So … Where Do We Stand?

David Hilfiker 

The passing of President Donald Trump from the presidency into some form of political limbo is a good time to examine the damage that has been done to our democracy.  The problem has not been just Trump or even mostly Trump.  He’s been a symptom of a much deeper illness.  We’ve been fortunate that our first presidential demagogue has been so incompetent.  Democrats have responsibility for some of the damage.  Republican politicians as a party, however, have done the most harm.  

The election of Joe Biden, as important as it is, will not in itself stop our slide into autocracy.  Rather, we must consider what it will mean to prepare ourselves for a long struggle.  Over the next several posts, I hope to periodically interrupt my regular postings with a series essays entitled “Where We Stand,” an examination of some of what we and President Joe Biden will have to work with as we go forward.  

I intend to look in more detail at the following issues.  I have at one point or another written in this blog about each of them but each deserves a revisit, and, more importantly, an examination of how they interlock to endanger us. 

1. Our country has been left with a brand of ugly partisan politics that makes intelligent debate about critical national issues almost impossible.  Our partisanship has moved beyond politics and now infects many other aspects of our continuing experiment with democracy.  According to a Nielsen survey,   
   

   Nearly 60 percent of Republicans and more than 60 percent of Democrats agree … that the opposing party is a serious threat to the United States and its people.     
   

   Not only can we not agree on what the facts are, we can’t even agree on the concept there is such as a thing as absolute, verifiable truth.  “Alternative fact” is a nonsense concept that nevertheless seems to have acquired a reality of its own.  Well over half of Trump voters believe that Biden lost and is not our legitimate president.   
   
2. The Republican Party has corrupted itself and become a danger to democracy.  With a few important exceptions, the Republican Party (both its congressional leaders and, to a large extent, its base) has aligned itself with Trump and Trumpism, colluding with his ongoing assault on democracy.*  With its increasingly successful voter suppression, attacks on the 2020 presidential election results, refusal to fulfill its constitutional responsibility to reign in a corrupt President, tacit support for far-tight violent groups, and others, the Party has ceased to act within the bounds of politics and must be completely reformed or dismantled.
3. Voter suppression is rampant across the country.  Gerrymandering, voter ID laws, removal of voting booths in minority areas, culling of voter lists, and so on are widespread across the country.  We have made a mockery of one-person-one-vote.  To date, the Supreme Court has not interfered.
4. The acceptability of political violence grows.  America has, since its beginning, been militaristic, but in its current manifestations, its threats to our democracy have grown.  Openly carried assault weapons are legal and frequently visible, militia, threats of violence against political “enemies” are not unusual.  Then-candidate Trump suggested violence against protesters at campaign rallies.**   A peaceful demonstration across from the White House was violently suppressed.  Our political language is ever-more violent.  Incredibly, some members of Congress fear violence from their congressional colleagues.  With such violence comes fear, and fear inhibits democracy.
5. Racism and white supremacy are endemic in the culture.  It is clear that minorities are not full participants in our democracy, which has, in fact, been built upon their oppression, suppression and enslavement.  We cannot hope to be a democracy with the degree of racial injustice that has plagued our country since its inception.
6. Almost half (46%) of Americans indicate a preference for a more authoritarian form of government.  This is not just an objection to our version of democracy, it’s an objection to democracy itself.
   

President Trump has left office.  His explicit attempts to overturn the election were thwarted.  For the time being, the center holds.  President Biden’s inauguration — from Lady Gaga’s “Star Spangled Banner” to Amanda Gorman’s powerful poem, to Biden’s low-key address — acknowledged the precariousness of our democracy yet left us with hope.  It returned the presidency to normalcy.  But can we really recover?  I certainly hope so, but I have serious doubts.  The next two years of the Biden Administration and Democrats’ control of Congress gives us a chance to take a deep breath, evaluate the state of our democracy, and make our plans to preserve it. But our success is contingent upon our willingness to see clearly exactly where we stand.

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* In the last few days Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has offered a ray of hope by denouncing Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene and her “loony it's conspiracy theories.”  House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, on the other hand refuses to discipline Marjorie Taylor Greene for her belief in those same "loony conspiracy theories.”
** At a campaign rally in 2016, when protesters interrupted, Trump responded, “Just knock the hell out of them. I promise you, I will pay for the legal fees.”