For those following the now seemingly irreversible destruction of American democracy over the past six years, the confected kerfuffle in Australia’s Parliament last week over the threat of foreign influence in our elections was eerily familiar.
Americans didn’t learn until after the 2016 election that Russia was targeting their democracy by helping Donald Trump to win the US presidency. Now, as the leaders of Australia’s two major parties face off in Parliament just months before a federal election, each was accusing the other of being — or harbouring in their ranks — a “Manchurian candidate”.
As always, and importantly, a basic check of such claims reveals them as farce. Both the ABC and The Sydney Morning Herald were quick with the fact that there’s no daylight between the approach of both parties when it comes to China. ASIO says both sides of politics have been targets of foreign influence operations, which in the next five years will supplant terrorism as Australia’s biggest security threat.
That should be the end of it.
But it won’t be. Not if the pattern of democratic decline in other Rupert Murdoch-infested democracies is any guide. Instead the stoush will become just more fodder for the mill of hyper-partisanship that, while a boon for clicks and ratings, brings democracy to its knees.
Why does hyper-partisanship spell death for democracy? Because it is just another word for tribalism, the intensely emotional loyalty that, while (relatively) harmless when applied to football teams, makes the peaceful transfer of power — one of democracy’s many gifts — impossible. How can you happily hand over power, and the resources to which it gives access, to a tribe you’ve been convinced has no legitimate claim to hold it? And whom you don’t trust to use it in the national interest and not against you?
The short answer is you can’t, which is why the transfer of power to then president-elect Joe Biden in January didn’t happen peacefully — and almost didn’t happen at all.
Indeed, as the authors of How Democracies Die, Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, explain, democracies rely on two basic norms to function: respect and restraint. Respect requires parties to “accept one another as legitimate rivals” and (I would add) as victors. Restraint imposes a moral expectation that those granted the awesome powers of government will act lawfully and use them only to serve the public interest, not partisan or personal ones.
In his book Insurgency The New York Times reporter Jeremy Peters says America’s democratic unravelling began with tensions inside the Republican Party between the more educated and socially moderate leadership and the religious and working class majority. Such “hard-hats” resented the way the “blue-bloods” hogged party leadership positions, dismissed the negative impact of globalisation on jobs and belittled conservative “values” (read: racial and gender-based prejudices).
Whatever the cause, the alliance at Fox of former Richard Nixon staffer Roger Ailes and billionaire Murdoch provided a legitimating platform — amplified by the internet — for those breaking every rule of the civilised debate democracy needs to function. The reliance on facts and reason over lies and passion? Gone! The prohibition of ad hominem attacks? Gone! The requirement of consistency? Hasta la vista, baby!
Which takes us to now — not just in the US but here in Australia where we are experiencing a partisan prodrome that if not treated will flower into the hyper-partisanship that destroys democracy.
A government behind in the polls politicising national security to serve its own partisan — not the public — interest. The prime minister’s willingness to pour scorn on the heads of the alternative government by suggesting the deputy opposition leader is a traitorous Chinese stooge, despite knowing that he’s not. The partisan divide between mastheads in reporting the story, with Murdoch’s The Australian working hard to keep it alive with Monday’s headline “Albanese rightly tested on China and national security concerns” while the rest of the media, having heeded the unusual public warning of ASIO chief Mike Burgess that the beat-up is “not helpful for us” have ceased reporting at all.
Our democracy is under attack by a foreign adversary and through the corrosion caused by our own political divides. In both cases, the answer is the same: we must resist the forces that divide us and stand together as Australians.
The Republican Party knows that it can never regain power if one person equals one vote and the majority rule .
Gerrymandering and restrictions on voting in selected areas are what is currently being worked on in the red state legislatures with cooperative governors.
America as an exemplar of a first world democracy it ain’t.
True enough. The invaluable contribution to imposing voter suppression and gerrymandering made by the Supreme Court, and various State jurisdictions, should also be acknowledged. The idea there might be a right to vote has never had more than luke-warm judicial support, and currently is regarded with contempt.
