US democracy is alive and well: Trump was duly elected, then ejected

The storming of Congress by Trump supporters was an aberration and doesn’t define US democracy
Every time the United States’ global image is tarnished, it picks itself up. This time will be no different with Biden as president after four turbulent years of Trump

Michael Chugani

Published: 6:15am, 21 Jan 2021

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By the time you read this, Joe Biden will be the new occupant of the White House. Donald Trump, who said he wouldn’t attend Biden’s swearing-in as the next United States president, is likely to be brooding at his Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida.

At the time of writing, Biden’s inauguration, scheduled for Thursday 1am Hong Kong time, hadn’t happened yet. The Capitol, which houses the Congress, has become a fortress to prevent another storming by Trump supporters.

But violence or not, I know I will wake up this morning to the news that Biden’s swearing-in at the Capitol has gone ahead. Otherwise, I will eat humble pie. To me, a successful inauguration during one of the darkest times in US history is more than a triumph of democracy.

Many have declared the demise of American democracy, some gleefully, others mockingly, after the storming of Capitol Hill. The Global Times headlined it America’s “Waterloo” and quoted Chinese experts as saying the incident marked the fall of the “beacon of democracy”.

An opinion piece in China Daily said the attack on the Capitol building “exposes rot in American democracy”. Some on Chinese social media compared the attack with the July 1, 2019 storming of the Hong Kong Legislative Council.

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Authoritarian states had a field day. Iranian President Hassan Rowhani described Western democracy as a failure. Konstantin Kosachev, head of the foreign affairs committee in Russia’s upper house, said American democracy “is obviously limping on both feet”.

It is not the first time the US has been written off as a declining power. That happened when former president George W. Bush mired the US in the “war on terror”. And again during the 2008 financial crisis.

Despite dark day at Capitol, promise of US democracy burns bright

But every time America’s global image is tarnished, it picks itself up. Barack Obama helped the US do that when he replaced Bush. I am betting Biden will do likewise after four turbulent years of Trump.

I didn’t vote for Trump but supported some of his policies, such as fair trade and rejecting China’s claims to the South China Sea. But his handling of the coronavirus and courting of the right-wing extremists who stormed the Capitol provided fodder for taunts that US democracy is inferior to authoritarian rule.

Those who say Western democracy is dying are clueless about what democracy means. Democracy put Trump in the White House and democracy ejected him. And the storming of Congress, an aberration, doesn’t define it.

Those who have likened the storming of Congress to the storming of Legco don’t get it. Trump supporters believed that fraudulent voting had “stolen” the election. They attacked Congress to defend democracy. Those who condemned the attack likewise believed they were defending democracy from people who wanted to overturn a democratic election.

Are we witnessing the start of the third American revolution?

Not that I condone it, but those who stormed Legco were fighting for the democracy Hong Kong doesn’t have. Get it?

Twisting facts is the mainstay of those without a moral duty to respect facts. It’s one thing for Chinese netizens to falsely claim that US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi described the Legco storming and violent protests as “a beautiful sight to behold”.

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But when the mainland media and the foreign ministry echo such falsehoods, they are on thin ice with claims that the Capitol attack means the US has lost the moral authority to champion democracy.

Without naming Pelosi, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying criticised the use of “beautiful sight” to describe the Hong Kong protests.

For the record, Pelosi used the phrase “a beautiful sight to behold” twice. The first time, she was describing the peaceful candlelight vigil on June 4, 2019 to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen crackdown. That was indeed a beautiful sight compared to the bloody Tiananmen crackdown on June 4, 1989.

The second time, she was referring to the peaceful march of 1 million people in Hong Kong on June 9. Both comments came before the Legco storming on July 1.

Far from dying, Western democracy is full of life, as evidenced by mainland Chinese flocking to US universities and Hongkongers taking up Britain’s offer of eventual citizenship.

Michael Chugani is a Hong Kong journalist and TV show host