No more happy talk about the "uniquely American transition of power." Trump presidency and this post-election period confirm that the US is *less* committed to democratic norms - and has *weaker* institutional safeguards for democracy - than peer wealthy democracies.
I asked a German diplomat friend to detail the safeguards against, say, a German chancellor trying to extend her tenure despite losing an election. He replied that such a thing was utterly impossible, he couldn't begin to enumerate the reasons why. And he was right of course.
Nobody wondered, "Will Gordon Brown or Theresa May leave office if defeated?" Ditto the Netherlands, New Zealand, and newer democracies like Portugal or South Korea. Democratic culture is deep, and election law is administered impartially. For all the boasting, not true in USA
Normally, inauguration day is a day of self-congratulation. This next one should be a day of self-reflection - and commitment to self-improvement. The US not only lags other democracies - it has regressed even by its own standards. Time for a new era of reform.
And reform begins with acceptance of some grim and unwanted realities.
The problems are not "on both sides."
The illiberal authoritarianism of some dean of students somewhere is not equivalent to illiberal authoritarianism by the Attorney General of the United States.
Renewal of democratic institutions in the United States should be *non*-partisan - outside the everyday work of government - but cannot be *bi*-partisan when one party is so committed to (or frightened of) the individual leading the attack on democratic institutions.
even the non-Trump Republican party has committed itself to a program of minority rule
It's hard thus to imagine that Congress can effectively conduct an investigation into Trump-era abuses by itself - since so many Republicans in Congress accepted, protected, and even connived in those abuses - and since so many Republicans in the states are now adding to the list
An independent commission with subpoena power is what is needed instead - tasked to recommend reform measures - and supported by a citizen movement outside the party system to pressure for state and federal reforms for voting rights, fair elections, and an honest Executive branch
A reader registers the below objection to the foregoing. (Answer coming)
Now counter-question
How does "liberty" - or more exactly the democratic idea of regulating state power by impartial law - get into the hearts of men and women in the first place?
It's not innate! By nature, we prefer that our tribe dominate. The democratic idea is learned.
Learned how?
Learned by practice, and practice based upon laws and institutions.
(Remember Tocqueville's astute remarks on the importance of jury duty to self-government?)
So we have to build our institutions fair and strong to foster individual commitment to democracy
The Republican thralldom to Trump followed 20 years of undoing voting rights and civil rights. Republicans became acculturated gradually first to minority rule, then to authoritarian rule. Trump's false allegations of fraud rest on carefully nurtured prejudices.
I'm going on too long. But if anybody is still bearing with me, one last point ...
If I've had any one message in everything I've written about Trump and Trumpism since 2015 ... it's that the direct involvement of the people in elections is democracy's LAST line of defense, not its first.
Joe Biden summoned 80 million Americans to defend democracy. Great, but
that massive collective undertaking only followed the internal failure of the checks and balances erected to protect democracy in the long intervals between elections. And as we saw in 2020, malign actors can corrode voting rights during those long intervals between elections
80 million people voted to eject Trump and replace him. One official at the General Services Administration has successfully defied that vote for some 2 weeks. In a more democratic culture, she'd say No. The story of the Trump years is how many like her have said Yes.
Ok the (belated) end. For now.
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The Benin artifacts previously delivered to Nigeria from UK and Germany have disappeared from public view. They are not on display in any museum. Some or all may have been sold into private markets. (Links in next tweet)
The late PJ O'Rourke had a great line: "Just as some things are too strange for fiction, other things are too true for journalism." The fate of artworks delivered to Nigeria is one of those subjects too true for journalism. Fiction and fantasy are reported as moral imperative.
In 2018, protesters against gasoline tax demonstrated in Paris. A radical few set fires near the Arc de Triomphe, creating scenes of chaos for social media platforms - like the iconic image below. (THREAD)
To the consumer of social media, it must have looked as if France hovered on the brink of revolution in 2018. Paris engulfed in flames! (2/x)
Here's how things looked to Parisians, though. Some agitator poured gasoline on a bike at a distance from the Arc, set it on fire, and then photographed the monument through the black smoke created by burning tires. (3/x)
Here's the decision just won by @IlyaSomin and allies striking down Trump's tariffs as an abuse of presidential emergency authority. It's blinking inspiring. (thread) cit.uscourts.gov/sites/cit/file…
The Trump administration argued that US federal courts must accept presidential claims of "emergency" at face value, no matter how manifestly nonsensical and in bad faith those claims in fact are. The US Court of International Trade said, in effect, "not so fast."
Courteously but forcefully, the Court demonstrated that Trump's actions are only tenuously related to the pretextual emergency Trump proclaimed. Trade is a congressional domain, and Trump abused the constitutionally limited power Congress delegated him.
President Trump and his family are extorting billions of dollars from US companies and foreign nations. In new piece for @TheAtlantic I examine past US corruption - and conclude Trump can't be compared to anything American, only Russia or Africa. theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…
Today's @TheAtlantic piece linked above is supplement to monologue on the David Frum Show today. Trump's analogues are not Nixon, Harding, or Grant. They are Putin, Mobutu Sese Soko, and the Duvaliers in Haiti.
@TheAtlantic I once owned a dog who avidly chased squirrels, but looked away when he met a deer. My wife explained: "Some things are too big to see." I recall that saying when journalists get excited over "Biden was addled" and ignore "Trump is a Putin- or Mobutu-scale crook."
Donald Trump's approval rating in his first term moved in a narrow band: never above 50%, but also seldom below 40%, and then not much below. 1/x
Even during COVID, Trump's supporters stayed true. Unhappy as they were during COVID, Trump supporters agreed to shift blame for their unhappiness to somebody else: blue-state governors, Dr Fauci, etc. 2/x
But what if the US is struck by a disaster that is undeniably Trump's doing? Financial markets *predict* the disaster, but are not themselves the disaster. Few Americans have yet lost jobs, prices are only beginning to rise, shops are still full of goods to buy. 3/x
First-term Trump was also an economic idiot. He imposed escalating tariffs in first half of 2018, not only on China but on EU and Canada too. Trump bad policy triggered a big stock slump in second half 2018. 1/x
Trump worried that the bad stock market of 2018 might dim his re-election chances. He spent much of 2019 desperately pleading with the Chinese for an exit from the trade war he started the year before. 2/x
Trump's eagerness for a China deal to save his re-election was a reason that he dismissed the gathering warnings of a new pandemic in China. He failed to protect the country because he was trying to protect himself. Here's Trump in January 2020: 3/x