The sense of anxiety and concern that most people feel regarding the current U.S. election is not limited to American citizens and it involves more than the opposition of two political parties. This is an unprecedented year and this is not simply another election. The issues we face go beyond the political language on the ballot as the complex set of worldwide crises we all face makes the voting process feel like a matter of life and death.

The cascade of current crises includes the climate emergency, the coronavirus pandemic and the economic decline; but we also face a reckoning on social justice and a crisis of truth and meaning. It’s no wonder that we can feel the weight of the world coming down upon us as everything seems to be in the balance.

A timely report on the largest ever study of the condition of democracy throughout the world makes clear what is at stake in this moment. The V-Dem Institute at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden used exhaustive methods to measure the health of the world's democracies, at a time when authoritarianism is clearly on the rise. Their system of measuring is called the “illiberalism index.” It gauges the extent of commitment to democratic norms that political parties exhibit before an election.

The study found that a decline in democratic traits has accelerated around the world, leaving autocracies holding power in at least 92 countries. By now, 54% of the global population lives under autocratic rule. Almost 35% of people live in nations becoming more autocratic day by day. In the United States, the Republican Party has become dramatically more illiberal, as it more closely resembles ruling parties in autocratic European states. The shift away from liberal democracy both led to Donald Trump and has rapidly intensified under his administration.

As the GOP has followed the path of demonizing people and encouraging violence against its opponents, it can be seen to be adopting attitudes and tactics comparable to ruling nationalistic parties in Hungary, India, Poland and Turkey. By contrast, the study shows that the Democratic Party in the United States has changed little in its commitment to democratic norms, remaining similar to center right and center left parties in Europe.

A startling line from the study states that, "…the Republican transformation has been certainly the most dramatic shift in any established democracy." The GOP has followed a trajectory similar to the authoritarian party in Hungary, which has become the first non-democracy in the European Union. What has happened to the Republican Party under the leadership of Donald Trump is an accelerated rate of shifting the U.S. from being a liberal democracy to becoming an illiberal autocracy.

Major crises become tests of character for those who would be leaders. In a healthy democracy a public crisis becomes a test of character for those who value the right to vote. The words are not clearly stated on the ballots, but this election goes beyond being a referendum on the leadership of Donald Trump. This election will either tip the scales towards a return to liberal democracy or else precipitate a further decline into illiberal autocracy.

When considered in more than narrow political terms, the word liberal traces back to Latin roots meaning “generous, noble, and free.” Taken to its extreme, it can mean “extravagant and unrestrained.” Otherwise, it can also mean “selfless, magnanimous, and admirable.”

The Enlightenment sense of liberal includes “being free from prejudice, being tolerant and not being bigoted or narrow minded.” In the history of politics, liberal tends to mean favoring freedom and democracy, while being open to new ideas. The word illiberal has a much shorter history typically meaning “to be base, mean, ungenerous and unworthy of free people.” To be illiberal suggests being narrow-minded politically, but also being unconcerned with the rights and liberties of others.

When the word liberal comes to be used in a derogatory way, something illiberal is going on. As if there's an illness that diminishes our natural instinct for freedom, a deficit when it comes to issues of being noble, being free from prejudice and thereby wanting to extend freedoms to other people. Remember when it seemed essentially American to be in favor of greater democratic values both at home and abroad. It’s not that the highest ideals of humanity were ever reached, but that they were consciously considered and aimed at. 

The world has become ever more complex and our problems have become ever more global in scope. This causes some people to look for simple answers, seek to blame others and elevate those who simply seek power for themselves. Those who study leadership come to realize that in the midst of a crisis a false or self-serving leader will try to grab more power, while a genuine leader will tend to sacrifice themselves for the benefit of others.

And that sense of meaning in life rests upon the increasingly evident idea that everything is in life interconnected. It is in that symbolic, yet ultimately practical sense that voting can involve our inner nobility and genuine desire to struggle for personal and collective freedom.

When all the dust of the current election finally settles, all of the crises that trouble the world will still be waiting to be faced. For, it is our mutual fate to live at a time when chaos and creation are both nearby. In that sense we are in a mythic condition and the ritual of voting bears more weight because we are at a tipping point between collapse and renewal.

According to ancient myths, human beings can be the make-weights in the scales of time. In critical moments humans can tip the scales of life in the direction of restoration and renewal or towards greater chaos and disorder. Casting a vote has always been a symbolic act as well as a practical matter. Sometimes, fact and myth come together; sometimes the practical and the spiritual coincide. And sometimes a vote is also a prayer intended to tip the precarious balance of life towards healing and a greater sense of freedom.