The Threat to American Democracy

“We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented”.

Elie Wiesel

Readers may have noticed that I have gone some time without mentioning the former president of the United States.

I did this for a specific reason. 

I had concluded that giving the former president a platform would perpetuate his presence and contribute to fueling his ongoing diatribes. I concluded that ignoring him would diminish his presence and reduce his importance in global and U.S. politics.

I was wrong.

Two weeks ago, the former president held a rally in Ohio in which he declared himself in favor of QAnon – a cult-like extremist right-wing group that espouses every kind of conspiracy theory including some outlandish ones that paint Democrats and the federal bureaucracy as blood sucking pedophiles. In the view of QAnon followers, the former president has been sent by God to save the U.S. from these people.

The people at the rally held their hands up in the QAnon salute (reminiscent of the Nazi salute) and reacted much like the Nazis did at the Nuremberg rallies in 1930’s Germany. Their frenzy was evident to all, as they sang QAnon songs and reveled in the presence of their leader.

The week before, the former president posted an image of himself wearing a Q pin on his lapel under the slogan “The Storm is Coming”. QAnoners believe that the storm is the moment when the former president will take power after defeating, trying, and executing his opponents.

All of this would be cause for ridicule were it not for the fact that increasing numbers of Republicans are adhering to these conspiracy theories and parroting them in their literature and their speeches. Indeed, the former president’s grip on the Republican rank and file seems to be holding and, even though they are not in the majority, their commitment to their fantasies and proclivity for creating violent civil unrest should frighten Americans into action. 

The January 6, 2021 coup attempt was a taste of what could be in the works should the former president be prosecuted for crimes committed during his presidency. As well, a good number of Republicans have refused to promise to accept the results of the upcoming mid-term elections or the elections of 2024.

Since the U.S. is faced with a Republican Party that has grown increasingly anti-democratic and pro-authoritarian, who wins the elections appears to be of less importance that who doesn’t accept the voters’ verdict, led by someone who is hell bent on grabbing absolute power by whatever means possible. The former president may well lose the 2024 election should he decide to run, but the violence that he and his followers could unleash in the aftermath could leave an incurable wound in the heart of American society.

Edmund Burke once noted that all tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.

Silence is no longer an option. Not for voters, not for the media.

The time for Democrats to pussyfoot around with Republicans in the hope that they can be brought back to the center has passed. President Biden was right in labelling the former president and his followers as fascists in a recent speech, and Democrats must continue to go for the Republican jugular if American democracy is to survive.

The media must leave objectivity aside and call things what they are. Followers of the former president must not be coddled or treated with kid gloves. They must be shown up for what they are – fundamentally flawed and against all the basic values that the United States purports to espouse. Fascists in thought and deed.

There is no room for neutrality, no positive outcome for naïve hope. Only direct action can mobilize voters in the U.S. to rally around those who would ensure the survival of democracy and the elimination of this threat.

Today’s Republicans live in a fantasy world based on falsehoods fed by a megalomaniac. His lies are legion, his fantasies criminal, and his personal and political morality abhorrent.

If Americans do not take action now, he has the power to destroy American democracy after 250 years of existence and plunge the country into civil strife. U.S. democracy may have always been imperfect, but it has represented an aspirational ideal to many around the world.

All of this can disappear in the blink of an eye if those in the U.S. who love democracy don’t band together and fight the threat posed by a Republican Party coopted by the former president and his followers on the extreme right.

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Keep reading: The Comedian as Leader 

Edición: Laura Espejo