The hyperventilation over the death of democracy in the United States as Donald Trump prepares to take up his second term as the president of the country is overdone. As unhinged and illiberal as Trump and his choice of nominees for his cabinet are, they do not hold a candle to the Ku Klux Klan, which was a major political force in the country until just a generation or so ago. As weird as the conversation on immigration is in a country founded on the stealing of land and ethnic cleansing of the local population, it does not reach the genocidal pitch on which the country was founded, and its policies for generations thereafter. As much as the cabal of fools attack diversity and equal rights, primarily against African Americans, women and the larger queer community, it is little in comparison to the brutalisation these same communities have seen earlier in the history of the United States.
This is not to minimise the damage that Trump and his supporters have done or will do. They are both stupid and dangerous, and will hurt the country and its people deeply, as well as poison large parts of the world. We have seen the consequences of the first term, and there is every reason to believe that the second term will be far worse. But it is also foolish to pretend that the US was ever a perfect democracy. The victories won by those fighting on behalf of women’s rights, the rights of indigenous communities, the rights of African-Americans and the rights of the queer would not have been needed in a perfect democracy, the fights would not have cost so many lives, been so bitter, so long and so incomplete.
If it had been such a bastion of democracy, Trump would never have been in the running for a member of the Congress, much less the post of president. The fact that he was – not once, but thrice – and won twice, is itself an indictment of what passes for democracy in the United States.
A clear-eyed understanding of the flaws in the US allows us to truly appreciate the immense successes against difficult odds that the suffragists and the Civil Rights Movement achieved. The people who fought for democracy, spent their money, their years and even their lives to achieve a modicum of rights did not push against an open door. They fought, and they fought hard, and often it was not they, but their children, grandchildren or even great-grandchildren who were able to see some progress, if not total fulfilment.
That many of these hard-won rights are now under threat is a tragedy, but that tragedy has been facilitated by the belief that the state, the rich, and the institutions of power in the United States are essentially “good” and “democratic.” This is not merely a fallacy, but a deliberate lie by the powerful to draw a veil over the crimes they committed. Forgiveness and reconciliation may be essential for a society to continue working together, but if it is based on the falsification of the past, if the foundations of a compact are lies, then it serves as a soporific, an anaesthetic to a nation. The myth that a nation is “essentially democratic” is an “opiate of the masses” that limits them from challenging the powerful.
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Power does not allow rights except when it is challenged by struggle. The asinine contention, so favoured by the established parties, that “the system works” is only a way to suggest that the powerful not be held to account. We are humans, and will only build imperfect systems. They will never work perfectly. The whole point of democracy is that we should not trust any system or any leader blindly. Instead, it requires the hard work of accounting, criticism and even rebellion to make sure that the government and the powerful are held to account. And it is worth remembering that the greatest rebellions expose the failures of the state. For example, J Edgar Hoover, as the head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, described the Black Panthers as the “greatest threat to internal security of the country” in 1969 for the great crime of providing free breakfast at schools.
While this gives us an idea of the challenges within the United States; seeing the flaws in American democracy, and how these rights have actually been won, is also important to those outside the US. The United States is merely another state – if a uniquely militarily and economically powerful one – and the moral power of democracy rests not in the institutions of the state but among those willing to challenge it and hold it to account. The government of the United States is not interested in spreading or upholding democratic or liberal policies abroad; it is only interested in upholding its own power, just like any other state. The tragedies of US interventions, delayed interventions or lack of interventions abroad, over the last two decades when the country had unparalleled power in the international system, have shown us that US governments are neither interested or capable of defending democracy abroad.
This should put in context the fear that an illiberal and undemocratic order is coming firmly in place as Trump inches closer to the White House. While it is true that Trump is likely to support illiberal and anti-democratic leaders overseas, it was never true that any other US administration would support democracy abroad. Democracy is not the gift of any state to give to any other. States do not practice democracy, people do. Both for the United States and countries abroad, if people are watching only the White House, the Senate, the House and the judiciary for the rise and fall of democracy, they are looking in the wrong place. These institutions were created, and tamed, by those outside them – the oppressed, the broken and the despised. The glory of democracy and its shining potential lies with them and not the circus on Capitol Hill. We forget it at our peril.
Omair Ahmad is an author. His last novel, Jimmy the Terrorist, was shortlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize, and won the Crossword Award.
