General Discussion

Bundbuster

(4,018 posts) Thu May 23, 2024, 04:56 PM May 2024

If Democracy Dies, So What?

https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/democracy-vs-authoritarianism

Time magazine’s Eric Cortellessa, for instance, recently interviewed Trump to find out what he would do in a second term. The answer, in broad outline, is an imperial presidency that would reshape the country. He would deport millions of people, build migrant detention camps, and deploy the US military both at the border and in the country’s interior. He would allow red states to monitor and prosecute women who seek abortions. He would dictate to the Department of Justice and fire any US Attorney who defies his orders. He would pardon his supporters who attacked the US Capitol and punish his enemies. He would replace existing federal civil servants with political supporters. In short, Cortellessa reports, the 2024 election could amount to a revolution that brings about, in the words of historian Douglas Brinkley, “the end of our democracy.”

Unfortunately, Trump’s MAGA-dominated Republican Party has abandoned democracy to become the party of authoritarian rule. Election 2024 is their final battle to “demolish the deep state,” to “drive out the globalists,” to “cast out the communists … and radical-left thugs that live like vermin,” to “rout the fake-news media,” to “throw off the sick political class that hates our country.” The real threat, Trump proclaims, “is from within,” from the “radical left.” Joe Biden, in Trump’s upside-down rhetoric, is “the true threat to democracy.” As political historian Federico Finchelstein notes, “This is how fascists campaign.” Indeed, Robert Reich observes, Trump has begun to “signal his embrace of fascism.”

Criticism of Joe Biden’s policies, or even concern for his age, is not the problem. Indeed, a healthy democracy engages in spirited debate and is marked by the serious contestation of divergent viewpoints. The problem instead is that translating such concerns and serious differences into a decision not to vote, or even to vote for a third candidate, amounts to a vote against democracy. The 2024 election is a referendum on Joe Biden only insofar as he represents the alternative to authoritarian rule. This election is not a choice between candidates of the two major parties both of whom affirm democratic values. The choice is between constitutional democracy and autocracy. If the candidate for democracy wins, the politics of persuasion in a pluralistic polity and governance by checks and balances continue; if he loses, rule by demagoguery and coercion begins.

These are apocalyptic times that test the country’s democratic will. The conceit of white dominion that festers at the base of Trump’s candidacy is at war with the aspirations of a diverse people. The outcome of this prophetic struggle between authoritarian demagoguery and democratic persuasion hinges on this year’s general election. Whether democracy dies slowly or is dispatched quickly should it suffer electoral defeat in November, its demise will impact Americans adversely, more grievously than they expect. Life under authoritarian rule is stifling and harsh. It subdues aspirations, demolishes the freedoms and rights we prize, rescinds the material benefits we take for granted, defaults to coercion, and crushes morale. Alternatively, a coalition opposed to tyranny can still disagree with one another and advocate for competing policies while working together to reawaken the people’s stake in a democratic future and to turn out a decisive majority in November.