Abraham Lincoln spoke just 271 words in his Gettysburg Address. And yet his final stanza immortalised not only the purpose of the bloody struggle between north and south, but the essence of democracy: “That government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
The American experiment was still radical in 1863. Having won the right to self-determination mere decades before, and drafted the first codified constitution to cement it, the United States had shown the world a new possibility. The rule of autocrats, intact for millennia, began to crumble.
It’s easy to forget that democracy is an aberration in human history. Through the ages most people have lived under the authority of others. Billions still do. But once America broke the mould, people everywhere took note. In the past 245 years, nation after nation has followed its example. It’s no coincidence that this epoch has produced the greatest surge in human prosperity and longevity ever known.
Of course self-determination has always been flawed in the land that gave birth to it. Many of the country’s early leaders owned slaves. The nation cleaved in two over this odious system. Reconstruction did little to resolve deep-seated divisions. Women were excluded from the ballot until a century ago. It took nearly two centuries to safeguard the franchise for eligible non-white voters. This simple justice remains under assault to this day. Haphazard and brutal though America’s progress has been, it has advanced relentlessly towards its founders’ promise of a more perfect union.
Now the US faces a watershed. One of its great political parties, in thrall to an authoritarian demagogue and in fear of dwindling power, has turned its back on America’s greatest innovation. This is the same party that was born to preserve that very innovation, and whose first president stands among the most consequential and revered to serve in the Oval Office.
Instead this party has embraced the values and practices of its erstwhile political foes, the southern Democrats. In so doing it has repudiated all that Lincoln fought for.
Contemporary Republicans’ dedication to gerrymandering and voter suppression is bad enough. On January 6 they crossed the Rubicon into outright insurrection. Most people still don’t understand how the mob invasion of the Capitol was connected to the attempt to invalidate Joe Biden’s presidential election victory, and reinstate Donald Trump.
The plan was simple. On that day Congress was to meet in joint session to tally the electoral votes from November’s presidential election. Vice-president Mike Pence, acting in his role as president of the Senate, was to preside over the count. The process, set out in the Electoral Count Act, is typically ceremonial.
But Trump wanted Pence to ignore electoral votes from several states that Biden had won. The idea was to create chaos and confusion, which would open the door for the House of Representatives to pick the next president under article II of the constitution. In the House, each state delegation is awarded one vote. Since Republicans commanded a majority of state delegations, despite being the minority party in the House, they would choose Trump. The mob was there to pressure Pence to follow through, or failing that to thwart completion of the count and throw the election to the House.
Late that night, after the insurrectionists were repelled, Congress reconvened to confirm the election of Biden and Kamala Harris. Despite surviving the first invasion of the Capitol since the War of 1812, 147 Republicans still challenged the election results without evidence. That’s how committed they were to Trump’s attempted coup.
One year later they remain defiant. They are doing all they can to prevent the truth behind the insurrection being revealed to the American public. Meanwhile they have identified vulnerabilities in America’s democracy to exploit. They are passing new state laws and installing loyal foot soldiers to ensure that next time they will win, no matter what.
First they will aim to pick their voters. If that fails they will rig the counting of votes. And if that doesn’t work, they will drum up excuses to override the voters’ will and send their own electors to Congress.
None of this is secret. It’s all happening in plain sight. That’s how democracies die these days. Gradually, then suddenly. Democracy dies a little every time a politician lies without consequence. Every time those lies are repeated in the media and on social networks. Every time blame for a problem is directed at marginalised people. Every time violence is threatened to intimidate a rival or election worker. Every time we excuse such behaviour. Every time we submit to fear and anger. Every time we look the other way.
Democracy dies with the facade of technicality and the veneer of legality. Even the efforts of January 6 were cloaked in constitutional process.
Elections will continue. This means little if the results are preordained. Elections occur in Russia, Turkey, Hungary, Poland, Nicaragua, Venezuela, and many other autocratic regimes. The charade only makes them more galling.
Steve Schmidt, who managed Republican John McCain’s 2008 presidential bid, is one of many former party insiders denouncing the GOP’s lurch to autocracy.
Once democracy is gone, there’s no guarantee it will return. Many countries usurped by authoritarian rule in the past were liberated only with America’s help. Who would help liberate America?
What would it mean for the world to have an authoritarian America? Trump gave us a glimpse. Journalists were branded enemies of the people. Lies were normalised. White supremacists were lauded. Self-dealing and corruption flourished. Accountability at home and abroad withered. Tyrants were feted. Allies were insulted or ignored. International treaties and institutions were violated and diminished. Climate science was rejected. Foreign aid was slashed. And a once-in-a-century global pandemic was deemed a hoax, weaponised into a political litmus test, and 750,000 Americans died. All this in just a few years.
An authoritarian America would not bode well for the world.
There is still time to stop it. Two voting rights bills — the Freedom to Vote Act and the John R Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act — await congressional approval. These laws would undercut Republican schemes by reinforcing voters’ access to fair elections and integrity of the results. Biden and every Democrat in Congress support these measures. Republicans have filibustered both bills in the Senate to block their passage. Their fate hinges on whether Senate Democrats will unite to override that relic custom to protect democracy. These proposed laws are as consequential to America’s future as any constitutional amendments and civil rights legislation previously enacted.
