US a democracy corroding from the inside out
POST the chaotic violent Trump-Biden elections, there is evidence that the US political system could be rotting from the inside.
While Western liberal democracies are propagating, even violently exporting, their political system abroad, at high human and material cost, evidence suggests that typical American-Western democracy is in crisis at home.
The US presidential elections made a mockery of democracy with partisan violence and widespread racism denying people of colour the right to vote.
Partisan political violence fanned domestic insecurity, which shook both the Republicans’ and Democrats’ political elites.
Habitual American proselyting about democracy and sponsored regime change undermines the independent development of stable endogenous democratic rule in other sovereign nations, violating international laws to uphold the sovereign will of other nations.
Only citizens of a particular country can legitimately determine whether a country is democratic, as sovereign masters of their own destiny. Democracy rooted in a country’s domestic historical
and social environment could be reliable, and foster the domestic and international security and stability necessary for effective, reliable socio-economic progress, as proved in the practice of China’s whole-process people’s democracy.
China’s reform and opening up has lifted more than 700 million of its citizens out of poverty within half a century. It has stirred rapid technological and industrial development that has turned China into the second-largest economy in the world.
On the other hand, American democracy is proving to be dysfunctional in addressing social and racial inequality at home, deepening socio-economic gains and creating an inclusive society.
Widespread domestic violence within the US continues to exacerbate
domestic insecurity with poorer, mostly people of colour the main victims. A report from the State Council Information Office of the People’s Republic of China comprehensively captured systemic, widespread human rights violations and the deteriorating human rights situation in the US last year.
According to the report, a combination of the systemic failure to arrest the spread of Covid-19 resulted in the US experiencing the highest number of infections, at 34.51 million, and around 480 000 fatalities (what should be noted is that on April 11 this year, the two figures shot up to more than 82 million and 1 million respectively), with the infections and death rate highest among people of colour.
The US also experienced high levels of violence, with 693 gun-violence-related mass shootings accounting for more than 44 000 deaths.
The report further states that underlying structural systemic racism is the main cause of the violence against Asians and the many people of colour who are American citizens. In the same year, the US detained and trampled on the human rights of more than 1.7 million immigrants at its southern border, while coercive law enforcement resulted in 557 fatalities, the highest number since 1998.
Harvard University academic Stephen Walt has called on the US to rethink its role in other countries, given its human rights record at home. Walt suggests the US should focus on fixing its problems at home, while rethinking the way it deals with the rest of the world.
This may entail rethinking the whole edifice of American democracy, as well as respecting the national sovereignty and self-determination of other countries.
Fernand de Varennes, a UN Special Rapporteur on Minority Issues, described the US legal system of human rights protection as incomplete and outdated, aggravating inequality.
Systematic failures have compounded, spiking deteriorating mental health problems among its people and staggering homelessness. Gun violence and police brutality have aggravated domestic insecurity, the threat to human life, and violations of the rights of citizens.
The failure to arrest Covid-19 endangers the lives of US and global citizens, and undermines peace, stability and democracy in the world.