Ahhh, the the SC is just another enabler working assiduously for the rights of the Right to rule.
For the USA has slipped even further back into the Flawed Democracy section of The Economist Democracy Index, 2020
The index is based on 60 indicators grouped in five different categories, measuring pluralism, civil liberties and political culture.
In addition to a numeric score and a ranking, the index categorises each country into one of four regime full democracies, flawed democracies, hybrid regimes and authoritarian regimes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index
The USA has now slipped four places to 25 to be behind behind France in the Flawed Democracy Section. Having left the Full Democracy section in 2016, following lowered scores from 2006 on.
Judging by what the now GQP is doing with gerrymanders, voter suppression and disenfranchisement it can be expected to slip even further.
The top ten in Full Democracy are Norway, Iceland, Sweden, Aotearoa/NZ, Canada, Finland, Denmark , Ireland, Australia which since the ATM Farrago has slipped down to 9 is tied with Netherlands.
That make 5 of 10 from Nordic countries.
The UK has now slipped to 16 behind Uruguay!
China at 151 but still ahead of Saudi Arabia at 156 in the Authoritarian section.
Maybe you do not care much about the future of the Republican Party. You should. Conservatives will always be with us. If conservatives become convinced that they can not win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. The will reject democracy.”
― David Frum, Trumpocracy: The Corruption of the American Republic
This from a former speech writer for Dubya ,The Faux Texan, who in fact coined the phrase “axis of evil”!
And the same types are desperate to spread their poisonous influence across the ‘Anglosphere’ and further….
The Electoral College was instigated specifically to protect the wealthy when democracy ‘gets it wrong‘.
It’s worked well.
…..and that’s a ‘cotton-pickin’ fact’.
It has indeed, though not necessarily in the way its creators envisaged.
The Constitution was framed to protect the landed and wealthy of the then original 13 Colonies.
It was written by the Founding Fathers to ensure that such landholdings, which in then what what was to become the USA were the wealth of the country, would be left in the hands of those already owning such. In fact many of the Founding Fathers were those very people.
An Electoral College which was constituted to give citizens in less populated and economically unproductive rural states with as many as four times the votes as those as those in more populous and economically productive urban ones, thereby violating the fundamental democratic principle of “one person, one vote;”
It can also be alleged that the college was originally instituted and continues to be maintained for explicitly racist and anti-democratic purposes.
The loser of the popular vote has won the electoral college only five times before 2000. The last time such happened was in the mid 1800’s, long before universal franchise. Now it’s happened twice in 16 years and has enabled, inarguably, the two worst presidents in modern American history, both Republican. Dubya, The Faux Texan and as the Scots have it The Radge Orange Bampot!
A Senate, which until in the early part of the 20th century was not elected, Its members were selected by whatever group had control of a state’s legislature. It is there to protect the landed and wealthy class, as James Madison, a two term President of the USA and who was one of the major proponents of the Bill of Rights said this concerning the establishment of the US Senate and it was clearly anti democratic, “to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority.”*
“The man who is possessed of wealth, who lolls on his sofa or rolls in his carriage, cannot judge of the wants or feelings of the day laborer. The government we mean to erect is intended to last for ages. The landed interest, at present, is prevalent; but in process of time, when we approximate to the states and kingdoms of Europe; when the number of landholders shall be comparatively small, through the various means of trade and manufactures, will not the landed interest be overbalanced in future elections, and unless wisely provided against, what will become of your government?
In England, at this day, if elections were open to all classes of people, the property of the landed proprietors would be insecure. An agrarian law would soon take place. If these observations be just, our government ought to secure the permanent interests of the country against innovation. Landholders ought to have a share in the government, to support these invaluable interests and to balance and check the other. They ought to be so constituted as to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority.
