In November 2024, the American voters who voted decided that democracy wasn’t worth the effort.
The once and new president has marshaled the angst and fury of the left-outs and the fly-overs and created a form of populism that is popular these days. National populism seldom works. David Brooks says, “Today’s populist ire is directed not at the European establishments living across an ocean but at the American ones on the East and West coasts. Democrats are mistaken if they think they can rebuff Trump by howling the words “fascism” or “authoritarianism,” or by clutching their pearls every time he does something vulgar or immoral.”[i]
I dissent.
Authoritarianism and oligarchy are precisely the factors that can take our democracy down. Democracy isn’t quick and easy and not always efficient but it is better than whatever is in second place.[ii] The opposite of quick and easy governing is never a good outcome.
Over the last couple of centuries, when high schools taught civics and comparative government, the basic assumption was that America would never be a communist country, an autocratic country, or an oligarchy, so classes concentrated on how to make democracy work best. Well, now what will they teach?
Germany once elected an up-and-coming new chancellor. It
took him less than three months to turn
the country into an autocracy that quickly invaded most of Europe and
killed millions of Jews. How can such things happen?
They happen easily and often quickly. The elected leader of a strong movement begins by ignoring the institutions that weld the nation, cowers the legislature to their bidding, rules by fiat, finds scapegoats for all their supporter’s perceived troubles, and sends the military to harass the people. Then they forge a justice system that goes after people the leader doesn’t like, shouting about and shutting down the free press. Then they decide who is a good citizen or a bad citizen and continue lying to the people until the lies are the accepted norms.
These things happened on the first day of the new presidency.
Over a thousand insurrectionists, convicted and sentenced in courts of law, were pardoned on Day One. Civil rights programs were outlawed on Day One. The army was sent to the border on Day One. Executive orders were issued to ignore the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution on Day One. The country was pulled out of the World Health Organization on Day One. Hundreds of Executive Orders were issued on Day One that changed the country. Inspectors General were fired so that there would not be anyone to ensure that agency heads followed rules, procedures, and laws.
At the inauguration ceremony, the oligarchs who supported the incoming president were given better seats than the incoming cabinet nominees. Many of the oligarchs have conflicts of interest because of their business dealings with the government. Some of them can’t get proper security clearance to conduct their mission. One of them has an office in the executive office building.
Among the oligarchs that influence the new administration is Peter Thiel, a significant contributor to the new president’s campaign and former employer of the new vice-president. Thiel has said, “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.” Some suggest that he has simply bought into the idea that the president will die in office and the vice-president will take over or be the next president in four years. In either case, his monetary contributions will put him and his other Silicon Valley oligarchs in control and their investment will have paid off.[iii]
Many cabinet nominees have no experience running large organizations or experience in the areas they are expected to manage. Their reputations run from avowed unhinged to sex offenders lacking even a modicum of required experience. Yet they will be approved because the senators in the president’s movement are afraid the movement will primary them or they and their families will receive death threats, a common practice on the part of the movement’s base.
Too many people believe the lies told to them about America’s state of affairs. We have been told that the economy is bad when it is one of the best in the world. Inflation is down, unemployment is extremely low, and infrastructure construction is on the upswing.
Immigration is a serious problem. There is no way that a nation can assimilate millions of refugees each year. But the lies that are told about refugees being sent from hospitals for the insane, or from prisons can’t be substantiated. But the lies are good for ending affirmative action programs designed to level the playing field for everyone. Making America great again smacks and smells of a return to when white males ran the world, all of course in the name of Christian Nationalism.
Ben Franklin told us, “You have a Republic if you can keep it.” Millions of people have decided that neither is that important.
We have to ask ourselves if we are the land of the free anymore? Time will tell.
We have to ask ourselves if our democracy can stand? Maybe … despite all evidence to the contrary this last week.
We have to ask ourselves again, why did the voters do this?
Is the price of eggs and gas reason enough to decimate the world’s longest-running democracy? Is an uncontrolled southern border enough to try autocracy?
Are we willing to throw in the towel on a world order that has kept us free since 1945?
Are we willing to cede our free government to the wiles of a few oligarchs who control the information flow around the world and decided to discontinue fact-checking in the name of free speech?
I think the country will survive, but it won’t be the free or democratic United States we once knew.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
