AMERICAN DEMOCRACY WASN’T DESIGNED FOR THIS
Can our 18th-century institutions survive 21st-century technology?
By Jeffrey Rosen
Democracy has been resilient for a long time, but that doesn’t mean it can’t reach a breaking point. Social media is an unprecedented challenge: In every way, it represents the Founders’ nightmare. Madison wanted to slow down communication to allow for thoughtful decision making; social media encourages instant responses and emotional, ad hominem arguments. Madison worried about factionalism; social media encourages it. More than any previous communications technology, social media has the effect of herding users into likeminded communities where they never have to hear an opposing point of view. In a 2020 article in Science, 15 psychologists and political scientists wrote that America’s political divisions were being amplified by “popularity-based algorithms that tailor content to maximize user engagement.” If the Founders had been able to spend an hour on X, they would have been a lot less optimistic about human beings’ capacity to govern themselves by reason rather than passion
JUNE 6, 2026, 7 AM ET
In 1787, as the founders gathered in Philadelphia to draft the Constitution, Alexander Hamilton wrote in “Federalist No. 1” that there was more at stake than the future of a single country. The American experiment would “decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force.”
The Founders were hopeful, in part because the information environment of the late 18th century was favorable to “reflection and choice.” A flourishing newspaper industry kept Americans informed and fostered vigorous debate. But the number of publications was limited—about 100 total in the 13 states—and the authority of editors and writers meant that a free press didn’t turn into a free-for-all. And at a time when nothing traveled faster than a horse or ship, the sheer size of the new country meant that news spread slowly, an obstacle to impulsive public decisions. Given time for deliberation, passions would cool, and elected representatives could focus on the country’s long-term good rather than short-term gratification.
Today, those advantages have disappeared, thanks to a technological revolution the Founders could never have imagined. The internet has turned everyone into a potential publisher, able to instantly spread facts or falsehoods to millions. Most people get information about politics and current events not from newspapers but from social media, which discourages engagement with human beings of different political persuasions. Now the rise of AI is discouraging engagement with any human beings at all; instead, more and more people are forming their views in conversation with a machine that lacks moral sense. As America approaches its 250th anniversary, the biggest question for our democracy is whether a system designed for the communications technologies of the 18th century can survive those of the 21st.
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