A little more than a century after the American president Woodrow Wilson promised to make “the world safe for democracy” by committing troops in the first world war, the US is now in a fight to keep its own democracy safe.
The images of the 6 January siege on the US Capitol offer a stunning portrait of US democratic fragility. A violent mob, bearing red Trump flags alongside a menagerie of extremist insignias, overran police and ransacked the seat of government after attending a nearby Trump rally. Republican congressional leaders, after some initial mealy mouthed attempts to condemn Donald Trump for his role in the rally, have since gone quiet, hoping that if they cover their ears, avert their eyes, and play “culture war” instead, they can avoid a reckoning. This is reflected most starkly in congressional Republicans’ refusal to support a bipartisan commission to examine the events of 6 January. Worse, some elected Republicans have rewritten history in record time by recasting the mob as akin to peaceful tourists. In the long history of democratic declines, a telltale alarm is when partisan leaders refuse to address violent actions by their supporters, thus effectively condoning and even welcoming them.
But even more worrying are the initiatives that numerous Republican-controlled states have enacted since 6 January to curtail methods of voting preferred by Democratic constituencies and to both pressure and circumvent election administrators. These changes are transparent attempts to make it harder for Democrats to win elections. However, Republican lawmakers cite unproven claims of “fraud” and claim that they are simply trying to ensure “electoral integrity”. And yet, respected election experts have repeatedly declared the 2020 election extremely secure and free of major fraud. Meanwhile, Trump looms large, lathering falsehoods and smearing insults with astonishing adhesion.
As a system of government, democracy has proven quite long-lasting in the United States, though it has evolved and changed considerably since its 1789 vintage. A good part of the reason is that whatever its disappointments and shortcomings, American political elites have remained committed enough to democracy’s basic principles – accepting the legitimacy of political opponents, and accepting that parties can lose elections fair and square. In practice, this means not using power to restrict the civil liberties and voting rights of political opponents, and not declaring electoral losses illegitimate and responding with violence.
The Republican party of 2021, and especially its leaders, have now abandoned those principles. At a national level, they have refused to accept the legitimacy of the 2020 election results, and encouraged or condoned violence. At a state level, they have abused their power to change the rules in ways that restrict voting rights. Though these anti-democratic sentiments have been building within the ranks of the party for years, the events of 2021 mark the transformation of the Republican party into a genuinely illiberal party, and a grave threat to the continuation of American democracy as we’ve known it.
Given the widespread popularity of the Republican party, combatting the challenge that the party poses is formidable. As Trump and his supporters are fond of pointing out, 74 million Americans voted for him, and you can’t simply dismiss 74 million Americans. Roughly equal numbers also voted for Republican candidates for state and federal offices as well.
However, part of the reason for this support is because in the American two-party system, voters have but two effective choices. And for voters who don’t identify with the Democratic party, there is but one alternative. Precisely because there is only one alternative, Republican politicians and strategists have worked especially hard over recent decades to leave themselves as the only option for many voters by disqualifying Democrats as radical and extremist, a messaging mission that has latched on to and amplified latent anti-immigrant sentiments and longstanding racial resentments among non-college-educated whites. By framing Democrats as a cadre of immigrants and black Marxists who want to radically remake America, Republicans have also given themselves a strong justification for preventing Democrats from winning elections, by whatever means necessary. Historically, anti-democratic parties have frequently used these kinds of high stakes fights about preserving national identity and character as a pretense for consolidating power.
In the immediate term, Democrats must use their narrow majorities to pass democracy reforms that guarantee and protect the right to vote and prohibit state partisan electoral manipulations. In particular, Democrats must pass the comprehensive For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, which collectively would legally prohibit the most anti-democratic initiatives being pursued by Republicans, as well as more broadly regulate campaign finance and ethics. This will mitigate some of the most urgent threats.
But even with these reforms, American democracy still cannot survive without a conservative party committed to free and fair elections and the basic principles of democracy. This leaves three possibilities. The first is a Republican party that somehow returns to “normal”. But as the most illiberal Trumpist elements continue to rise within the party, and elected Republicans at both the state and national level continue to emphasize divisive culture-war fights and conspiracy theories, such a return seems about as unlikely as an alien invasion.
The second possibility is a complete collapse of the Republican party, and the emergence of a new more reasonable party in its place. This also seems highly fanciful, given the winner-take-all nature of the American electoral system, and its punishing obstacles for upstart third parties.
This leaves us with a third possibility: a second round of voting reforms that remove single-winner districts and allow new parties to emerge and gain representation through multimember districts with proportional representation. Under such a system, new center-right parties could emerge that are both committed to democracy and not trapped in white grievance politics. This may seem improbable as well, but it is likely the only feasible path forward. A two-party system can only work with two parties that believe in democracy. When one party stops believing, the center cannot hold. The only way to preserve American democracy in the long run may be to recast in the short run.
Source: US Politics - theguardian.com
