Is human nature suited to democracy?
As the fourth estate goes into overdrive at the prospect of Donald Trump finally facing an indictment in one of four criminal investigations into his anti-democratic behaviour in the lead-up to his election and during his presidency, you’d have to wonder.
“An indictment in New York would mark an extraordinary turn in American history, making Trump the first former president to face a criminal charge,” the AAP intoned, before quoting a CNN pundit who said the prospective indictments were a “shocking event”.
Susan B Glasser in The New Yorker expressed her ambivalence clearer: is charging Trump “ultimately a good thing or a bad thing for the country”?
If your chronically dishonest uncle was finally indicted for his decades-long habit of fiddling the books, would you find it extraordinary? Would you be shocked or filled with any emotion other than relief that a crooked man was finally getting what the rule of law promised?
In what way does the subject being a former US president — and among the Republican frontrunners to reclaim the White House in 2024 — change this straightforward assessment of the rightful relationship between crime and punishment? Unless you think former leaders aren’t like everyone else but are instead super-citizens who deserve more rights and privileges but none of the responsibilities.
Obviously, support for super-citizens runs counter to what small-d democrats say about their principles, which are that “no one is above the law” and “all people are created equal”. But with the progressive punditry buzzing around like fan-flapping gossips at a provincial French court, horrified and scandalised in equal measure that one of their own — someone rich and powerful! — could finally face accountability for their actions, where does the disconnect lie?
The problem is awe. An emotion unique to humans, awe involves dread and even fear mingled with veneration, reverence, devotion and the “inclination to subordinate one’s own interests and goals in deference to those of the powerful leader”, as psychologists Dacher Keltner and Jonathan Haidt write.
A perceptual sense of vastness, such as the presence of someone with immense prestige, can provoke awe, as well as a diminished sense of self and a heightened sense of connectedness with others, which can lead people to accommodate their previous view of the world to better align with that of the leader’s.
We know Trump provoked awe in followers such as his former attorney Michael Cohen, who subsequently told Congress this led him to “do things for [Trump] that I knew were absolutely wrong”.
Is awe of Trump’s power and amoral talent at vengeance causing some in the American media to also run scared, sacrificing their democratic values?
Certainly Glasser’s suggestion that equal justice and the rule of law should be replaced in Trump’s case with a utilitarian calculation — one allowing baseless claims that investigations into the former president may be politically motivated — suggests this is the case.
What lessons does this next stage of the slow-motion car crash of American democracy have for Australia?
The main one is to avoid creating super-citizens. As we see playing out in the US, super-citizens are the bitter harvest of a democracy left too long to rot. Their creation stems from the “soft corruption” problems that researchers identified as undermining Australian democracy more than a decade ago, and that the federal ICAC and other integrity measures must be structured to fix.
These regard campaign finance and transparency reforms that ensure our representatives are working for us and in service of democracy itself, rather than further privilege the wealthy powerbrokers who donate to their campaigns and expect in return legislation that entrenches their fiscal and other advantages. It is this corruption, with its implicit validation of the “some animals are more equal than others” framework, that creates super-citizens, whose privilege can then be maintained by awestruck media pundits and their readers.
Luckily we still have time to fix the vulnerabilities in Australian democracy, although there’s doubt we will. Last Thursday, a motion that would have allowed Australians to know who was having meetings with their representatives and when — so we could draw our own conclusions about the impact such lobbying has on the decisions Parliament makes — was defeated.
Labor and the Coalition were on the side of super-citizens.
I think the basic problem in the USA is that Americans are innately gullible……………….
………..they’ll believe any old bollocks if they see it on TV.
Rational thought is not promoted in their education system. Even the entrance exams for University are multiple-choice – ticking the boxes at random gives you a statistical chance of success. Since the endless demand for TV entertainment has engulfed College Sports (turning it from an amateur pastime into a multi-billion dollar juggernaut), the educational standards have dropped markedly. Colleges are now more focused on doing TV sporting deals than publishing research papers, and attracting potential Football and Basketball stars than trying to find the next Stephen Hawking. Little wonder that the Chinese are creaming them in the technology race.
You can guess the final outcome of such studied insanity.
I used to think that Australians were much more cynical than Americans, and consequently less likely to fall for the bollocks.
