The Observer (2022-01-09)

The Observer

Focus 09.01.22 33

The epic struggle for

America’s soul is only

just getting started

BELOW
Hardliners
want Liz Cheney
ejected from the
Republican party
for investigating
the Capitol
insurrection.
AP

ABOVE

June 2020: Mark

and Patricia

McCloskey point

guns at BLM

protesters in

St Louis. Laurie

Skivran/AP

FAR LEFT

The Robert E

Lee statue in

Richmond,

Virginia, which

was removed in

September 2021.

INSET

Protests in June

2020 after the

death of George

Floyd.

LEFT

The storming of

the Capitol in

2021.

Rex, Reuters,

Getty

I

s democracy in America

really on the brink of col-

lapse? A lot of serious peo-

ple appear to think so. Last

week’s fi rst anniversary of

the Capitol Hill insurrec-

tion, viewed by Democrats as a coup

attempt incited by Donald Trump,

has sparked a torrent of nerv-

ous speculation that it could hap-

pen again before, during or after the

2024 presidential election – and that

next time, the coup may succeed.

One unhappy fact underpins

this alarming scenario: many, per-

haps most, voters have lost trust in

the democratic system that governs

them. A majority of Republicans

believe Trump’s “big lie” – that

Joe Biden stole the 2020 election.

Democrats cite elections in 2000

and 2016 when Al Gore and Hillary

Clinton respectively won the popu-

lar vote but were denied the presi-

dency. Each side accuses the other of

fraud and bad faith.

A new USA Today/Suffolk

University poll found eight in 10

Republicans, Democrats and inde-

pendents are worried about the

future of American democracy. But

they disagree over the causes – and

who’s to blame : 85% of Democrats

call the Capitol rioters “criminals” ;

two-thirds of Republicans believe

“they went too far but had a point”.

“Only free and fair elections

in which the loser abides by the

result stand between each of us

and life at the mercy of a despotic

regime,” warns Harvard law profes-

sor Laurence Tribe. But increasingly,

for today’s politicians honourable

defeat is a wholly foreign concept.

This chronic loss of institutional

trust and credibility, also tainting a

politicised, conservative-dominated

supreme court, refl ects a society

more openly riven by longstanding

cultural, racial and religious ani-

mosities – and one in which

income, wealth and

health inequalities are

growing. These divi-

sions are in turn

wilfully exacer-

bated by right-

wing broadcast

and online media,

bloggers and

internet trolls.

A Republican

party mostly in thrall

to Trump’s lies, delu-

sions and conspiracy theories is cre-

ating a world of “alternative facts”,

says columnist Thomas Friedman.

If they succeed in replacing truth,

“America isn’t just in trouble. It is

headed for what scientists call ‘an

extinction-level event’”.

Jedediah Britton-Purdy, a

Columbia law professor , is similarly

apocalyptic. “One thing Democrats

and Republicans share is the belief

that, to save the country, the other

side must not be allowed to win ...

Every election is an existential cri-

sis,” he wrote.

“We should stop underestimat-

ing the threat facing the country,” a

grim New York Times editorial thun-

dered last week. “January 6 is not

in the past; it is every day. It is reg-

ular citizens who threaten election

offi cials, who ask ‘when can we use

the guns?’, who vow to murder pol-

iticians who dare to vote their con-

science. It is Republican lawmakers

scrambling to make it harder for

people to vote and subvert their will

if they do. It is Trump who stokes

the fl ames of confl ict.” Democracy, it

said, was in “grave danger”.

Systemic violence that over-

whelms conventional politics may

be near at hand. “ We are closer to

civil war than any of us would like

to believe,” says Barbara Walter, a

California politics professor.

No one is talking about a re make

of the 1861-65 US civil war. Instead,

as in Ukraine or Libya, an “open

insurgency” , as defi ned by Walter,

would likely involve (at least ini-

tially), militias and their support-

ers pursuing forms of asymmetrical

warfare – terrorist acts, bombings,

assassinations, kidnappings. That

said, echoes of Confederate-era

secessionism are once again heard

in Texas and elsewhere.

