The great American experiment in democracy will survive Trump’s best efforts to end it
When Americans vote for their next president, amid legitimate fears of a disputed outcome leading to legal quagmires and even violence, they know their political system will emerge stronger for meeting the challenge
With only days left before the US presidential election, fears are growing of voter intimidation, drawn-out legal challenges to vote counts, and even the potential for political violence. These concerns are usually reserved for struggling democracies around the world, not a country long considered the leader of the free world.
That leadership position has been thrown into question as the US has withdrawn from a number of multilateral engagements and favoured a myopic nationalism rather than the internationalist orientation the country had followed since the end of World War II. There’s a lot more at stake in this election than just who becomes the next president. Democracy itself is on the ballot.
In far too many places, political freedom is an exception rather than the norm. Over the past 14 years, it has been declining according to Freedom House research. The reasons are many, but the results are the same – the rule of law is weakening in high-, medium-, and low-income countries around the world. The US is not immune to this trend.
The foundations of democracy, including the primacy of government institutions over individual leaders or political parties, have been broken, repeatedly. Just last week, President Donald Trump, through an executive order, sought to strip some career civil service members from employment protections against political interference.
If fully exercised, political appointees could fire long-serving career government personnel without cause. The net result would be a government of, by, and for a political party rather than of the people, as intended by the founders.
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Scuffles broke out between Trump supporters and opponents in New York City
Scuffles broke out between Trump supporters and opponents in New York City
The erosion of liberties can happen gradually, and before realising it, the ground beneath one’s feet has been compromised beyond repair. After years of belittling the media, weakening the federal government by leaving key positions unfilled, failing to stop the Covid-19 pandemic, and centralising decision-making to a handful of White House apparatchiks, the Trump administration has tilted the US off its foundation.
The rest of the world has taken notice. A recent survey by Pew Research Centre of 13 countries, many long considered American allies, revealed median favourable views of the US at 34 per cent. Favourable views plummeted to two-decade lows in Britain, Canada, Australia, Germany, France and Japan.
It may not take much to send the presidential election spiralling into one legal quagmire after another, or for potential violence by armed gangs on the political right or left from taking to the streets to air their grievances over the results. From the White House to the polling stations, people are primed for a contentious election.
But democracy is far from dead. The picture on the ground is quite different than the prevalence of these fears suggest. Voter turnout, according to statistics maintained by the US Elections Project, are running at a historic high, with over 80 million early ballots already cast either in person or by mail, accounting for over half the 2016 total votes cast.
Moreover, widespread awareness of potential problems has increased public debate about election fairness. This transparency is still a hallmark of democratic societies.
As is the fundamental rule of law. The courts have recently ruled in favour of two battleground states giving more time to count mail-in ballots and against an attempt to restrict counting by requiring signature analysis.
Concerns have also been rising about whether Trump, if voted out of office, would agree to the peaceful transition of power, an essential feature of a functioning democracy. Beyond legal challenges to vote counts, there is actually little he could do to thwart the transition process because it is largely delegated to career officials and funded directly by the government.
Even America’s social tensions of 2020, while serious, are not as violently fractious as in the past. Take the civil rights movements of the late 1950s and 1960s. Protesters took to the streets to gain equality for black Americans and women. They were not only tear-gassed, as they were during recent demonstrations demanding police reform, but often ruthlessly beaten by police and arrested en masse.
While social divisions are perhaps the starkest they have been in decades, the political violence that led to the assassinations of president John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Medgar Evers and others, did not end America’s great experiment in self-rule. America grew stronger despite them.
Dr Martin Luther King Jnr (fourth from left) locks arms with his aides as he leads a march of several thousand to the courthouse in Montgomery, Alabama, on March 17, 1965. The assassination of the civil rights leader in 1968 failed to upend the movement. Photo: AP
Democracy is not static or a final destination. It is constantly in flux and must be renewed by citizens exercising their franchise. While the US leadership has been criticised for its support for Saudi Arabia and other authoritarian regimes, for example, it still functions as an example of what can be done when free people voluntarily choose their political leadership.
No system is perfect, and no organisation without fault. It is in the struggle to maintain, and more importantly improve upon, a free political system that democracy itself is maintained.
The fate of US democracy still matters far beyond its borders. Protests against police brutality quickly sprang up around the world soon after US demonstrations over the killing of George Floyd, an unarmed black man choked to death while in police custody.
More recently, demonstrators from Chile to Belarus and Thailand have filled their streets calling for more political freedom, not less. What happens in America does not simply stay in America.
Even Trump’s penchant for right-wing populism has reverberated not only among white supremacist groups in the US, but in the Alternative for Germany party, Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban (who recently endorsed Trump), Britain’s Nigel Farage, and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro.
A common chant in the tumultuous 1960s was that the whole world was watching events unfold as American democracy appeared to fracture under the strains of social tensions.
Half a century later, the world watches again to see if this grand experiment in self-determination will remain intact as an example for others who yearn to be free. So far, despite the self-inflicted wounds of hatred and division, the United States of America remains united.
Brian P. Klein (@brianpklein) is a geopolitical and economic strategist and former US diplomat