Given some of the dingbats that get elected to our various Parliaments, I’m getting awfully dubious.
Time to take all of the private donations out of politics and provide only a reasonable amount of public funding, administered by the AEC, and disposed of by individual voters to the candidate or party of their choice…………
………..and institute at least some basic tests that potential candidates must complete before even being eligible.
I’m not sure our proportion of feeble-minded bootlickers is a whole lot lower than that of the US… I’d put the main difference down as larger and nastier pool of scum training the mugs to lick their boots.
As the USAnian filth continue to educate our filth on the finer points of being filthy scum, expect that gap to narrow.
It’s partly gullibility, but it’s deeper. Inland and southern America are highly religious places, and there is a weird need to find worship. This takes some forms that seem bizarre and contradictory; the TV evangelists, the fundamentalist Christian cults, and the promise of the ‘Saviour’. In this case, it’s Trump, the figurehead of what can only be described as a slightly belated millennium movement. Have a close look at a Trump rally (yeah, I know, but grit your teeth) and observe his followers. Look at interviews with them, in tears, defiant, ignoring all logic, practically on their knees, wearing their caps and T-shirts like crucifixes. That’s religious fervor you’re watching. That’s why this ogre isn’t going away, and its why he’s arguably the most dangerous person that America has produced.
Absolutely agree (although I attribute belief in a “Saviour” to gullibility, so no contradiction).
Trump’s rallies are a cross between old-time Tent Revivalist Preaching and the Nuremberg Rallies, where the “Fuhrer/Saviour” figure is worshipped by his frenzied acolytes. Who knows? Maybe his followers might get carried away with the vibe and volunteer Trump to be nailed to a cross to prove his divinity (and do us all a favour)………………………….
I still maintain that America was founded by the Pilgrim Fathers and never recovered from it………………………
Richard Hofstadter’s 1964 essay “The Paranoid Style in American Politics” has some relevance here. As Wikipedia puts it:
Hofstadter’s article explores the influence of a particular style of conspiracy theory and “movements of suspicious discontent” throughout American History.
The original Harper’s article is available online, no paywall.
Spot on, Thucydides, for a long time, years actually, I have thought donations – both ways- should be put a stop to companies and lobbyists are ruining the country by being given so much power because of donations to parties when it’s the people who should have the power. Of course that would mean making it harder to become a politician, not just any old joe who puts themselves forward and definitely put an end to little family dynasties, no more getting a seat because your dad, mum, grandad or whoever had it – pollies are not royalty so there should be no hereditary seats.
I read somewhere that there are 600 lobbyists with passes to Parliament House…………………..
………for 151 MPs.
Just the amount of time wasted would be extraordinary.
No wonder nothing gets done………………………..
Plenty gets done… for the interests of those 600 lobbyists. For the rest of us? Not so much.
The Australian Constitution has not a single clause that protects the people from executive or judicial over-reach. It was written to do the opposite. As an aside, in the (supposed) democracies around the world, Australia ranks #1 for government secrecy. Secrecy breeds corruption, so no wonder Labor and the Liberals got together to nobble the NACC before it even gets off the ground.
I dilike derogatory generalisations about groups of people and this is one.
It’s not correct, obviously. I read in the quality press (New Daily) that a NSW MP was “arraigned at Nowra District Court on Tuesday – in connection with sexual offending against a teenage boy and a man – while counting in his south coast seat (…)showed he continued to extend his lead.”
Do you get that? A man charged with serious offences is probably about to be elected. In Australia. Nothing has been proven obviously, except that the voters don’t care. If you’re important, do what you like.
Perhaps more relevant or because he is so important, the court case is happening now , not earlier.
There’s plenty of reason to believe that a very large number of Americans do not want or support democracy (where ‘democracy’ is understood to be ‘representative democracy’). Right from the start the American constitution was written to weaken the democratic part. In the last few decades it has come under sustained attack and this has been supported by nearly half of the voters. Measures to deny voting rights have succeeeded, voting has been made more difficult in various ways, gerrymandering has been become highly advanced and widely practised, state election officials have been hounded from office so they can be replaced with party stooges and so on. The USA is moving to the point where voting will be irrelevant in choosing the next president, and the Republicans and all who support that party are looking forward to it.
