Bitter, enraged and embattled - not the greatest of legacies
DONALD Trump’s presidency was never going to be conventional, but there was always a faint hope that the responsibilities of his office would transform him into something a little more statesmanlike. Instead, he carried on behaving like an insurgent rather than the most powerful person on Earth.
Even so, nothing quite prepared the world for what happened on Wednesday as protesters, who had earlier been egged on by the President, stormed the Capitol Building. It was, in the words of the last Republican president, George W Bush, more like something from a banana republic.
It would be hard to overestimate the damage caused by these disgraceful scenes. The US has committed many follies over the years, but through it all the world’s richest and most powerful country has shone as a beacon of democracy.
Wherever the US has exercised its power and influence it has asserted the principle that people must be free to elect their political leaders. In Iraq and Afghanistan it instigated democracies from scratch.
THE drive to promote democracy globally has not always worked, but look at the general direction. In the mid 1970s, according to the think tank the Pew Research Center, there were 25 full democracies and 62 dictatorships in the world, with the rest falling in between. By 2017, it judged, that has turned into 57 full democracies and 13 dictatorships. What message does it send to the world when a president of the United States refuses to accept, or even recognise, the result of an election that he clearly lost?
“Drain the swamp,” Trump kept repeating during his successful 2016 election campaign. If Washington is a swamp, Trump has just proved that there is no fouler creature stalking its depths than himself. Trump’s assault on his own country’s democracy could not have come at a worse time. With the rise of China – which unlike Putin’s Russia doesn’t even pretend to be a democracy – many countries in Africa, Asia and elsewhere find themselves influenced by two models: democratic America and autocratic China.
Both China and the US can boast great economic advances in recent years. To some, however, the Covid crisis has shown up the weaknesses of democracy, with China able to control its population, and therefore the pandemic, much better. Now, on top of that, comes a picture of chaos in the US. How much easier it will now be for tinpot dictators around the world to say to their people: “If that’s democracy, you’re better off with me.”
Donald Trump could have salvaged his reputation over the past couple of months. Had he graciously conceded on election night, telling the American people “I was doing a great job, but that’s democracy folks,” he could in years to come have reminded us that he was the first president in a couple of generations not to be dragged into an unpopular foreign war, that the economy grew steadily until the arrival of Covid and that the stock market boomed even in spite of Covid.
But that has all gone now. Trump will forever be remembered as the president who sparked off an insurrection to try to keep himself in power.
He hasn’t just destroyed his own reputation, he has damaged his party immeasurably. In spite of losing the White House, the Republicans could have held onto the Senate. But, thanks to Trump’s behaviour, they have lost that thanks to losing the two run- off elections in Georgia.
While Trump is of course the villain of this piece, one thing does need to be added. The partisanship which led to Wednesday night’s disgraceful scenes did not begin with him. America has been splitting into rival Republican and Democrat factions for years.
IN RECENT elections it has become customary for the losing side to question the legitimacy of the vote. How many of those who have been outraged by Trump’s behaviour this week were, four years ago, making unfounded allegations that Putin somehow won the election for Trump? And don’t forget that Trump’s inauguration day was itself marred by rioting in Washington by people who refused to accept him as the legitimate president.
If you believe in democracy, you have to accept election results whether you like them or not. The one positive thing is that Joe Biden is the antithesis of a partisan. During a long Washington career he has built his reputation on working with people across the political spectrum. Whether you share his vision, whether you support his policies or not, he could just be the man to save US democracy.
‘ Trump will be remembered as the president who sparked insurrection’