There is a ghost in America, the ghost of the autocracy. For the rest of the world, Donald Trump may have fallen off the screen since he was voted out of the White House and banned from Twitter and Facebook. But in the US, Trump is ubiquitous. One authoritative Washington voice after another warns of his return and another attack on American democracy.
No one portrayed the danger as sharply as Robert Kagan, in late September. In a chilling essay for the Washington Post the Republican insider and ideologue makes two main points.
One: Trump will be the Republican presidential candidate in 2024. The hopes that he would lose visibility and influence prove vain. Trump leads the polls, has a huge war chest and keeps the party in his grip. The few Republicans who spoke out against the January 6 Capitol coup attempt are being made miserable.
Two: Trump and his allies are systematically preparing the ground to secure a 2024 election victory by any means necessary. With the amateurism of 2020 it will be done. At the local and state level, fair counting safeguards are being demolished. In Arizona, the state parliament already gave itself the right to determine the election results determined by the state government to slide aside.
Kagan’s conclusion: “The stage is set for chaos. Think of weeks of mass protests in multiple states, where lawmakers from both sides claim victory and accuse their opponents of an unconstitutional coup. Supporters of both sides are likely to be better armed and more willing to commit violence than they were in 2020. Would governors call in the National Guard? Would President Biden place the Guards under his authority and send troops to Texas, Pennsylvania or Wisconsin to quell the violence?”
Disruptive forces that affect us worldwide strongmen brought, have not disappeared
To avoid tyranny, the drafters of the American Constitution (1787) counted on the separation of powers between the president, Congress and Supreme Court and on diverging interests between the then thirteen states. No one foresaw that loyalty to a nationwide party and charismatic leader would make this ancient… checks and balances would trump on a bad day.
Trump’s passions and paranoia have been heard more than once in American history: suspicion of Washington, fear of loss of values, concerns about poverty, white racism. What makes Trump unique is that for millions of Americans he himself is the answer to their fears and resentments. This is a stronger bond between leader and followers than ever seen in the US.”
Individual Republican politicians are thus faced with a choice: either go along with the autocratic seizure of power by Trump cs out of short-term self-interest, or devote all their energy to saving American democracy. For now, very few acknowledge the seriousness.
A similar distress call is heard from the Democratic side. Ben Rhodes, former Obama speechwriter, said last week: “We pretend that there is a battle going on in America between two parties. In reality, the struggle is between democracy and autocracy. […] We are much further along the authoritarian path than many dare to admit.”
While Kagan focuses on the domestic power mechanism, Rhodes . examines in his narrative book After the Fall (2021) the social, economic and technological trends that created the conditions for ‘Trump’ in the US – but just as much in Hungary for Orbán or in Russia for Putin. The liberal triumphal year of 1989 was followed by a cold shower: “After three decades of unstoppable American capitalism, military might and technological innovation, the forces of history have turned against democracy, returning old forms of nationalism and social control in new packaging. .”
The Netherlands and Europe have little influence on the choice between autocracy and democracy in the US. However, the black scenario there must be part of every future scan here. Also in domestic politics: the disruptive forces that affect us worldwide strongmen brought have not disappeared. However, they can be combated more vigorously. With stricter regulation of social media, of which the inciting revenue model has been sufficiently exposed. By maintaining our welfare states, buffers against a poverty trap that many Americans and Hungarians lack. And with defending democracy against autocrats within Europe, of which Prime Minister Rutte will want to remind his Polish and Hungarian colleagues at the EU summit this week. The ghosts have not disappeared here either.
Luke of Middelaar is a political philosopher, historian and professor of EU law (Leiden).
A version of this article also appeared in NRC in the morning of October 20, 2021
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