Democracy is at stake in this election, we’re told. But the word “democracy” does not even cover it.
It’s more than just elections and voting, it’s the kind of society we have. One that respects every individual’s human dignity and maximizes their scope to flourish. The role of government being to promote that; politics the means by which we achieve it. Through civil discourse, with diverse voices all equally entitled to participate. And rule of law applying even — especially — to government, which is accountable to the citizenry. All this comprises a democratic culture. A good society.
I have closely observed American governance and politics for six decades, and for all the cynicism on this score, until lately we had succeeded remarkably well at sustaining and even broadening and improving that kind of democratic culture. It’s a fairly modern invention, a rare and precious thing in world annals.
Traditional authoritarian societies differ. Not the state existing to serve people, but the other way ’round, people as tools of the state. Notionally for the common good, but that’s a charade, because it’s really for the good of those in control, with no accountability.
In China, for example, Communist party autocrats reign supreme, again supposedly serving the people, but actually to perpetuate their own power. With rule by law rather than rule of law — that is, law a means to control people, not protect them. From the state least of all.
All this is what we’re really talking about when we say democracy is at stake in November. Trump promises to be a dictator but only on Day One. No dictator has ever relinquished power on Day Two. While most of what spews from his mouth is bullshit, this had better be taken seriously.
Evidenced by the record of his prior time in office, with repeated hammer blows against civic decency, democratic culture and the rule of law. Culminating in his conspiracy to overthrow his election defeat and retain power regardless, inciting a violent assault on the Capitol. (Hitler too had tried to seize power violently, before gaining it by other means.)
Some might say our system has checks and balances (and, yes, rule of law) to constrain such a would-be transgressor. But if anything, Trump’s history thus far shows how fragile all that actually is. His coup attempt failed — but really only by the skin of our teeth.
Britain has operated under the “Good Chap” theory of government, with an assumption that everyone will do what’s basically right. Boris Johnson drove a truck through that theory, and Trump has done likewise here. Any “good chaps” remaining in his Republican party have gone to ground. If he succeeds in escaping accountability for all his vast catalog of past wrongs, and despite it all returns to power, nothing will stop him from anything.
And don’t imagine having a “strongman” wouldn’t be so bad. That never ends well. A Trump return would be the death of the kind of virtuous democratic culture and civic decency I’ve described.
One of its great benefits has been that people needn’t worry much about politics — because in that sort of society they’re safe from it. Thus most Americans have not needed to pay close attention, with politics relegated to a dim blur at the peripheries of their lives. A big cause of their obliviousness to the danger of losing that very luxury.
The importance of politics has indeed blown up in the Trump era. This itself is a bad, dangerous thing, which tends to feed on itself, driving people to ever greater reactionary extremism. Great Britain has been similarly plagued by political turmoil triggered by the 2016 Brexit vote (to leave the European Union). Sir Keir Starmer, likely to win their next election, has said the problem with political populism and nationalism is that “it needs your full attention . . . And that’s exhausting, isn’t it?” He promises a de-escalated politics that “treads a little lighter on all of our lives.”
We’d hoped for that in electing President Biden in 2020, a key reason why he won. Wanting to get back to normal, where politics could safely be returned to the back burners of our minds, rather than being so much in our faces.
Alas, of course, the demon is not done with us, his legions of deluded enablers making sure of that. Exorcism is hard.
