It’s been a difficult week for democracy. In a world chock-full of dictators, authoritarians, populists and predators, the land of the free made a spectacle of itself, and not entirely in a good way.
From China and Russia to the Middle East, anti-democrats laughed scornfully or looked for advantage as the US president trashed his own country’s election, denouncing it as the heist of the century.
Let’s take the positives first. Americans voted in huge numbers, exhibiting impressive faith in the democratic process. Joe Biden’s personal haul of about 74 million votes smashed Barack Obama’s record, set in 2008. Total turnout was put at 160 million, or 67%, the highest in 120 years.
Anywhere else, Biden’s lead over Trump of more than 4 million votes would have won him the presidency – but in the US, stuck in its constitutional ways, the arcane electoral college has the final say.
This degree of public engagement in a week when the daily US total of Covid-19 cases topped 100,000 for the first time and the death toll surpassed 234,000 was remarkable. There were election protests aplenty but few reported incidents of violence. Unlike 2000, the count generally went smoothly, though slowly. Like 2016, most opinion polls were bemusingly wide of the mark.
Biden’s demeanour in the immediate, confusing aftermath was exemplary. He calmly called for patience. He stuck scrupulously to known facts; he did not over-reach. And he stressed that all votes, whether Democrat and Republican, were of equal importance and must be tallied.
This was an indication of Biden’s stated intent to revive consensus politics and heal America’s divisions. If this was a referendum on the future of democracy, it passed the test. But the story was far from over.
Even as Biden set the tone, Trump was lowering it. He claimed, falsely, to have won and said a “sad group” of people (Democrats) was stealing the election. As results turned against him, he alleged malpractice on a huge scale, tried to halt vote counts and launched a string of legal challenges.
Trump’s unsubstantiated, incendiary claims were dangerously irresponsible. His too-obvious aim was to delegitimise his opponent and cling to power, by hook or by crook.
After so much uncertainty, one thing is certain: Trump will continue to cry foul, traduce Biden as he traduced Obama and Hillary Clinton before him, exploit division, and fan discontent. With over 69 million voters at his back, he will remain America’s disrupter-in-chief.
Conspiracy theories, shameless lies and distortion, vote suppression, vexatious court actions, vilification of opponents, officials and independent media, tacit incitement to violence, abuse of power, illegal collusion with a hostile state, nepotism, corruption and self-glorification – this is Trump’s likely legacy, his gift to democracy in America.
In short, Trump’s absolutist leadership has set a terrible example, not only for Americans but for a watching world. He routinely cosied up to “strongman” leaders who despise the popular will, men such as Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Egypt’s Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, whom Trump called his “favourite dictator”. Perversely, he taunted democratically elected allies and friends.
Those same authoritarian hard men are laughing at him now, relishing US discord. Russia’s Vladimir Putin has plainly enjoyed having his own useful idiot in the White House. He will not be sorry about the deep fissures the election highlighted (and Russian cyber-meddlers helped to accentuate) or the disarray at the heart of US government.
The gleeful reaction of Vyacheslav Nikonov of the ruling United Russia party was instructive: “No matter who wins in court, half of Americans won’t consider him the legitimate president,” he said.
That’s the sort of verdict that appeals to Chinese leaders, who interpret the election furore as the latest sign of America’s decline. For them, Trump’s anti-China ravings are the product of weakness, not strength. There’s a school of thought in Beijing that believes China’s success in suppressing the pandemic, relative to the US and Europe, proves the superiority of centralised, one-party rule. Trump envied Xi Jinping’s presidency-for-life. He wanted one, too.
Unelected Gulf autocrats whom Trump befriended may similarly conclude that this is where democracy lands you: in a skip. For Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu, the Trump whisperer, it’s a black day – but not for Israeli democracy. Likewise, ordinary Iranians, who despite their oppressive regime are ardent would-be democrats, will cheer Trump’s current travails.
Yet all around, dangers arise. Global perceptions that democracy isn’t working in the country that believes it invented it could have widespread negative effects. For example, long-time African incumbents such as Yoweri Museveni, Uganda’s president since 1986 who plans to run again next year, often prove reluctant to quit. Like Museveni, they change the rules to ensure they don’t have to. For unprincipled politicians everywhere, Trump is a role model.
In Europe, where democratic structures are besieged by cynicism and distrust, the US vote will raise hopes that the rightwing populist-nationalist tide is finally turning. Trump divided the continent along east-west lines, just as he divided America. He treated Germany and the EU like enemies. His hostile behaviour made a growth industry of anti-Americanism.
Most European governments privately wanted to see the back of him. They hope the Biden presidency will bring a return to consensus-building on issues such as the climate crisis, will revive transatlanticism, and reboot the rules-based international order to help contain China and deter Russia.
Exceptions may be Boris Johnson’s government, which relied on Trump’s help on Brexit, and conservative-led Poland and Hungary.
Yet Europeans will be fooling themselves if they think Trump’s humbling signals the defeat, either in America or abroad, of the politics of fear or the antagonistic beliefs and hateful prejudices he peddles and personifies.
Trumpism is far from vanquished. The global battle for free and equal democratic societies is unending. In fact, it just intensified.
