Threats rise to democracy in America
You wouldn’t think this is necessary to say in America, but a lot of what’s going on in 2020 is hard to believe. So let ’s tr y to agree on this, at least: Democracy matters.
That this needs to be asserted at all suggests just how far we have journeyed into territory that should trouble anybody who cares about the claim in our national anthem that ours is “the land of the free.” But here we are.
Freedom, as we’ve always understood it in the United States, relies upon the ability of citizens to choose the course for their community, under rules we have agreed upon to protect both the authority of the majority and the rights of minorities. Since 1789, our Constitution has been that guiding rulebook.
Our democracy is threatened when those rules are violated, and also when the philosophy undergirding our society is placed at risk — when the norms protecting citizens’ ability to control their government and enjoy its benefits are eroded.
Democracy is threatened when those in power try to make it harder for citizens to vote — by enacting voter ID laws, for example, or by limiting polling places or massively purging voter rolls (a tactic especially popular in recent years in areas with a history of racial discrimination in administering elections). Democracy is threatened when those in power abandon the civil norms that have maintained our system of government for generations — as happened four years ago, when Republicans leading the U.S. Senate refused to even consider a Supreme Court nomination because it was made in an election year.
Not that our democracy is perfect. Twice in this century, and twice before, the presidential choice of a majority of voters has been stymied by the Electoral College, which gives extra weight to less populous states. That’s anti-democratic, but it ’s in the rulebook we honor.
But no rulebook can force officials to behave with the countr y ’s best interests at heart. Whenwh a presi ident implies that citizens s’ votes don’t matter, by ba aselessly warning that t the coming election is s unlikely to be fair, then de mocracy is threaten ned. When that ppresident repeat tedly says that he might not g ive up power if he loses, democracy is threatened. That’s not just Donald Trump sayi ng whatever co omes to mind, as he often does. It ’s not harmless talk, as some conser vatives who can’t help but be embarrassed by the president ’s rants often assert. No, for once, Donald Trump is telling us the truth.
Experts who have studied the rise of autocrats note that citizens often make the mistake of doubting that incipient despots mean what they say. Before Rodrigo Duterte became president of the Philippines, his threats to bypass the justice system to stop drug trafficking sounded like tough campaign talk, not policy plans. But in the first 90 days of his bloody presidency, police and Duterte-backed vigilantes killed more than 3,000 people.
Trump, not incidentally, is a fan of Duterte, as well as of other leaders moving their countries away from democracy, including Hungary’s Viktor Orban and Turkey ’s Recep Tay yip Erdogan. Democracy is threatened when America doesn’t assert its founding values globally.
So Trump is telling us exactly what he intends to do, in words indicating that he sees nothing wrong with squelching democracy if that ’s what it takes to hold what he most desires: the center of attention.
Nor should we be reassured by the quick response of Republican officials this week saying that if Joe Biden wins the election, there will of course be a peaceful transition. The definition of “win” is malleable, and Republican senators have always yielded to their president. Trump is setting the stage for a brutal battle if he seems to have lost — perhaps even trying to get states to swap Biden electors chosen
by voters with electors selected by Republican-led legislatures. As the Senate moves to quickly seat a new Supreme Court justice whom the president may ask to sustain his efforts to cling to power, democracy is threatened.
Trump wasn’t kidding when he praised China in 2018 for eliminating the two-term limit on Xi Jinping ’s presidency. “I think it ’s great,” he said. “Maybe we’ll have to give that a shot someday.” As his former fixer, Michael Cohen, has obser ved, Trump doesn’t kid, because he doesn’t have a sense of humor.
This month a global project that measures representative government, based on hundreds of indicators assessed annually by thousands of experts, reported that America’s democracy has already eroded to a point that usually leads nations to full-blown autocracy. The U.S., it reported, is undergoing “substantial autocratization.”
So, yes, it is necessary to say this: Democracy matters, and it is threatened.
Experts who have studied the rise of autocrats note that citizens often make the mistake of doubting that incipient despots mean what they say. So, to be clear: For once, Donald Trump is telling the truth.