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Your guide to what the 2024 US election means for Washington and the world
“At 2:24 p.m., sitting alone, Mr. Trump posted a tweet attacking Mr. Pence and inciting a riot. . . A minute later, the United States Secret Service was forced to evacuate Mr. Pence to safety in the Capitol. When the White House adviser found out, he rushed to the dining room and informed Mr. Trump, who replied, ‘So what?'”
It is an excerpt from a recently published one report by special prosecutor Jack Smith to storm the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. Many of Donald Trump’s supporters will find the repetition of that report — just as Trump is being sworn in for a second term — irrelevant. They claim that the American people made their verdict when they went to the polls in November. Democrats campaigned on the idea that Trump was a threat to democracy. Trump still won a clear victory.
That raises an interesting question. Why is “democracy in danger” not a winning argument?
One theory is that voters just don’t care that much. AND poll taken just before the presidential election found that 76 percent of Americans believe that American democracy is in danger. But only 7 percent believe that democracy is the most important issue in the election.
While a majority of both Republicans and Democrats agreed that American democracy is under threat, they seem to have very different views on where the threat is coming from. For Democrats, the threat is Trump; for republicans, it is censorship of the “awakened” elite.
That disagreement underscores an important distinction I heard Pratap Bhanu Mehta, an Indian scholar, make recently in a lecture at the London School of Economics. Mehta argued that there are two competing understandings of the word “democracy” in contemporary politics. The first sees democracy as a method — a way of resolving disputes or conflicts of values. Others see it as a way of empowering citizens — the will of the people.
As Mehta sees it, “democracy needs both values and empowerment”. But when voters feel thwarted rather than empowered by the political system, then they may reject liberal values in favor of a strongman who promises to get things done. Then an illiberal version of “democracy” emerges, which – in the name of the people – attacks the checks and balances that are essential to liberal democracy.
This seems to be happening in the US. opinion poll last week found that two-thirds of Democrats and 80 percent of Republicans believe the government serves itself and the powerful over ordinary people. The vast majority do not trust Congress or the media.
Trump came to power promising to be a powerful leader who would break the power of the corrupt elite and “make America great again.” He has repeatedly claimed that the American system is “rigged” and controlled by the “deep state” that tortures ordinary Americans. In 2016, Trump said at the Republican convention that the American system allows “the powerful [to] beat people who can’t defend themselves”, claiming that “only I can fix it”.
In his last campaign, Trump presented all the legal proceedings against him simply as evidence of the machinations of the deep state. He promised Americans who felt similarly persecuted that “I am your vengeance.”
In certain places, at certain times, powerful rule and illiberal democracy may be popular. IN El SalvadorPresident Nayib Bukele suspended basic rights, jailed 83,000 people under martial law, sent troops to Congress and was accused of allowing torture, killings and enforced disappearances. But El Salvador’s crime rate plummeted and Bukele was re-elected in a landslide.
El Salvador’s leader succinctly summed up the credo of illiberal democracy when he told the UN: “Some say we have imprisoned thousands, but in reality we have freed millions.” Bukele has been praised by leading Trump supporters, including Elon Musk and Tucker Carlson.
One possible development to watch when Trump takes office is if the future US president seeks to emulate Bukele or Hungary’s Viktor Orbán by declaring state of emergency this would allow him to suspend the normal operation of the law. If Trump seeks emergency powers, liberals will sound the alarm. But they should prepare for the possibility that many ordinary Americans, like ordinary Salvadorans or Hungarians, might approve.
If supporters of liberal democracy want to win the political battle, anger and resistance will not be enough. They will have to defeat the arguments of powerful leaders and illiberal democrats.
President Biden started the process late in his farewell address from the White House, when he warned that the US was being taken over by an oligarchy. Liberals must also show that strong rulers seek to empower themselves and their friends, not the people. Corruption is an almost inevitable consequence.
In the coming months and years, Trump’s opponents will have to relentlessly explain the consequences of oligarchic power and the rule of the powerful for ordinary Americans. There will probably be plenty of corruption and self-dealing to point out.
If Trump’s opponents can make their case while protecting the integrity of the electoral system, a liberal version of democracy may still prevail in the end.