When the warlike rhetoric of

Charlottesville-style paramili-

tary white supremacists, the high

nationwide incidence of gun owner-

ship and, for example, worries about

far-right cells within the US military

are factored in, civil war scenarios

do not appear so implausible.

“Only a spark is needed, one

major domestic terrorist event that

shifts the perception of the country,”

analyst S tephen Marche wrote last

week. Marche quotes a military his-

tory professor and Iraq war veteran,

Col Peter Mansoor, who tells him: “It

would not be like the fi rst civil war,

with armies on the battlefi eld. I think

it would very much be a free-for-all,

neighbour on neighbour, based on

beliefs and skin colours and religion.

And it would be horrifi c.”

So what is to be done?

Columbia’s Britton-Purdy says

America’s democracy is failing

because it is not democratic enough.

Old saws about the “tyranny of the

majority”, propagated by founding

father James Madison, among oth-

ers, are redundant. The electoral col-

lege, which can override the popular

vote, should be abolished, the fran-

chise widened, and constitutional

amendments curbing money in pol-

itics, banning gerrymandering and

enshrining abortion rights should

be voted on by all, he argued.

Cynthia Miller-Idriss, author

of Hate in the Homeland , says a

key problem is the “mainstream-

ing of far-right extremism” during

Trump’s presidency. She advocates

investment to strengthen communi-

ties and improve media literacy and

education. Friedman wants corpo-

rate America to cut funding to anti-

democratic Republicans. “Civil war

is bad for business,” he wrote. Just

look at Lebanon.

Senator Bernie Sanders says rad-

ical change is the only answer.

“At a time when the demagogues

want to divide us ... we must build

an unstoppable grassroots move-

ment that helps create the kind of

nation we know we can become,” he

says. Yet many Americans, includ-

ing moderate Democrats, fi nd the

progressive left’s “transformational”

agenda deeply disturbing.

H

arvard’s Laurence

Tribe and fellow

lawyers say that for

democracy and the

rule of law to sur-

vive, there must

be accountability. That requires,

in addition to the Congressional

inquiry, “a robust criminal investi-

gation” into all those responsible for

6 January – including Trump. In a

tougher than usual speech marking

the anniversary, Biden condemned

“the former president’s web of lies”

• but gave no hint of legal or other
  action to punish or restrain him.
  What would Alexis de Tocqueville ,
  author of the famous study,
  Democracy in America , make of the
  present-day US? The French aris-
  tocrat and political scientist trav-
  elled the country in 1831-2, talking
  to people about governance and citi-
  zenship. He concluded, broadly, that
  democracy was an unstoppable, lev-
  elling historical trend that would
  eventually conquer the world.
  Until relatively recently, many in
  the west still held to that view. Now,
  with the rise of China and other
  powerful authoritarian regimes,
  optimism is fading – and America,
  the global paradigm, is itself under
  the reactionary hammer. Has De
  Tocqueville’s dream been exploded?
  Not yet. The epic struggle for
  America’s democratic soul is
  just getting started. For a watch-
  ing world, the stakes are high, too.
  Where would Britain, Europe and
  all the globe’s democracies, actual
  and aspiring, be without the fl awed
  but inspiring US example, without
  the “arsenal of democracy” to justify
  and fortify their political universe?
  Best ask Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin
  and other despots. They are betting
  the ranch on the failure of American
  democracy – and aim to profi t
  greatly thereby.

unsympathetic might all become

potential assassination targets.

“I could also imagine situations

where militias, in conjunction with

law enforcement in those areas,

carve out little white ethnostates in

areas where that’s possible because

of the way power is divided here in

the United States. It would certainly

not look anything like the civil war

that happened in the 1860s.”

W

alter notes

that most

people tend

to assume

civil wars

are started

by the poor or oppressed. Not so.

In America’s case, it is a backlash

from a white majority destined to

become a minority by around 2045,

an eclipse symboli sed by Barack

Obama’s election in 2008.

The academic said: “The groups

that tend to start civil wars are the

groups that were once dominant

politically but are in decline. They’ve

either lost political power or they’re

losing political power and they truly

believe that the country is theirs by

right and they are justifi ed in using

Simon

Tisdall

COMMENT

Continued on page 34

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