Save the Sarcasm for Other Democracies. America Is Fine – TIME
Turkey invites all parties in US to use moderation, common sense to overcome this domestic political crisis, tweeted Turkeys Anadolu news agency as the Capitol siege played out on television screens across the world. It wasnt the only one savoring the schadenfreude.
Wisecracks like Protesters storm parliament in this former British colony flew thick and fast worldwide, highlighting the irony of a putsch in a country that sees itself as the global gatekeeper of democratic propriety. It didnt help that the legislative stronghold of what is still the worlds only superpower fell to a crowd of rioters, many animated by kooky conspiracy theories of satanic deep states run by blood-drinking pedophiles.
In India, which makes common cause with the U.S. for supposedly shared democratic values, a much-circulated tweet read, Wow! Waking up to the news that United States of America has become Uttar Pradesh, referring to the lawless north Indian state ruled by a Hindu supremacist with a record of rioting and rabble rousing against Muslims. Sarcasm ruled the airwaves. Talking heads on television waxed eloquent on the stability of the Indian democratic system and what the U.S. could learn from Indias unbroken record of peaceful transfers of power for seven decades (longer than the 55 years America has had as a multiracial democracy since the passing of the Voting Rights Act). Newspaper headlines cut to the heart of the tumult in sharp banner headlines. The Times of India ran with Coup Klux Klan.
Read more: Theyre Jumping Ship. Inside the Lonely End of the Trump Presidency
Never one to waste a good crisis, Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted to his 64.7 million followers: Distressed to see news about rioting and violence in Washington DC. Orderly and peaceful transfer of power must continue. The democratic process cannot be allowed to be subverted through unlawful protests.
Modis statesman-like message was multi-purpose. It put some distance between himself and Donald Trump, whose re-election Modi had openly endorsed. The tweet, washing his hands of a lost cause, also worked to de-legitimize a peaceful, months-long farmers protest in India by obliquely equating it with the violence in Washington. Most importantly, it was Modis way of breaking out of the Trump-Erdogan-Putin-Orban league that he finds himself in these days as Indias democratic credentials continue to wither.
In its Democracy Report 2020, Swedens V-Dem Institute lists India among the top 10 fastest autocratizing countries, on the verge of losing its status as a democracy. Modis ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) now scores as high on its illiberalism index as the ruling parties of Turkey, Hungary and Poland.
Hungary lost its status as democracy in 2018 and Turkey in 2014. As the global rise of populist demagogues in these countries show, unlawful protests are not how democratic processes are subverted, as Modi would have us believe. That comes about by weakening and destroying democratic institutions from within. By silent institutional capture, rather than rowdy marches on legislatures. By surgical strikes, rather than cavalry charges. If anything, the attack on Americas symbol of democracy was an act of frustration at the failure to subvert its substance.
Roses are left at the fence which now surrounds the US Capitol building three days after it was stormed, invaded and vandalized by Trump rioters in Washington, D.C., January 9, 2021.
Astrid Riecken for the Washington Post via Getty Images
The storming of the Capitol occasions introspection on many thingssuch as the seemingly irreversible distrust of the liberal democratic projectbut institutional capture is not one of them. From the slow but meticulous counting of votes to the judiciarys thwarting of the legal maneuvers challenging the election result, the built-in checks and balances of Americas governing institutions have proven to be resilient enough to withstand an aberration like Trump.
The same cannot be said of the countries ruled by his fellow demagogues who now feign democratic virtue on Twitter. The fact is, the likes of Modi wouldnt need to unleash their supporters to take control of the legislature. Thanks to the malleable institutions they preside over, they already have their legislatures on a tight leash.
The marauding mobs at the Capitol were reportedly looking to hang Mike Pence. The vice-president had earned their wrath for refusing to overturn the election as their master had commanded. Many other prominent Republican leaders similarly refused to play ball. For anybody with a passing familiarity with Indian politics, the prospect of Modis powerful home minister and de facto deputy, Amit Shah, or any other party leader, refusing to carry out the big mans wishes would be laughable.
If Modi asked his Brad Raffensperger to find 11,780 votes, he damn well would. In fact, Modi wouldnt even have to ask. Shah would see to it that Raffenspergers counterpart delivered. Besides, votes are nothing. Shah is a master at making opposition legislators switch sides through inducements and intimidation, and thereby flipping elected state governments. In several states once ruled by opposition parties, thats how power has been transferred, without violence, or even elections. Indian commentators are righttheres much to learn here.
Indias ever-expanding ruling party, legislature and government have become an extension of the personality of one man, who also has expanded control over notionally autonomous bodies such as the central bank, the election commission, the bureaucracy and investigative and regulatory agencies. Even the judiciary is not immune to his overarching influence. Trump can only wish he had that kind of power, but the soundness of Americas institutions wouldnt let him.
