When, in 2014, I finished my book ‘NEITHER HERE NOR THERE, A First-Generation Immigrant in Search of American Exceptionalism’*, I was still in limbo about America’s destiny. It was not clear to me that the political system, as it had developed over the lifetime of the republic, had the capacity to deal effectively with the intractable problems that had surfaced and accumulated after the end of the cold war. I concluded that our system does not seem to be functioning as designed in the absence of a clear and present danger from the outside. I saw a problem in the two-party system, where two parties at constant loggerheads cancelled each other out and I saw the need of the creation of a centrist third party as a possible way out of the impasse. Like a ‘white knight’ or a catalyst for breaking the logjam. At the time, it seemed that our democracy was malfunctioning, not delivering results for the people, but the unassailability of the democratic principle was not in question.
That was
before the Republican Party was hijacked by Donald Trump.
Now we know better,
and it is time to face the harsh reality. Democracy itself is being challenged
and it is seriously imperiled, not just in Russia, Poland, Hungary, and Turkey,
but in the cradle of contemporary democracy, the United States of America. American
democracy is imperiled not by foreign powers, but by one of its political
parties seeking power beyond the boundaries of its popular support. What once
was the Grand Old Party is no more. It has morphed into an anti-democratic,
populist movement bent on taking control of public governance of the United
States of America regardless of the outcome of elections.
It did not
come across as particularly surprising or alarming that Donald Trump, after the
closing of the polls in November of last year, declared himself the winner in
defiance of what the polling results were showing. Very few people seemed to
believe him and he had, already long before the election, declared that only
election fraud could deny him a victory at the voting booth. And in court case
after court case, claims of voter fraud were refuted. Without exception. More
than sixty times. It looked for a while that the Republican Party would move on
from an ill-fated experiment and a loser who had cost them control of the White
House and the Senate. Election officials, Republicans and Democrats alike, in
battle ground States of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, and Pennsylvania held their
ground in defending the fairness of their elections and the accuracy of their
vote count, in many cases after multiple audits and recounts. The result of the
election was certified in each of the States and the members of the Electoral College
were appointed accordingly. Under these circumstances, certification of the
Electoral College vote by Congress in joint session should have been a routine
matter as it had been before in all Presidential elections.
Not this
time. On January 6, 2021, an angry mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol,
disrupting the counting of the Electoral Votes by the Congress and Trump
supporters in Congress objected to the Electoral Vote counts in Arizona and Pennsylvania,
causing the chambers to split and debate the objections. When order at the
Capitol had been restored, both chambers voted to turn down the objections and
certify the Electoral College vote, but 8 Republican Senators and 139 House
Members supported at least one objection.
A
constitutional crisis was averted this time, but the next time we may not be
that lucky, because the weaknesses, vulnerabilities, and ambiguities of the
Presidential transition process had surfaced for everyone to see. And Republican
operatives at the State and Federal level are acting to exploit these flaws at
the next opportunity.
What worries
me most about this scenario is the apparent denial among democrats,
independents and the few conventional republicans who have not fallen for the
Trump spell, that we are facing an imminent threat to democracy itself. I
detect only a handful of political commentators who warn us of the seriousness
of the threat our democracy is facing. Robert Kagan, a senior fellow at the
Brooking Institute and a member on the Counsel for Foreign Relations is one of
them. In a September 23 article in the Washington Post he warned that we are
already in a Constitutional crisis. Kagan writes: “The fact that Trump failed
to overturn the 2020 election has reassured many that the American system
remains secure, though it easily could have gone the other way – if Biden had
not been safely ahead in all four states where the vote was close; if Trump had
been more competent and more in control of the decision-makers in his
administration, Congress and the states.”
Distress
signals have also been given in recent books by Anne Applebaum (Twilight of
Democracy), Fiona Hill (There is nothing for you here), Bob Woodward and Robert
Costa (Peril) and in a well-publicized YouTube video by Bill Maher. But public
sense of alarm is disturbingly missing. Even among politicians, although Republicans
Christine Todd Whitman and Miles Taylor have come out publicly in a guest essay
in the New York Times to exhort fellow ‘rational’ Republicans to “form an
alliance with Democrats to defend American institutions, defeat far-right
candidates, and elect honorable representatives next year – including a strong
contingent of moderate Democrats.” They write: “We cannot tolerate Republican
leaders – in 2022 or in the presidential election in 2024 – refusing to accept
the results of elections or undermining the certification of those results
should they lose.” Republican congressmen Lizz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger are resisting
the Trump takeover of the GOP, and the insurrection movement, by their high-profile
membership in the January 6 Select Committee of the House of Representatives. The
next elections are not a routine choice between left or right, liberal or
conservative, Democrat or Republican. They will be about preserving or
abandoning our constitutional democracy.
What can and
must be done to stave off the looming constitutional crisis?
·
The
Trump Republicans must be thoroughly defeated at the voting booth in 2022 and
2024.
·
To
that end, Democrats and Independents must put up impeccably qualified
candidates for elected office at the State and Federal level and push for a
high voter turnout.
·
Democrats
should stop quarreling internally and pass legislation, this year, to protect
voting rights, to revamp our infrastructure, and to implement Biden’s ‘Build
Back Better’ plan.
·
The
Biden Administration needs to get the COVID-19 pandemic under complete control.
EVERYTHING
ELSE CAN WAIT.
*The book is available @ http://www.amazon.com/dp/0692209778
