Putin loves to say democracy is obsolete. Now he can hardly believe his luck

THE storming of the US Capitol by a hate mob, some carrying Confederate flags, at the instigation of the country’s President is unprecedented. All the words that have been used – shame, disgrace, carnage, nadir – are appropriate. The battle between forces of impunity and those of accountability, brewing over the last decade around the world, is now in Technicolor.

For the public servants caught in the chaos, the events must have been terrifying. For those of us who are not citizens but are lucky enough to work here, they were chilling: that this country, so full of creativity and generosity, that has given so much to the world, should have its most sacred of democratic institutions overrun by a hate mob is not just a passing stain. It is a warning to democrats everywhere.

Wednesday’s events were not a thunderbolt from a clear blue sky. They were years in fermentation, during which the demonisation of opponents, their motives and their beliefs, became a staple of far-Right demagogues.

‘Real Americans’ were contrasted with others, by implication not real. Independent centres of authority, like the media and judiciary, were called ‘enemies of the people’.

RACISTS were excused and anti-racists were called dangerous. The contrast between the policing of Black Lives Matter demonstrations and the mob rule last week could not be more stark. And all along, those who have pointed to a threat to democratic life were told not to be alarmist.

The quelling of the riot in Washington does not mean the crisis is over. Even if the run- up to the inauguration is peaceful, the fires of hatred have not been doused.

‘Balkanisation’ was a term invented to describe the break-up of the Balkans into a fragmented set of tribes united only by geography and loathing of each other.

That is the danger in the United States today. The current divisions are not just about time zones or even policy. They are about the much more combustible questions of culture, identity, meaning, world view. They are pickled into antipathy by separate news machines that eradicate debate in favour of vilification. They are laced with extreme danger because guns are so widely owned.

Two questions arise. One is about America, and what happens next to this great experiment in democracy. The events of January 6 should be salutary. Despite the support of a majority of House Republicans for President Trump’s wholly unfounded claims to have grounds for contesting the election result, and despite the fact that impeachment or other censure of Trump seems remote, there are grounds for hope.

The presidential election was not actually close. The adherents of a truly lost and false cause are beginning to feel the political consequences, not least in the Georgia results. Trump and his supporters have discredited themselves. A new administration will arrive in office with the ability to pass legislation, and an incentive and instinct on the part of President-elect Biden to reach across party lines.

The second question is for other democratic countries, including the UK. We are in a different situation, in all sorts of ways. But we are not immune from challenges to our democratic norms or to the rule of law. And frustration with the failings of representative government is high. The answer must be to strengthen our democracy, not usurp it.

One lesson is that if the transgressions of norms deemed ‘small’ are not called out, then big ones follow. When President Trump defied convention and refused to release his tax returns during the 2016 presidential election, and was not held to account, a clear message went out: playing by the rules is for suckers.

There was the same effect in the UK when Dominic Cummings defied the Covid rules.

Another is that Left and Right need to compete intensively for different visions of the future, but need to unite in strengthening democratic process. Of course the populists want to scream ‘establishment stitch-up’. But that makes it all the more important that fair checks and balances – from organisation of electoral districts to campaign finance rules to media ownership rules – are upheld.

There is special responsibility on government to uphold the independence and i mpartiality of media, the Civil Service and the judiciary. Yet around the world, we know from the NGO Freedom House as well as from the Varieties of Democracy project at t he University of Gothenburg, it is

The message has gone out: Playing by the rules is for suckers

precisely these independent centres of power that are in retreat. A majority of countries in the world have suffered reductions in political freedom in the last 15 years.

That is why Professor Larry Diamond of Stanford University has coined the idea of ‘democratic recession’, in which all types of country, from democratic to authoritarian, are becoming less liberal.

There is also need for action, not just scrutiny, on the antisocial, antidemocratic aspects of social media. Social media companies are publishers. They are also broadcasters. Let them live by the rules, not make it up as they go along.

Russia’s President Putin told the Financial Times in 2018 that the liberal idea was ‘obsolete’. Today he can hardly believe his luck.

Only alarm and action can prove him wrong, and not just in the disunited states of America.