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Your guide to what the 2024 US election means for Washington and the world
Will American democracy survive a second Donald Trump presidency? This is not a theoretical question. Trump is clearly following the popular playbook for turning liberal democracy into nothingness. The latter is a symbol of tyranny – a government in which decisions depend on the will of one person who is not accountable to anyone.
To Spirit of DemocracyyStanford’s Larry Diamond argued that a liberal democracy consists of free and fair elections, the protection of civil and human rights of all citizens equally, and the rule of law binding all citizens to enough. Now these are the “rules of the game”. But the effectiveness of those laws depends on restrictions on those who control the country temporarily. Such important obstacles are the judiciary, political parties, bureaucrats and the media. The question is whether these will last, first while Trump is president and then for a long time.
In a recent interview with The New Republic, Harvard’s Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, authors of How Democracies Dienote that the old method of “collective abdication” or “institutional suicide” before taking over the authoritarian regime has long passed. Trump has taken over the Republican party. His control over his electoral base has led him to condone the “big lie” that he won the 2020 election. The Supreme Court has decided that the president is not charged with a crime because of his “official acts”, the doctrine that the British King gives. Jonathan Sumption insists on placing the president above the law, and in fact more like a king than a citizen. Not least, we already see strong people, like Mark Zuckerbergkneel before their new ruler.
What scares them? That the president will arm the government machinery against them. That is what he and the people around him plan to do. His choices convey such a strong impression. So, too, do plans to replace the administration with Trump loyalists mentioned at the Heritage Foundation’s. “Project 2025”. Such loyalty would be a powerful weapon of a dictatorship. It can make the executive obey the president instead of obeying the laws they are supposed to enforce.
Timothy Snyder of Yale, an expert on 20th-century European dictatorships, describes the names to head the departments of health, justice and defense, as well as to lead the intelligence services. such as “decapitation strike”. Another reason is because their ignorance and wickedness can cause great harm to the functioning of the government. It is also because the threat to politicize the federal government, including the law, against “the enemy from within” it can seriously damage democracy.
All of this, including Levitsky and Ziblatt, is typical behavior of would-be dictators. They fall under the broad headings of “winning the umpires” and “putting the players aside”. Among the first will be some judicial reforms at all levels. Among the latter will be attacks of various kinds on independent media organizations, journalists, educational institutions and publishers.
Besides all this, remember the great plan to remove undocumented immigrants. This seems to combine many aspects of the new approach into one. Displacing millions of people will require a massive military operation, large-scale intervention in national and local areas, the establishment of large concentration camps, suppression of protests, and finding countries in which to I abandoned people who fled their homes.
Can all this happen? Maybe. But the combination of such confusion and what could also be a major economic upheaval could turn public opinion sharply against Trump, who has limit of votes of only 1.5 percentage points and it was never very popular. Although he has ardent supporters, he also has ardent detractors. Moreover, if the constitution holds, it only has this time. Overall, his hold on public opinion and his party may be weakening from now on. Trump’s ability as a populist demagogue is unique: it is possible that the party will find it impossible to achieve sufficient change in 2028. His coalition also shows signs of collapse: Christian and indigenous peoples. they are not natural beds of “tech plutocrats”, like Elon Musk.
At that point it is likely that any pressure on Trump’s administration will reach further and create more confusion, even among ordinary people. After all, the finalists have not been affected by it. It will take courage for people to gather. But we must hope that the American people will not forsake their country’s tradition of freedom and enlightenment before the onslaught of today’s powerful and reactionary adversaries. Yet it is now a deeply divided country, where polls show that many Americans have lost faith in their democracy. If that cannot be fixed, democracy itself may fail. (See charts.)
The important question now is how far the institutions of liberal democracy, especially those governing elections, will survive. Many of Trump’s supporters, as well as Trump himself, will fear retribution for the “retribution” they want to introduce. This gives them a huge incentive to break the voting rules of the game, with the help of the jury.
If they were to succeed in disrupting US national elections, it would be “game over”. The consequences of that worldwide would be dire. Without an active US commitment to democracy, the health of liberal democracies in the world would be in serious jeopardy.
The famous Benjamin Franklin said that the US is a “republic if you can keep it”. We can find out quickly if it can.
