Democracy under fire worldwide
A popular meme circulating on Facebook says, “We can’t save Afghanistan. We can’t even save Florida.” There are shining pearls of wisdom encased in that sarcasm.
The news from Afghanistan is heartbreaking — people desperately trying to climb aboard U.S. aircraft, a U.S. Air Force transport crammed with more than 600 lucky Afghans who made it out, female activists frantically scrubbing their digital presence from the web before Taliban thugs see it. The Biden administration deserves to be castigated for its failure to provide a safe exodus for the thousands of Afghans who served American interests over the last two decades.
But critics who insist that the U.S. military should have maintained a substantial presence in Afghanistan are mistaken. Those who seem to believe that we could have built a stable democracy there are delusional. As the Facebook meme suggests, we have vital work to do here at home to save our own democracy. It’s not clear we can succeed.
The meme’s creator was referring to the high rate of COVID-19 infection in Florida, whose Republican governor, Ron Desantis, has resisted all entreaties to pay attention to science and enforce minimal public health precautions. Trying to out-trump the former president, Desantis has gone in the opposite direction — threatening public school districts that try to enforce a mask mandate.
But that crazed Trumpism extends far beyond a rejection of science. Trumpists also reject democracy and spurn the U.S. Constitution. It’s chilling to see the number of prominent American conservatives who have cozied up to Hungary’s authoritarian prime minister, Viktor Orban. American conservatives seem enamored with Orban because he claims to support so-called Christianity while denouncing diversity. “We do not want to be diverse. We do not want our own color, traditions and national culture to be mixed with those of others,” he has said.
The United States has played a singular role on the world stage as a proud example of pluralistic democracy. Our leading politicians and diplomats have long bragged to other countries that we extend freedom, opportunity and justice to all citizens and that we protect the rights of political, cultural and religious minorities. We have never fully achieved that perfect union, but for much of its
history, the nation has been moving in the right direction.
Not anymore. The Trumpists and their collaborators have attacked the foundations of democracy. They are busy suppressing the right to vote and blowing up the safeguards that guarantee a peaceful transition of power. They have undermined the rule of law, refusing to cooperate with an investigation into the Jan. 6 insurrection. During Trump’s tenure, they turned a blind eye to his graft and corruption. How can we possibly be an example to Afghanistan or any other nation?
I shudder to think of how difficult life will be for Afghans when they are once again subjected to the rule of the Taliban. Its leaders adhere to a harsh interpretation of Sharia law that emphasizes the subjugation of women and embraces a mindless asceticism that condemns music, photography, movies and paintings. Its soldiers meet protests with violence. Waheedullah Hashimi, a Taliban commander, told Reuters earlier this week, “There will be no democratic system at all because it does not have any base in our country.” I am sorry to know they have triumphed again.
But at the moment, I fear for my own daughter in her native land. When she was born, just after Barack Obama was elected the nation’s first Black president, I was overjoyed and naively optimistic. In a journal I kept, I wrote, “I am just thrilled that you’re going to grow up in a nation that is a much better place for little Black girls than it was just a few short years ago.”
I would not write that now. My daughter will instead grow up in a country where many of the white citizens are increasingly resentful of Black and brown citizens. The latest U.S. census, which shows the proportion of whites falling, will only make them angrier and crazier.
If democracy has “no base” in Afghanistan, it turns out to have a more fragile base here in America than I knew. We will have to work furiously to shore it up.