The senate, therefore, ought to be this body; and to answer these purposes, they ought to have permanency and stability. Various have been the propositions; but my opinion is, the longer they continue in office, the better will these views be answered”
*Statement (1787-06-26) as quoted in Notes of the Secret Debates of the Federal Convention of 1787 by Robert Yates.
Thanks. I was aware of the gist but that sets out the purpose with commendable clarity from an authoritative contemporaneous source.
The reform of the Senate in the early 20th C which you mention replaced appointed Senators with elected ones. It cannot be said to have improved it, particularly in recent decades as the extreme partisan conduct of Senators has been highly effective in paralysing the whole of federal government by blocking legislation, appointments and any other business, with the substantial assistance of the completely ridiculous but apparently sacred filibuster convention that can be used to ensure nothing will pass without the support of 60 out of the 100 senators. This gives even greater power to the already heavily skewed representation of smaller and less populated states. The filibuster was seldom used before 1958, became increasingly common to 2004, and then doubled or even trebled its frequency.
Another aspect of the reform of the Senate is the effect it has on the Senate’s function as the forum for impeachment hearings. How the Senate would have treated Trump if it had been filled with appointees who would not have to face elections subsequently we can only guess, but we can see exactly how elected Senators took account of their party loyalties on both occasions Trump was impeached.
The Constitution is currently a dead hand on the politics of the USA as for the Senate is currently divided 50-50 along party lines, due to the Democrat double win in Georgia, also counting the two “independent” senators as Democrats, since they caucus with the Democrats.
Ian Millhiser, writing in Vox, calculates that if you add up the population of states and assign half to each of their two senators, “the Democratic half of the Senate represents 41,549,808 more people than the Republican half.”
41.5 million, more than 10 % of the population in fact c 12.5%, close to 1/8th!
You might think that in a democracy, the party that held that much of an advantage might end up with a solid majority in the Senate, rather than have just barely eked out a 50-50 tie in a body that, taken together, represents the whole country.
Republicans have not won the majority of the votes cast in all Senate races in any election cycle for a long time. Nonetheless, Republicans held majority control of the Senate after the elections of 2014, and 2016 and 2018 and still, after the 2020 races, held 50 of the 100 seats.
The problem in the USA is that though it says United, the States of America are not, so across such much needed legislation, many people, mostly GOP oriented , but some from the Democratic Party, will clutch at their pearls and scream “State’s Rights!”
There are two things needed to occur to bring the USA out of the 18thC into at least the 20thC.
The Electoral College needs be reformed or the US moves to The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact
Also new legislation akin to the Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929, a combined census and apportionment bill passed by the United States Congress 18 June 1929, that established a permanent method for apportioning a constant 435 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives according to each census.
In 1929 the population of the USA was c. 122 million with 48 states it is now c.331 million now with 50 states to which must be added the Federal District of Columbia and the Territories of American Samoa, Guam, Northern Marianas, Puerto Rico and US Virgin Island.
Almost a century on the USA has over twice the the population but with still only 435 seats in the House of Representatives.
The disunity is ramping up because it’s very clear
that Australia’s turning Trumpist in a world that’s ruled by fear,
where the politics is tribal, in a constant state of war
that’s a feral feeding frenzy like we’ve never seen before,
as the government’s imploding, while the egos trapped inside
try to capture some attention in a way that’s typified
by their agitated screeching as the desperation grows
and the polling keeps revealing that they’re really on the nose.
So a message that’s simplistic, if it’s shouted very loud
will then dominate the headlines and attract the rent-a-crowd
who are glancing at their mobiles and their giant-screen TVs
while they’re munching on huge pizzas as they learn their ABCs
from the troglodytes of Murdoch who evangelise on Sky
when the shades of night are falling and the truth does not apply,
so reporting is distorted in a crazy, fake-news space
where democracy is threatened at an escalating pace.
