Democracy on the Line, cont'd
If you are still not convinced Donald Trump’s words incited the riot at the U.S. Capitol — both before and on January 6th — just ask leaders from around the world, many of whom know a thing or two about rebellions (shout out to Axios for compiling these):
European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell Fontelles: “In the eyes of the world, American democracy tonight appears under siege. This is an unseen assault on U.S. democracy, its institutions and the rule of law. This is not America. The election results of 3 November must be fully respected.”
German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, translated: [The enemies of democracy will find out about these incredible images #WashingtonDC looking forward. Insurgent words turn into violent acts — on the steps of the Reichstag, and now in the #Capitol. The disdain for democratic institutions is devastating.]
German Chancellor Angela Merkel: “These images made me furious and also sad, and I’m quite sure I feel like most friends of the United States, like millions of people who admire America’s democratic tradition. And I regret very much that President Trump since November has not conceded his defeat, and not yesterday either.”
French President Emmanuel Macron: “When, in one of the world’s oldest democracies, supporters of an outgoing president take up arms to challenge the legitimate results of an election, that one idea — that of ‘one person, one vote’ — is undermined.”
United Kingdom Prime Minister Boris Johnson: “Disgraceful scenes in U.S. Congress. The United States stands for democracy around the world and it is now vital that there should be a peaceful and orderly transfer of power.”
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau: “Canadians are deeply disturbed and saddened by the attack on democracy in the United States, our closest ally and neighbor. Violence will never succeed in overruling the will of the people. Democracy in the US must be upheld — and it will be.”
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg: “Shocking scenes in Washington, D.C. The outcome of this democratic election must be respected.”
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi: “Distressed to see news about rioting and violence in Washington DC. Orderly and peaceful transfer of power must continue. The democratic process cannot be allowed to be subverted through unlawful protests.”
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba: “Concerning scenes in Washington, D.C. I’m confident American democracy will overcome this challenge. The rule of law & democratic procedures need to be restored as soon as possible. This is important not only for the U.S., but for Ukraine and the entire democratic world as well.”
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte: “Horrible images from Washington D.C. Dear [Donald Trump], recognize [Joe Biden] as the next president today.”
Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte: “I am following what is happening in #Washington with great concern. Violence is incompatible with the exercise of democratic rights and freedoms. I am confident in the strength and robustness of the institutions of the United States.”
First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon: “The scenes from the Capitol are utterly horrifying. Solidarity with those in [the United States] on the side of democracy and the peaceful and constitutional transfer of power. Shame on those who have incited this attack on democracy.”
Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg: “Unbelievable scenes from Washington D.C. This is a totally unacceptable attack on democracy. A heavy responsibility now rests on President Trump to put a stop to this.”
This is so embarrassing. But even worse were the delighted reactions from people who don’t want us to succeed in the first place. For example, Jürgen Elsässer, the editor of a German far-right magazine, gleefully said, “We were following it like a soccer match.”
A Russian foreign ministry spokesman said, “The events in Washington show that the U.S. electoral process is archaic, does not meet modern standards, and is prone to violations,” while the president of Zimbabwe said the riot “showed that the U.S. has no moral right to punish another nation under the guise of upholding democracy.”
The annual report from Freedom House — a U.S. government-funded nonprofit non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on democracy, political freedom and human rights — called Freedom in the World evaluates the state of freedom in 210 countries and territories. Each country/territory is assigned between 0 and 4 points on a series of 25 indicators, for an aggregate score of up to 100.
In 2018, the theme of the report was Democracy in Crisis, and it said, “Political rights and civil liberties around the world deteriorated to their lowest point in more than a decade in 2017, extending a period characterized by emboldened autocrats, beleaguered democracies, and the United States’ withdrawal from its leadership role in the global struggle for human freedom.”
The report continues, “A long list of troubling developments around the world contributed to the global decline in 2017, but perhaps most striking was the accelerating withdrawal of the United States from its historical commitment to promoting and supporting democracy.”
We received a score of 86 out of 100, which was well below France, Germany and the United Kingdom. This represented an 8-point drop since our score of 94 in 2009. In 2019, the theme of the report was Democracy in Retreat, and it said,
The great challenges facing U.S. democracy did not commence with the inauguration of President Donald Trump. Intensifying political polarization, declining economic mobility, the outsized influence of special interests, and the diminished influence of fact-based reporting in favor of bellicose partisan media were all problems afflicting the health of American democracy well before 2017.
Previous presidents have contributed to the pressure on our system by infringing on the rights of American citizens. Surveillance programs such as the bulk collection of communications metadata, initially undertaken by the George W. Bush administration, and the Obama administration’s overzealous crackdown on press leaks are two cases in point.
At the midpoint of his term, however, there remains little question that President Trump exerts an influence on American politics that is straining our core values and testing the stability of our constitutional system. No president in living memory has shown less respect for its tenets, norms, and principles. Trump has assailed essential institutions and traditions including the separation of powers, a free press, an independent judiciary, the impartial delivery of justice, safeguards against corruption, and most disturbingly, the legitimacy of elections. Congress, a coequal branch of government, has too frequently failed to push back against these attacks with meaningful oversight and other defenses.
