Advertisement
Opinion | 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
Reading Time:4 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
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.
Advertisement
That leadership position has been thrown into question as the US has withdrawn from a number of multilateral engagements and favoured a myopic nationalism rather than the internationalist orientation the country had followed since the end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.
01:42
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.
Advertisement