The U.S. judiciary remained non-partisan throughout the post-election saga. Of the 60-odd legal challenges to overturn the election result, Trump lost all except one. Neither the 53 judges he appointed to the federal appeals courts in four years, nor the three he sent to the Supreme Court (where the conservatives enjoy a 6-3 majority), helped. Judicial propriety triumphed politics.
Read more: How Trumps Effort to Steal the Election Tore Apart the GOPand the Country
Not so for countries whose demagogues are clubbed together with Trump. In Turkey, thousands of judges and prosecutors have been sacked or thrown into jail and replaced by regime-friendly novices. In India, it hasnt come to that, yet, but the top judiciary has become visibly accommodating of Modis preferences even though he doesntunlike in the US systemget to appoint judges. Once a champion of judicial activism, Indias Supreme Court now studiously toes the governments line and looks away from the grossest violations of civil liberties as the jails fill up with prisoners of conscience locked up on dubious charges of terror and sedition.
The U.S. military also continues to be similarly apolitical. We do not take an oath to a king or a queen, a tyrant or a dictatorWe take an oath to the Constitution, warned Gen Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as fears grew that Trump might order the troops out to quell protests if he chose not to give up power.
But more than the party-legislative system, the judiciary and the military, the one democratic institution in the US that has stood out in its defiant autonomy from coercive executive power throughout Trumps four years is the media. The sharpest attacks on Trumps conduct and policies have not come from China or Russia, but from Americas own mastheads and television channels.
Even Trump could not change the established conventions of government-press relations. His horrible mismanagement of the pandemic notwithstanding, the most powerful man on earth was obliged to take hard questions at routine press conferences as the crisis unfolded. In India, which Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz calls the poster child of what not to do in a pandemic, journalists never had the chanceModi hasnt held a press conference in his six years in power. Not that they would ask terribly tough questions if he did, given the self-censorship and obsequity that rule much of Indias mainstream media today.
Though Turkey tries to tweet-shame America on the Capitol attack, its independent journalists have faced detentions and criminal investigations for reporting on the governments management of the pandemic. For countries like India and Turkey, where a once vibrant free press has been tamed into submission and the mainstream media is forced to megaphone the government, the institutional capacity of the U.S. media to critique executive lawlessness and hold it to account remains an object of wonder.
Comparisons between Trump and other populist demagogues were not misplaced, but imputing these similarities to the health of American democracy was always wide of the mark. From the perspective of failing democracies the world over, the U.S. is still the shining city on the hill, even if the glow may have dimmed in the Trump years. Jokes apart, it is the stuff of envy, not derision.
Thank you! For your security, we've sent a confirmation email to the address you entered. Click the link to confirm your subscription and begin receiving our newsletters. If you don't get the confirmation within 10 minutes, please check your spam folder.
Contact us at letters@time.com.
View original post here:
Save the Sarcasm for Other Democracies. America Is Fine - TIME
- The Dangers of Trumps First 100 Days: A Democracy in Exile Roundtable - dawnmena.org - April 30th, 2025 [April 30th, 2025]
- Democracy is a gift worth fighting for - MinnPost - April 30th, 2025 [April 30th, 2025]
- Can Ukraines fight for democracy survive without US support? - Middle East Institute - April 30th, 2025 [April 30th, 2025]
- This 1938 pro-science manifesto defended democracy against fascism - Big Think - April 30th, 2025 [April 30th, 2025]
- Three U.S. Citizen Children, Including 4-Year-Old Battling 4th Stage Cancer, Deported to Honduras - Democracy Now! - April 30th, 2025 [April 30th, 2025]
- Media Freedom Rapid Response Input regarding the EU Democracy Shield - European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF) - April 30th, 2025 [April 30th, 2025]
- The crucial role of schools in protecting Australia's democracy - The Educator - April 30th, 2025 [April 30th, 2025]
- What Im Thinking Now, as a Political Bridge-Builder and Democracy Reformer - AllSides - April 30th, 2025 [April 30th, 2025]
- Ateneo universities across the Philippines mark the launch of the Philippine Observatory on Democracy - Ateneo de Manila University - April 30th, 2025 [April 30th, 2025]
- Whats wrong with democracy in Europe? - The Economist - April 27th, 2025 [April 27th, 2025]
- What Greek tragedy could teach us about the decline of our democracy - The Boston Globe - April 27th, 2025 [April 27th, 2025]
- What the Trump assault on American democracy has taught us - The Globe and Mail - April 27th, 2025 [April 27th, 2025]
- Lowering the voting age will benefit democracy | Letters - The Guardian - April 27th, 2025 [April 27th, 2025]
- Trump calls Harvard a threat to Democracy amid executive orders targeting higher education - NBC News - April 27th, 2025 [April 27th, 2025]
- Democracy on the Brink: Scholars Warn of Americas Authoritarian Turn - The Fulcrum - April 27th, 2025 [April 27th, 2025]
- Editorial: Dont Let Trump Kill News and Democracy - InDepthNH.org - April 27th, 2025 [April 27th, 2025]
- When White House begins to embrace conservative influencers, where will 'American democracy' head? - Global Times - April 27th, 2025 [April 27th, 2025]
- Judge Halts Trumps Anti-Voting Executive Order - Democracy Docket - April 27th, 2025 [April 27th, 2025]
- The State of Democracy Requires Us to Expand the Map - Democracy Docket - April 27th, 2025 [April 27th, 2025]
- A threat to Democracy: Trump continues bashing Harvard amid attacks on major institutions - Politico - April 27th, 2025 [April 27th, 2025]
- Democracy is hard; freedom is worth all the inconveniences: Arvelo - Seacoastonline.com - April 27th, 2025 [April 27th, 2025]
- Bookstores are arsenals of democracy - Princeton University Press - April 27th, 2025 [April 27th, 2025]
- Courts Handed Trump A Slew of Legal Losses This Week - Democracy Docket - April 27th, 2025 [April 27th, 2025]
- Poll: 61% of Israelis fear for democracy, 66% say internal rift is greatest threat - The Times of Israel - April 27th, 2025 [April 27th, 2025]
- In praise of a democracy on paper - The Globe and Mail - April 27th, 2025 [April 27th, 2025]
- Opinion | When governors sabotage democracy just because they feel like it - The Washington Post - April 27th, 2025 [April 27th, 2025]
- Reuters: Trump Will Offer $100+ Billion Arms Deal to Saudi Arabia - Democracy Now! - April 27th, 2025 [April 27th, 2025]
- DRC Agrees to Ceasefire with Rwanda-Backed M23 Rebels - Democracy Now! - April 27th, 2025 [April 27th, 2025]
- Don Wooten: Pope Francis, Trump and the tension between capitalism and democracy - Dispatch Argus - April 27th, 2025 [April 27th, 2025]
- Gen Z Has a Complex Relationship with Democracy, Survey Reveals - The 74 - April 27th, 2025 [April 27th, 2025]
- Tunisian Authorities Raze Refugee Camps That Housed 7,000 - Democracy Now! - April 27th, 2025 [April 27th, 2025]
- Rock This Democracy To Hold Next Street Protest, Rally On May Day - The Newtown Bee - April 27th, 2025 [April 27th, 2025]
- Opinion: We shouldnt forget those who helped democracy come into being - Anchorage Daily News - April 27th, 2025 [April 27th, 2025]
- The Trump Administration Is Not Just Erasing History, They're Rewriting the Future and Attacking Democracy | Opinion - Newsweek - April 18th, 2025 [April 18th, 2025]
- The New Far-Right Coalition Thats Out to Destroy American Democracy - The New Republic - April 18th, 2025 [April 18th, 2025]
- Thailands fragile democracy takes another hit with arrest of US academic - The Conversation - April 18th, 2025 [April 18th, 2025]
- An existential threat to democracy: the US judge facing a challenge to her election victory - The Guardian - April 18th, 2025 [April 18th, 2025]
- Is Trump about to end democracy in the USA? - Funding the Future - April 18th, 2025 [April 18th, 2025]
- President Trump Is Not the Only Threat to Our Democracy - The Regulatory Review - April 18th, 2025 [April 18th, 2025]
- Key Federal Elections Agency Moving Forward With Trumps Anti-Voting Order - Democracy Docket - April 18th, 2025 [April 18th, 2025]
- Simple hope alone wont protect democracy and the rule of law - Colorado Newsline - April 18th, 2025 [April 18th, 2025]
- Op-ed: Why we need human factors to save democracy - The Tufts Daily - April 18th, 2025 [April 18th, 2025]
- Bad for democracy: North Carolina could throw out valid ballots in tight election - The Guardian - April 18th, 2025 [April 18th, 2025]
- Debt, development, and democracy: Prospects for meeting the SDGs in Africa - Brookings - April 18th, 2025 [April 18th, 2025]
- SIUs Paul Simon Institute hosts Kettering Foundation CEO to discuss future of democracy - WSIU NEWS - April 18th, 2025 [April 18th, 2025]
- Introducing The Expand Democracy 5 - The Fulcrum - April 18th, 2025 [April 18th, 2025]
- Your womens, gender and sexuality studies degree isnt useless its essential to maintaining democracy - The Tufts Daily - April 18th, 2025 [April 18th, 2025]
- New political party seeking expanded democracy and a return to the center launches in New Mexico - Source New Mexico - April 18th, 2025 [April 18th, 2025]
- In Promising News for Riggs, North Carolina Cuts Number of Ballots at Risk of Rejection - Democracy Docket - April 18th, 2025 [April 18th, 2025]
- American Revolution: Paul Revere rides again, this time in a democracy coming apart - The Baltimore Banner - April 18th, 2025 [April 18th, 2025]
- There is No Democracy Without Direct Democracy - resilience.org - April 18th, 2025 [April 18th, 2025]
- When the Fight for Democracy Is Personal - The Atlantic - April 18th, 2025 [April 18th, 2025]
- Churches to ring bells for democracy: 6 p.m., April 18, commemorate ride of Paul Revere - PenBay Pilot - April 18th, 2025 [April 18th, 2025]
- Ukraines Democracy Still Works Without Elections - Foreign Policy - April 18th, 2025 [April 18th, 2025]
- Social Democracy isnt Going to Save the West - Counterpunch - April 18th, 2025 [April 18th, 2025]
- Trumps not hurting democracy. Hes blowing up their oligarchy, which is why theyre so mad - The Hill - April 18th, 2025 [April 18th, 2025]
- New Fund Seeks $20 Million to Aid Nonprofits Standing Up to Democracy Threats - The Chronicle of Philanthropy - April 18th, 2025 [April 18th, 2025]
- Sinister SAVE Act will do the opposite for democracy | Letter - centralmaine.com - April 18th, 2025 [April 18th, 2025]
- We've reached a critical turning point in our democracy - Columbia Missourian - April 18th, 2025 [April 18th, 2025]
- A Democracy of Convenience Is No Democracy at All: A Letter from Mahmoud Khalil on His Ongoing Detention - Left Voice - April 18th, 2025 [April 18th, 2025]
- DOJ Sues Maine for Refusing to Comply with Anti-Trans Order - Democracy Now! - April 18th, 2025 [April 18th, 2025]
- Riggs Will Fight as Long as it Takes to Ensure Votes Are Counted in North Carolina - Democracy Docket - April 18th, 2025 [April 18th, 2025]
- OPINION: Are Conservatives trying to destroy democracy as we know it? - Sault Star - April 18th, 2025 [April 18th, 2025]
- Protests are the last thing keeping Turkeys democracy alive - The Economist - March 30th, 2025 [March 30th, 2025]
- Ive never seen such clampdowns in Istanbul. Turkeys democracy is fighting for its life | Orhan Pamuk - The Guardian - March 30th, 2025 [March 30th, 2025]
- Democracy is more than rules and institutions, its a way of life - The Conversation - March 30th, 2025 [March 30th, 2025]
- Voters Need to Know What Redboxing Is and How It Undermines Democracy - Campaign Legal Center - March 30th, 2025 [March 30th, 2025]
- Trumps Latest Executive Order is a Shamand a Warning - Democracy Docket - March 30th, 2025 [March 30th, 2025]
- How the Fight for American Democracy Can Start with Unions - Progressive.org - March 30th, 2025 [March 30th, 2025]
- US swing toward autocracy doesnt have to be permanent but swinging back to democracy requires vigilance, stamina and elections - The Conversation - March 30th, 2025 [March 30th, 2025]
- Donald Trumps chilling effect on free speech and dissent is threatening US democracy - The Conversation - March 30th, 2025 [March 30th, 2025]
- The Price of Peace: Money, Democracy, and the Life of John Maynard Keynes - Paul Krugman and Zachary D. Carter in Conversation - CUNY Graduate Center - March 30th, 2025 [March 30th, 2025]
- Hip-Hop Star Macklemore on New Film The Encampments & Why He Speaks Out Against Israels War on Gaza - Democracy Now! - March 30th, 2025 [March 30th, 2025]
- Why Elon Musk, GOP Are Trying to Buy the Wisconsin Supreme Court Election - Democracy Docket - March 30th, 2025 [March 30th, 2025]
- Free Inquiry & Expression and the Future of Democracy Series Continues March 27 - Stetson University - March 30th, 2025 [March 30th, 2025]
- Arkansas AG rejects proposed ballot measure to amend states direct democracy process - Arkansas Advocate - March 30th, 2025 [March 30th, 2025]
- Our Voice: Threats to Democracy, From Oopsie Too late, to Ignoring Classified Communications - The Ark Valley Voice - March 30th, 2025 [March 30th, 2025]
- For the sake of US democracy, its time for Chuck Schumer to step down | Leah Greenberg and Ezra Levin - The Guardian - March 30th, 2025 [March 30th, 2025]
- To Build a Better Democracy, Start by Rethinking Your Relationship to the Internet - Tech Policy Press - March 30th, 2025 [March 30th, 2025]
- Duluth Residents Share Concerns at a Town Hall Hosted by Practicing Democracy - FOX 21 Online - March 30th, 2025 [March 30th, 2025]