Yet again we received a score of 86. The 2020 report, called A Leaderless Struggle for Democracy, may have been the most depressing of all. We again received a score of 86, which was below Italy, Greece, Slovakia, Latvia and Mauritius (a country in East Africa). This one says:
Democracy and pluralism are under assault. Dictators are toiling to stamp out the last vestiges of domestic dissent and spread their harmful influence to new corners of the world. At the same time, many freely elected leaders are dramatically narrowing their concerns to a blinkered interpretation of the national interest. In fact, such leaders — including the chief executives of the United States and India, the world’s two largest democracies — are increasingly willing to break down institutional safeguards and disregard the rights of critics and minorities as they pursue their populist agendas. As a result of these and other trends, Freedom House found that 2019 was the 14th consecutive year of decline in global freedom.
Those in the United States and elsewhere who doubt the value of a foreign policy designed to advance human freedom should realize that no one’s rights are safe when tyranny is allowed to go unchecked. History has shown that the chaotic effects of authoritarian misrule abroad are not confined by national borders, and that authoritarian powers will seek to expand their control by subverting the democratic sovereignty of other states. The same is true in domestic affairs: attacks on the rights of specific groups or individuals in a given country ultimately imperil the liberty of the entire society.
In the 2021 report, Democracy Under Siege, we finally broke our three-year-in-a -row score of 86, but unfortunately not in the right direction. This year, we received a score of 83. I take back what I said earlier. This is by far the most depressing assessment yet:
The final weeks of the Trump presidency featured unprecedented attacks on one of the world’s most visible and influential democracies. After four years of condoning and indeed pardoning official malfeasance, ducking accountability for his own transgressions, and encouraging racist and right-wing extremists, the outgoing president openly strove to illegally overturn his loss at the polls, culminating in his incitement of an armed mob to disrupt Congress’s certification of the results. Trump’s actions went unchecked by most lawmakers from his own party, with a stunning silence that undermined basic democratic tenets.
Only a serious and sustained reform effort can repair the damage done during the Trump era to the perception and reality of basic rights and freedoms in the United States. The year leading up to the assault on the Capitol was fraught with other episodes that threw the country into the global spotlight in a new way. The politically distorted health recommendations, partisan infighting, shockingly high and racially disparate coronavirus death rates, and police violence against protesters advocating for racial justice over the summer all underscored the United States’ systemic dysfunctions and made American democracy appear fundamentally unstable.
Even before 2020, Trump had presided over an accelerating decline in U.S. freedom scores, driven in part by corruption and conflicts of interest in the administration, resistance to transparency efforts, and harsh and haphazard policies on immigration and asylum that made the country an outlier among its Group of Seven peers.
But President Trump’s attempt to overturn the will of the American voters was arguably the most destructive act of his time in office. His drumbeat of claims — without evidence — that the electoral system was ridden by fraud sowed doubt among a significant portion of the population, despite what election security officials eventually praised as the most secure vote in U.S. history. Nationally elected officials from his party backed these claims, striking at the foundations of democracy and threatening the orderly transfer of power.
The exposure of U.S. democracy’s vulnerabilities has grave implications for the cause of global freedom. Rulers and propagandists in authoritarian states have always pointed to America’s domestic flaws to deflect attention from their own abuses, but the events of the past year will give them ample new fodder for this tactic, and the evidence they cite will remain in the world’s collective memory for a long time to come.
In the 2022 Freedom in the World report — which has the depressing title The Global Expansion of Authoritarian Rule — we again received a score of 83, along with this general assessment: “The United States is a federal republic whose people benefit from a vibrant political system, a strong rule-of-law tradition, robust freedoms of expression and religious belief, and a wide array of other civil liberties. However, in recent years its democratic institutions have suffered erosion, as reflected in rising political polarization and extremism, partisan pressure on the electoral process, bias and dysfunction in the criminal justice system, harmful policies on immigration and asylum seekers, and growing disparities in wealth, economic opportunity, and political influence.”
Also, there is this thing called the Social Progress Index, released annually by the Social Progress Imperative, a global nonprofit that provides data on the social and environmental health of societies. The Index assesses 50 metrics of well-being from 163 countries across the globe, everything from nutrition and basic medical care to personal freedom and choice.
We currently rank 28th…behind Estonia and Czechia. In fact, the United States is only one of three countries that is worse off than when the index began in 2011. We share that honor with Brazil and Hungary. We are ranked 44th in Access to Basic Knowledge, 57th in Personal Safety, 42nd in Health and Wellness, 35th in Inclusiveness, and 119th in Environmental Quality.
These reports really, really irritate me. Now, you might ask why these particular reports aggravate me so much. I’m not 100% sure, but I think the answer is that they put an actual score on our present circumstances. I am a highly competitive person and I’ll be damned if my spectacular country is going to get a score of 83 and be ranked 28th in anything. It’s just not going to happen.
…which means we have some serious work to do. And we’ll do it. In the wise words of Abraham Lincoln:
We know how to save the Union.
The world knows we do know how to save it.
We, even we here, hold the power and bear the
responsibility...We shall nobly save
or meanly lose the last best hope of earth...
The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just
— a way which if followed the world will
forever applaud and God must forever bless.