Democracy is imperfect. It varies vastly from place to place. Nowhere is it fair. As Winston Churchill noted, democracy is the worst form of government — except for all the others.
History is littered with countries whose citizens believed it can’t happen here. However, there is nothing that guarantees democracy will survive when people stand by and watch it destroyed. Or worse: cheer from the sidelines.
What happens next in the US will shape what happens everywhere else. That’s why it should matter to everyone.
If democracy can die in America, it can die anywhere. Anywhere. And then who will help?
“Many countries usurped by authoritarian rule in the past were liberated only with America’s help.”
Many countries also became authoritarian with America’s ‘help’.
In fact, more countries have become authoritarion, thanks to America, than have been helped out of Authoritarian Rule.
By several multiples.
Many countries are defacto American states. EG Guam.
If democracy can come to the USA, it can come anywhere.
One of Leonard Cohen’s later songs – ‘Democracy is Coming to America‘ – is well worth hearing.
He was not optimistic.
“What would it mean for the world to have an authoritarian America? Trump gave us a glimpse. Journalists were branded enemies of the people. Lies were normalised. White supremacists were lauded. Self-dealing and corruption flourished. Accountability at home and abroad withered. Tyrants were feted. Allies were insulted or ignored. International treaties and institutions were violated and diminished. Climate science was rejected. Foreign aid was slashed. And a once-in-a-century global pandemic was deemed a hoax, weaponised into a political litmus test, and 750,000 Americans died. All this in just a few years.”
In isolation, this quote all but sums up aspects of the modern Liberal Party of Australia.
My first thoughts as well.
If that’s what’s happening in America, what’s happening here?
So much to agree with, and yet…what a concoction! It’s also entirely reasonable to argue that the earliest US form of government was designed to stifle democracy, and still does (see e.g. Woody Holton’s Liberty is Sweet for a modern take on the American Revolution); this should not be surprising, because the elites that wrote the earliest articles stated that they were doing so.
As for democracy being an aberration in human history, this is also an outmoded perception in the view of anthropologists and political historians (cf. John Keane’s The Life and Death of Democracy). More importantly, living in a modern democracy involves living under the grip of authority, it’s literally all around us in various forms e.g. the Rule of Law.
I agree with Semmens that what is happening is broadly “bad”, but the rickety system holding together millions of people that can’t stand each other might arguably no longer be a force for good either, even if it was only ever marginally so.
Here’s a thought experiment: what if the union were to dissolve into separate Commonwealths, regions and states? While reducing the hegemonic status of the USA, it’s reasonably forseeable that more democratic structures than currently exist might get tried, maybe even that crazy notion of preferential voting! North American states would likely still spend more than 40% of the world’s military budgets, but they’d also be forced to share them in some way in order to stay feeling relevant.
Would Canada join in, making it a sort of wild EU of North America? Who knows! What’s not immediately certain is that the system as it is actually deserves to stand when it is already so bad at providing wellbeing for the greater number of its inhabitants. Cheering on an undeserving system because of a false dichotomy is worse than a waste of time, it’s illogical.
Indeed Ma Vie en Vert. It has been said many a time that in the US you get the Govt you pay for ( or variations of that theme). Democracy is a many headed Hydra. Superficially, it speaks to noble ideals and of particularly to “freedom” Our collective lives both here and in the US are so heavily regulated, it seems sometimes we are not so free after all. Maybe, a new order of govt is afoot. Xi Jingping has one on the go which he would like to export. Hopefully it wont catch on.
I also see the US as heading inexorably into two separate tribes that can’t exist in the same nation.
Problem is that the union is undisolvable -that question was answered once and for all by the Civil War.
What happens if Jesusland wants out? Do they make a UDI and the result is another Fort Sumner?
And what happens to people in the saner areas there (Austin being a classic example)? Do they then have the right to secede from their own states?
Where does it end?
According to the Atlantic, the Republicans are in full throttle mode regards making it difficult for voter registration, access to polling booths, and more. Mostly it’s (black) democrats in the southern states that aren’t voting but want to. They don’t want to see Trump ever again. The Reps are worried about becoming irrelevant simply because they are irrelevant, as the party of big business.
Conservatives resist change. Evolution is change. We never stop evolving so conservatism is a recipe for extinction. Good job too. That the Republicans can’t stay relevant is a sign of the complete absence of leadership for some decades.
Anyway….
Political breakdown will be hotly followed by chaos.
In the event of social breakdown:
The American experiment will transit through FEMA camps and have to decide on becoming (a) a dystopian movie where gangs of cannibals roam the streets in search of petrol and water and protein or (b) overhaul the republican party and (c) overhaul political donations laws.
I don’t know whether I’m joking or not.
What’s a group of gun toting Republican rednecks going to do when they get to San Francisco and there are hordes of rainbow coloured liberals linked arm in arm, singing John Lennon songs? Join in or mow them down?