Social Europe

politics, economy and employment & labour

  • Themes
    • Global cities
    • Strategic autonomy
    • War in Ukraine
    • European digital sphere
    • Recovery and resilience
  • Publications
    • Books
    • Dossiers
    • Occasional Papers
    • Research Essays
    • Brexit Paper Series
  • Podcast
  • Videos
  • Newsletter
  • Membership

Threats to American democracy

Sheri Berman 7th June 2021

Sheri Berman warns that while the threats may seem incremental they pose a real danger—which Europeans should note.

threats to American democracy,Republican party
Sheri Berman

On June 1st more than a hundred scholars of democracy released a ‘Statement of Concern’ about threats to American democracy. Although warnings about problems with American democracy are not new, this declared that the United States was at a turning point: it argued that the ‘future of American democracy’ was ‘fundamentally at stake’.

To outsiders, such a statement might seem exaggerated—even apocalyptic—especially given the fact that now Joe Biden, rather than Donald Trump, is president. But students of European politics should pay attention to this statement, and the debate about democracy it has reignited in the US. Its dire warning was motivated by the type of corrosion of democratic norms and institutions that represents the gravest threat to democracy in Europe and other parts of the world today.

Alarms raised

Scholars of Trump’s presidency—including many who signed the statement—raised alarms about the threat he presented to American democracy. These were, unsurprisingly, dismissed by Republicans, some of whom in turn claimed that Democrats represented the real threat to democracy and freedom, since they advocated ‘Venezuelan-style socialism’ and ‘political correctness run amok’. Perhaps more surprising is that some commentators ostensibly on the left dismissed such claims as well, insisting that rather than Trump the real threats to democracy came from unbridled capitalism, big corporations, American imperialism and so on.

Part of the reason many observers were able to dismiss the threat of Trump is that during his presidency no single dramatic or unequivocal move to overthrow democracy was taken—along the lines, for example of the coups that typically toppled democracy in the past or more recently put an end to the democratic opening in Myanmar. But scholars of democracy understood that threats to democracy can be subtle as well as dramatic, ambiguous as well as unequivocal—and such threats have, perhaps counter-intuitively, become even clearer since Trump left office.


Become part of our Community of Thought Leaders


Get fresh perspectives delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for our newsletter to receive thought-provoking opinion articles and expert analysis on the most pressing political, economic and social issues of our time. Join our community of engaged readers and be a part of the conversation.

Sign up here

Although Trump’s illiberalism, corruption, lying and racism received constant attention from commentators during his time in the White House, what made him a real threat to democracy was not his personal inclinations but rather the responses of other political actors, particularly the Republican party, to him. Not only did Republicans indulge Trump, rather than condemn or constrain him, enabling him to become increasingly brazen over time. The party itself grew increasingly illiberal and anti-democratic during his period in office.

The result is that, even though Trump lost the election, American politics has not returned to ‘normal’. Indeed, Trump’s removal has made clearer the nature and severity of the threat to American democracy. We now have a two-party system where one of the two parties prioritises partisanship over democracy and is accordingly willing to promote policies that would seriously, if not fatally, impair the functioning and legitimacy of democracy’s core foundation—free and fair elections.

False claims of fraud

Motivated by false claims of electoral fraud in 2020, Republicans are trying to limit access to voting and politicise electoral administration and oversight.

While it is certainly possible to have good-faith conversations about the conditions under which mail-in and absentee ballots are distributed and counted, whether identification should be required to vote (and, if so, what type) and so on, Republican efforts to restrict voting access are not motivated by a general desire to improve the quality of American elections. Instead, Trump and his Republican supporters claim mail-in and absentee voting and a lack of stringent voter-ID requirements enabled votes to be illegally cast and miscounted.

Since there is no evidence for such claims, it is clear that Republican attempts to restrict voting access are instead motivated by a desire to increase the difficulty of voting for groups viewed as more likely to support Democrats. Given our country’s long history of attempts to restrict African-Americans‘ ability to vote, these efforts by Republicans are particularly destructive and divisive.

But even more dangerous than these attempts to restrict voting access—if only because the efficacy of such efforts in substantially diminishing voter turnout is unclear—are Republican attempts to increase partisan control over electoral administration and oversight. Republican-controlled legislatures are giving themselves the power to override electoral outcomes, permit Republican officials to take over local election boards, entrench partisan redistricting and more.

Should these ‘reforms’ be enacted, the non-partisan nature of American elections would be dramatically, perhaps fatally, diminished. For example, it is quite possible that, had these reforms been in place before November 2020, Trump’s attempts to overturn the electoral outcomes in key battleground states would have succeeded. Had that occurred, of course, the US would have ceased being a democracy in any real sense of the word.

Warning to democrats

Whatever one thinks of the policies pursued by Biden, neither he nor the Democratic party threatens the foundations of American democracy; the Republican party currently does. The party’s insistence on electoral fraud and the policies it has tried to justify in response are a threat to the health of American democracy. Without an agreement on basic facts and free and fair elections, democracy cannot survive.


Support Progressive Ideas: Become a Social Europe Member!


Support independent publishing and progressive ideas by becoming a Social Europe member for less than 5 Euro per month. You can help us create more high-quality articles, podcasts and videos that challenge conventional thinking and foster a more informed and democratic society. Join us in our mission - your support makes all the difference!

