Will American Democracy Die Next Tuesday? Drama after climate blockade – cyclist is brain dead

How to understand that? A recent Quinnipac University poll found that 69 percent of Americans, both Democrats and Republicans, believe their democracy is in serious jeopardy. Saving democracy should therefore be the number one concern at the midterms next Tuesday, you might think. Not even close. Only 7 percent of the population considers this an urgent problem.

American haters—and there are plenty among Watson users—have a simple explanation for this contradictory phenomenon: Johnny Sixpack and his grotesquely dressed-up wife are just too stupid to care about democracy. All that matters to them is the price of gas. When it goes up, they get hateful, and when the Republicans start spreading fears about crime and immigration before the election, democracy can go to the dogs too.

Abraham Lincoln and the “Better Angels”

A more subtle explanation is this: The US has repeatedly experienced periods in its history when democracy and the rule of law have been endangered and even partially suspended. That applies to the Civil War, of course, but also to the horrors of the Ku Klux Klan era.

In the 1930s there was a powerful populist movement that was openly sympathetic to Hitler’s Germany, in the 1950s there was a savage hunt for alleged communists and in the 1960s Civil War-like riots.

But the “better angels,” as legendary President Abraham Lincoln once called them, always triumphed in the end. The United States may have stood on the precipice leading to the maw of an authoritarian state, but turned back for the final step.

The enlightened Americans are also hoping for the “better angels” this time around, but this time it may get tight. 370 Republicans who want to be elected to Congress or to important state-level offices are avowed supporters of the Big Lie, the proposition that Donald won the 2020 election, which has been refuted many times. Many of them will also make the election.

The fact that the opposition is winning votes in the midterm elections is part of the essence of democracy and is in itself a healthy sign. Not this time. Big Lie’s supporters want more, they want to make sure the Grand Old Party doesn’t lose another election, and they’re making no secret of it. Several Republican candidates say so openly.

To achieve their goal, they intimidate voters by placing armed guards in front of the drop boxes, as in the state of Arizona. Or they made the neutral tellers resign for fear of threats.

They are applauded by Donald Trump. The ex-president is starting to look more and more like the Italian fascist and dictator Benito Mussolini. On January 6, 2021, his Maga package failed when the Capitol was stormed. But Trump continues to fuel hatred and violence, for example by spreading ugly lies about the murder of Nancy Pelosi’s husband Paul Pelosi. Meanwhile, his staff is working on plans to not only replace political personnel, but also to fire independent officials after a possible return to the White House.

Globally, the US is doing well

Seen in this light, it is not surprising that it has become commonplace to warn of the death of American democracy and even to believe that a second civil war is possible. This is astonishing to non-Americans because the US is more successful globally today than it has been for a long time. Their biggest rivals, China and Russia, are in much bigger trouble.

China has lost much of its luster and is sliding back into an authoritarian and ideological nation under Xi Jinping’s rule. The state has regained control of the economy and society is aging rapidly. There are many indications that the Chinese are trapped in the “middle-income trap” because of this.

Russia is increasingly becoming a pariah of the international community. Putin’s bloody campaign against Ukraine is already being compared to the fatal invasions of Russia by Napoleon and Hitler. Yes, there is the proposition that Russia will fall apart like the Soviet Union once did.

While Russia and China depend on partners such as North Korea, Iran or Eritrea in the international community, the US still has more than 60 security partners worldwide, as political scientist John Ikenberry points out in “Foreign Affairs” magazine. The thesis of the inevitable demise of the superpower US and the liberal West is currently on shaky ground. If anything, the US should be described as the “most successful failing state of all time”, as Edward Luce recently did in the “Financial Times”.

However, the danger to American democracy is real and self-inflicted. The president has good reason to urgently warn his citizens about this. Just waiting for Lincoln’s “better angels” isn’t enough this time. “We are headed for chaos,” Joe Biden said in a speech to the nation yesterday. “That’s never happened before. This is illegal. And that’s non-American.”