly. Modern democracy "rejects the average man and the average training; it rejects the idea of constantly renewing the official personnel of the government from out of the general body of the people. It seeks to substitute for the person whom we call 'the man of the people,' so far as possible, the men of the schools, trained, instructed, fitted men" as well as those who can effectively articulate "a definite and decisive oneness of purpose" that binds a people into a unity. It seeks those with special training into how to rule properly and special insight into what needs to be done. What makes such a community democratic is not that the people operate the machinery of government, but that "it draws all the governing material from the people."  Unlike an aristocracy, membership in the governing class is open to all citizens. Modern democracy means the rule of the will of the whole, as understood and implemented by a self-selecting governing class.

The behavior of the President and the congressional leadership in the health care battle now becomes comprehensible. As progressives, they envision themselves as this governing class, specially trained and situated to rule, with unique insight into what is best for the nation. The latest example of this attitude comes from Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, who declared that "The American public...just like your teenage kids, aren't acting in a way that they should act.... The American public has to really understand in their core how important this issue is." Just as children require the benevolent rule of their parents, the people need that of the governing class, and in both cases that sometimes means compulsion. If America were a truly modern democracy, the people would recognize this and trust their leaders to rule. Private citizens are distracted from the social good by selfish private concerns: What will happen to my health care? Will I pay more? What will happen to me when I get old? They lack experience and training in policy formation and implementation. They cannot transcend their particular situations to see the broader picture, and are therefore unfit to participate in governance. 

The governing class sees the dissenters and their criticisms as interfering with the ability of the government to provide for the public good. From here it is but a small leap for them to conceive of those who oppose them as attempting to thwart the public good. Dissent from progressive liberalism is thus not legitimate public discourse, it is "racist," "un-American," "hate-mongering," "political terrorism"; hence the concerted effort, which Michael Barone describes, to de-legitimize and "stifle" it. For progressive liberals, insisting on self-government is, in a perverse way, anti-democratic.