The crisis of Western democracy and its consequences

The crisis of Western democracy and its consequences

The crisis that broke out between the US federal administration in Washington and the state of Texas is not surprising. It was preceded by introductions, the most important of which was the escalation of the dispute between the “Democratic” and “Republican” parties regarding how to deal with the increasing migration across the border with Mexico. Texas is the crossing point used by those coming from Mexico to the United States.

At the same time, it is one of the US states most supportive of the Republican Party, which rejects this immigration and insists on preventing it. The elected administration is “republican,” and has great powers like other state administrations according to the American federal system. The two parties, and their respective representatives in Congress, failed to reach a solution that satisfies both of them according to the rules on which Western democracy is supposed to be based.

Instead of objective dialogue, which is one of the most important foundations of this democracy, each party became fanatical in its position, and the dispute turned into a conflict when the “Democrats” rejected a formula for resolving it on the first of last November. Republicans responded by linking their agreement to pass the aid bill to Ukraine to an understanding to provide federal funding to address migration across the border with Mexico.

Texas' representatives in Congress and its representatives in the Senate were at the forefront of those who insisted on this connection. A few days ago, the Democrats began moving to seek approval of a revised draft based on their majority in the Senate, but its passage is not guaranteed in the House of Representatives, where the majority is for Republicans, after the candidate and former President Trump called on them to reject it. With the channels of dialogue blocked in this way, the Supreme Court agreed to the White House’s request to allow the federal Border Patrol forces stationed in Texas to remove the barbed wire installed by the state Border Patrol to prevent the flow of migrants from Mexico.

Then the crisis escalated, and the administration in Texas refused to remove these wires, and the administrations of ten Republican states sent their respective National Guards to support the state of Texas against the guards affiliated with the federal administration. The rest of the Republican states supported the Texas administration in its position, in a way that deepened the social political division that Western democracy had long been said to be the best way to avoid, but here it, and no one else, failed a new test. The failure to manage the dispute over the immigration issue, and other disputed issues in America, has nothing to do with the federal system.

This system works efficiently in a large number of countries, most of which do not accept Western democracy, which is proven day after day to fail in resolving disputes that are easy to settle, and in avoiding crises that are not difficult to avoid. But its failure may be greater and more dangerous this time unless an agreement can be reached between the two American parties in the coming days.

The consequences of this failure, if it continues and escalates further, may not be limited to the political system, and may extend to the cohesion of the American state as well. This is why the claimed superiority of Western democracy requires serious objective review to distinguish between what is real and what is false in it.

*Advisor at Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies