Commentary: A year from the insurrection and American democracy is shaky
The Capitol Hill insurrection has only shown how divided American society has become, say two global policy observers.
WASHINGTON, DC: The anniversary of the Jan 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol has come and gone, and many Americans are deeply depressed that the country’s political divide has only deepened.
Though most Republican Party leaders condemned the attack at the time, the GOP has since internalised former President Donald Trump’s web of lies and falsehoods about the 2020 election, which he lost by seven million votes.
Republicans have largely refused even to participate in the congressional investigation into the matter.
A year after a sitting president tried to overturn the results of a fair and lawful election, the effort to identify and prosecute those responsible now must compete for attention with other security crises: Russian troops massing near Ukraine; Iran nearing the threshold of nuclear breakout; and humanitarian catastrophes in Afghanistan and Yemen.
Faced with all this, American leaders will be tempted to draw a bright line between home and abroad. But doing so would be both risky and wrong.
America’s profound polarisation reflects a society whose members no longer share a core understanding of what it means to be “secure.” Americans tend to have widely divergent experiences – across racial, religious, and gender lines – with US domestic security institutions.
Trust in the US military and security forces used to be consistently high; now, it is falling, alongside trust in the rest of America’s government institutions.
Americans no longer agree about who or what constitutes a threat, with Democrats much more likely to cite internal cohesion and political violence, and Republicans more concerned with traditional nation-state foes.
Moreover, Americans are divided by ideology and age over whether people and ideas from elsewhere are an opportunity or a threat.
These divisions, and the resulting policy gridlock, would be bad enough in isolation. But the rest of the world is watching, and it sees a society that cannot agree on what democracy is, or on who belongs to the demos.
THE WORLD WATCHES
In the World Bank’s Combined Polity Score index, the US has been downgraded from a longstanding score of 10, the highest for a democracy, to a five, meaning it is on the verge of anocracy: A democracy with authoritarian characteristics.
Around the world, those who have been inspired by leaders like Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King are now haunted by images of the Confederate flag being waved in the halls of Congress.
Allies whose ties to the US go back to World War II now see US elected officials embracing Holocaust deniers.
Neither friend nor foe believes that the US can or will deliver on its long-term promises anymore, whether in the realm of vaccine distribution, climate accords, or nuclear deals.
If you are American and this description sounds exaggerated, you should look to your northern neighbour.
In Canada, with which the US shares the world’s longest unfortified border, top media outlets marked the January 6 anniversary with a debate over, “What to do about the likely unravelling of democracy in the United States.”
Back at home, American political scientist Barbara F Walter, a leading global expert on civil wars, writes in a new book, “Most Americans cannot imagine another civil war in their country. But this is because they don’t know how civil wars start.”