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 defendant's presence at his criminal trial is not an inconvenience or imposition, as Trump's partisans complain. The defendant's presence is a *right,* guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment. 1/x
The right to be present at one's trial is precious. But it is not absolute. The Supreme Court has ruled that presence at a trial can be forfeited by persistently bad behavior. 2/x
In Illinois v Allen (1970), the Supreme Court considered three options for dealing with "disruptive, contumacious, stubbornly defiant defendants": binding and gagging them, holding them in civil contempt, or temporarily removing them from the courtroom until they behave. 3/x
No big deal, just the second-largest newspaper in French Canada caricaturing Jews as vampires. lapresse.ca/actualites/car…
The Jew as vampire is one of the deepest myths of western culture. The 1922 film Nosferatu that inspired the La Presse cartoon also inspired Nazi cartoonists of the Third Reich anumuseum.org.il/blog/myth-vamp…
La Presse has removed the image, here's a screen shot. It substitutes Benjamin Netanyahu's face in an iconic still from the 1922 movie, Nosferatu. That film was riddled with antisemitic images and themes and directly inspired antisemitic cartoons in the Nazi press of the 1920s and 1930s.
Why was the Alger Hiss case such a big deal? The secrets Hiss betrayed to the Soviets were not so important. (He gave them, eg, blueprints for a new design for a Navy lifeboat.) It was Hiss's career trajectory that alarmed: the potential for a Soviet asset as secretary of state.
The Hiss case convulsed the country. But we've now had eight years of people with deep connections to the ex-KGB dictator in Moscow arriving at the very highest levels of US politics, media, and government - and that's become business as usual.
One conservative radio host used to - maybe still does - open his interviews by asking guests whether they believed Alger Hiss was guilty. Today, the answer might be, "Hiss was just a little ahead of his time."
News reports don't get more disturbing than this, from @propublica about the president of Mexico. propublica.org/article/mexico…
The @propublica story deals with Lopez Obrador's first run for president, in 2006. Lopez Obrador lost, a result he never accepted and tried to overturn. When he ran again in 2018, Lopez Obrador promised "hugs, not bullets" for the cartels.
@propublica As president, Lopez Obrador has shown favor to cartel criminals in many ways - perhaps most notably, by pressuring the Trump administration to release a former Mexican defense minister arrested in the US for drug corruption. Lopez Obrador then bestowed a medal on the ex-minister
Which is true, if by "existed" you mean "has been continuously sovereign under its present government."
It's also true that as a country founded in 1948, Israel is older than 134 of the 193 member nations of the United Nations.
The weird fact of the modern world is how *new* most countries are, even seemingly ancient ones. EG Egypt re-emerged as an independent sovereignty only in 1922 after half a millennium under Ottoman then British overlordship.
The concept of "indigenous peoples" is incoherent and generally sinister pretty much anywhere except Australasia. But it's an especial mess in the Middle East, where virtually every country is a broken-off bit of a long succession of ancient empires.