Because when it comes to voters poor old ScoMo’s terrified
that the “quiet ones” are furious and out to tan his hide,
so he’s trumpeting distractions and ignoring all the facts
in an act of desperation, but his nonsense just attracts
disrespect and condemnation at his lack of leadership
in a fractious Coalition that is doing bloody zip
to deliver us a future where we have a sense of hope
as we head for the election down a steep and nasty slope.
Appreciated Gazza.
“How can you happily hand over power, and the resources to which it gives access, to a tribe you’ve been convinced has no legitimate claim to hold it?”
It’s a question that has always been central to any system where elections are supposed to be able to replace the current government. It’s the reason why our Westminister system long ago wisely adopted this phrase to describe the major party not in government:
‘Her Majesty’s loyal opposition’
The essential and unmistakeable point being made is that the loyalty of the opposition to the state is not in question, no matter how much it opposes the ruling party by abything it says or does in Parliament. So far as I know the USA has no equivalent, and we all see how the USA’s Republicans these days rant without restraint about the Democrats as un-American and as traitors.
USA’s Republicans. The bigger they are . . . the harder they fall! Or at least, protest . . .
I don’t think our democracy is under attack from a foreign adversary. Morrison and Dutton constantly ramp up attacks on China and then get surprised when China gives as good as it gets. Perhaps they do it deliberately because having a powerful foreign enemy is good for right-wing governments. Menzies was very good at this with his ‘reds under the beds’ campaigns. Our China policy should be like that of our Southeast Asian neighbours who maintain courteous relations but pushback against any interference.
The Coalition’s foreign policy is ignorant, inept and counter-productive. I think the ALP, whilst remaining a small target for obvious reasons, will have a subtler and more nuanced policy on China and on Asia more generally if they win government.
The woeful state of public discussion on foreign policy is the result of constant cuts over time to our diplomatic capability and the almost disappearance of Asian studies from our universities, so there is no longer a large corpus of people informed on the region.
“I don’t think our democracy is under attack from a foreign adversary.”
I’m not so sure. Rupert Murdoch, for a start.
“Rupert Murdoch, for a start”
Spot on. In fact, IMO, Rupert is the greatest threat to “Western Democracy”, and is rapidly accelerating it’s decline.
I really hope Labor have been seriously thinking how, if they win the election, Murdoch’s media domination can be crushed. The countries where he operates (US, UK and OZ) have all suffered from his right wing assault on our previously more harmonious democracies. After all Australia foisted him on the world, so we should lead the way in massively curtailing him.
I did mean to mention him as a greater threat than China.
well summarised JMNO. imaginary or real – Enemies are vital to them – Khaki elections hav eusually proven good stuff for right wingers.
Agree, over decades since Howard we have been encouraged or given no choice but avert our gaze from our neighbours and region, to view only the UK and US as worthwhile allies and examples to follow; seemingly to reinforce the idea of Anglo-Irish Australia through disappearing any references to not just Asia, but to Ireland and Europe too?
If Murdoch’s foreign owned partisan political playing carbon-copying, propaganda, factoid outlets – meddling in our electoral system by spreading such partisan rote factoid misinformation – to try to swing elections to suit a foreign media mogul – were Russian or Chinese …..
First there has to be the removal of the pernicious influence of NewsCorpse together with the rest of Murdoch’s Minions…
When Murdoch wanted to control more media in the USA the law required that he become a citizen of the USA…he then did so, therefor is no longer an Australian citizen.
Such legislation is needed here in the C of A.
Then thinking about The Moloch’s rags brings to mind that old Soviet Joke…
Нет Правды В Правде…Нет Новостей В Известий!
No Truth in Pravda…No News in Izvestia!
Both of which The Moloch* manages to accomplish in NewsCorpse publication with a compounding of lies and propaganda fit for the Soviet era.
*The Moloch became my particular cognomen for Murdoch as the biblical name of a Canaanite god associated with child sacrifice, through fire or war…in this case with the hacking of a dead girl’s mobile and the gung ho chickenhawk and cheerleading for both the Afghan Imbroglio and the Iraq Fiasco.