Become a Social Europe Member

What is going on in the US should thus be a warning to small-d democrats worldwide. Particularly in democracies of long standing, as in western Europe and the US, coups or direct attacks do not represent the most important threat to democracy. The real threat comes from a gradual corrosion of a commitment to democratic norms and institutions.

If Americans in general, and Republicans in particular, do not begin prioritising democracy over partisan goals and recognise how fragile its health currently is, our country may indeed find itself on a slippery slope to long-term dysfunction and decay.

This article is a joint publication by Social Europe and IPS-Journal

Pics1
Sheri Berman

Sheri Berman is a professor of political science at Barnard College and author of Democracy and Dictatorship in Europe: From the Ancien Régime to the Present Day (Oxford University Press).

You are here: Home / Most popular / Threats to American democracy

Most Popular Posts

Belarus,Lithuania A tale of two countries: Belarus and LithuaniaThorvaldur Gylfason and Eduard Hochreiter
dissent,social critique,identity,politics,gender Delegitimising social critique and dissent on the leftEszter Kováts
retirement,Finland,ageing,pension,reform Late retirement: possible for many, not for allKati Kuitto
Credit Suisse,CS,UBS,regulation The failure of Credit Suisse—not just a one-offPeter Bofinger
Europe,transition,climate For a just and democratic climate transitionJulia Cagé, Lucas Chancel, Anne-Laure Delatte and 8 more

Most Recent Posts

Barcelona,feminist,feminism Barcelona: a feminist municipalism now at riskLaura Pérez Castaño
Spain,elections,Sánchez Is Spain on the right track?Bettina Luise Rürup
CBI,Confederation of British Industry,harassment Crisis at Britain’s CBI holds lessons for othersMarianna Fotaki
central and eastern Europe,CEE,renewable Central and eastern Europe: a renewable-energy win-winPaweł Czyżak
Cape Town,inequality Tackling inequality in the city—Cape TownWarren Smit

Other Social Europe Publications

Bildschirmfoto 2023 05 08 um 21.36.25 scaled 1 RE No. 13: Failed Market Approaches to Long-Term Care
front cover Towards a social-democratic century?
Cover e1655225066994 National recovery and resilience plans
Untitled design The transatlantic relationship
Women Corona e1631700896969 500 Women and the coronavirus crisis

Hans Böckler Stiftung Advertisement

The macroeconomic effects of re-applying the EU fiscal rules

Against the background of the European Commission's reform plans for the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP), this policy brief uses the macroeconometric multi-country model NiGEM to simulate the macroeconomic implications of the most relevant reform options from 2024 onwards. Next to a return to the existing and unreformed rules, the most prominent options include an expenditure rule linked to a debt anchor.

Our results for the euro area and its four biggest economies—France, Italy, Germany and Spain—indicate that returning to the rules of the SGP would lead to severe cuts in public spending, particularly if the SGP rules were interpreted as in the past. A more flexible interpretation would only somewhat ease the fiscal-adjustment burden. An expenditure rule along the lines of the European Fiscal Board would, however, not necessarily alleviate that burden in and of itself.

Our simulations show great care must be taken to specify the expenditure rule, such that fiscal consolidation is achieved in a growth-friendly way. Raising the debt ceiling to 90 per cent of gross domestic product and applying less demanding fiscal adjustments, as proposed by the IMK, would go a long way.


DOWNLOAD HERE

ETUI advertisement

The four transitions and the missing one

Europe is at a crossroads, painfully navigating four transitions (green, digital, economic and geopolitical) at once but missing the transformative and ambitious social transition it needs. In other words, if the EU is to withstand the storm, we do not have the luxury of abstaining from reflecting on its social foundations, of which intermittent democratic discontent is only one expression. It is against this background that the ETUI/ETUC publishes its annual flagship publication Benchmarking Working Europe 2023, with the support of more than 70 graphs and a special contribution from two guest editors, Professors Kalypso Nikolaidïs and Albena Azmanova.


DOWNLOAD HERE

Eurofound advertisement

Unaffordable and inadequate housing in Europe

Unaffordable housing is a matter of great concern in the European Union. It leads to homelessness, housing insecurity, financial strain and inadequate housing. It also prevents young people from leaving their family home. These problems affect people’s health and wellbeing, embody unequal living conditions and opportunities, and result in healthcare costs, reduced productivity and environmental damage.

This new report maps housing problems in the EU and the policies that address them, drawing on Eurofound’s Living, working and Covid-19 e-survey, EU Statistics on Income and Living Conditions and input from the Network of Eurofound Correspondents.


DOWNLOAD HERE

Foundation for European Progressive Studies Advertisement

The spring issue of the Progressive Post magazine from FEPS is out!

The Special Coverage of this new edition is dedicated to Feminist Foreign Policy, to try to gauge its potential but also the risk that it could be perceived as another attempt by the west to impose its vision on the global south.

In this issue, we also look at the human cost of the war in Ukraine, analyse the increasing connection between the centre right and the far right, and explore the difficulties, particularly for women, of finding a good work-life balance and living good working lives.


DOWNLOAD HERE

About Social Europe

Our Mission

Article Submission

Membership

Advertisements

Legal Disclosure

Privacy Policy

Copyright

Social Europe ISSN 2628-7641

Social Europe Archives

Search Social Europe

Themes Archive

Politics Archive

Economy Archive

Society Archive

Ecology Archive

Follow us

RSS Feed

Follow us on Facebook

Follow us on Twitter

Follow us on LinkedIn

Follow us on YouTube