Trump acted more like a monarch than a president when in office. He still does – asserting he is above the law is as monarchical as it gets – and he still gets wide support. This did not come out of nowhere of course, Nixon made a related claim decades ago and pretty much got away with it. The Americans who support the Republican Party clearly prefer authoritarian government, not one answerable to the people through voting or answerable to the law through the courts.
The Conservative view of democracy is that it is an administrative process for peacefully replacing one ruler with the next, not that it is a mechanism by which the people should have a say.
This is why any result that doesn’t produce another conservative ruler is by definition wrong.
I would add that there are a great many people who probably consider themselves “progressive” that come up as “conservative” by this measure. Eg: how do you view a “hung parliament” ?
What we refer to as a “Hung Parliament” is almost the standard result for most European countries.
What would have happened here if the Belgian situation was to occur?……………………
……….without a government for 589 days.
And probably worked better than with one……………….
With some optimism
A “…“hung parliament” is a thing greatly to be desired, as in most of the civilised countries in Euroland – then we might have some decent governance
Indeed. It would be some progress if the phrase ‘representative democracy’ was replaced by a more accurate one that does not hide the reality.If democracy means anything it should be the common people have the primary political power, but allowing the general public to vote for a representative once every few years has only a tenuous link with ‘democracy’ even when the electoral system is relatively fair and open. This is of course why those with wealth, power and influence usually tolerate it. Elections and political parties are so open to their abuse and corruption they can put up with it most of the time. Inevitably, the ministers that emerge from this system are their creatures. However, they seem to have decided in recent times that even the small inconveniences and concessions required to make this work, such as paying their taxes, are no longer acceptable, so the system must be further weakened to remove all restraints from them and leave government unable to do anything much for the common people, even if it wanted to. Australia is resisting this better than many other so-called representative democracies, perhaps in large part due to compulsory voting, but things are still not good.
SSR, In just nine lines you’ve said it all. Kudos, Madam/Sir.
Your post reminds me of something I heard a BBC journalist say. He thought interviewing Trump would be a horror show but Trump was thoroughly charming at first. Turned out Trump thought the BBC was the Queen’s TV station. Once Trump realized he wasn’t dealing with one of the Queen’s journalists, things proceeded as the journalist initially expected.
In particular, the wrong kind of people
And yet the ‘democracy vs authoritarianism’ meme has been used to justify the deaths of an estimated 12 million souls since 1945.
I see it more as a particularly American problem. The awe in which the President – any president – is held makes him seem more like a medieval king than a temporary office holder. (The same is true of their constitution -it is treated like holy writ, as if all problems could be solved if only they could find what the Founding Fathers really intended).
Judith Brett in her book, Democracy Sausage, pointed out that America has a constitution conceived in the 18th century, where the president to a large extent replaced the role of king. I also think Americans tend to venerate tall poppies, while Australia is move inclined to cut them down to size. Of course, Trump has always been a conman and conmen are great at finding the right marks to exploit.
The Australian Constitution was partly lifted from the American one with some Westminster thrown in. Ours is actually worse when it comes to the rights of the populace.
One of the “problems” is that because voting is voluntary (and relatively difficult), a huge amount of campaigning is focused on simply motivating people to get out and cast a ballot. This is one of the root causes of the personality-cult type politics they have IMHO.
Strange that Americans should fight like rabid dogs for the right to possess weapons whose sole purpose is to kill each other in bulk, yet when faced with the prospect of actually improving their lot, just shrug their shoulders and leave it to the other guy………………..
It can only happen with a compliant media that accept outright lying as a reasonable vehicle of discourse. Thanks for the article
Good article and excellent comment from Thucydides. All sounds familiar except I would have thought that entrance into some of the more ‘prestigious’ institutions would be rigorous and competitive. As for Chinese technological advances, also include India in that statement.
Entrance into the “prestigious” institutions is hereditary, and has been for years………………..
(I was going to include India, but their strong point is in software rather than hardware)
Hereditary, and/or consequent upon a suitable donation to a “Foundation” in the College name…………
Like everything else in America, if you pay enough, you get what you want.
And they think that’s a role-model worth exporting.
*Don’t forget highly organised scamming call centres