CommentsELECTION 2020-I have some good news — or at least some slightly better news — and I have some bad news.
The bad news is this: America is now just one tiny step away from a final, full-blown authoritarian collapse. I’m not kidding. I say that as both a survivor and scholar of authoritarianism, and most of my peers will concur.
America has, at this, point, just one functioning democratic institution left. The House. Every other major political institution seems to have now been captured by fascists and fanatics. With the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett — which Joe Biden has correctly called an abuse of power — America’s democratic institutions are all now captive, save one. Let me count them down, so the point is crystal clear. The White House? In the hands of an authoritarian fascist movement. The Senate? Check. The Supreme Court? Captured by theocrats who believe in a theory of “originalism,” which would hold, among other things, that minorities aren’t people at all, women don’t necessarily have the right to vote, and there is no sanctity of the body, because there is no line between church and state.
Let me repeat the point, because it’s something that needs to repeated. Every single one of America’s institutions seems to have now been captured, save one, which is the House. That is as bad a position as a society can possibly be in. Most societies collapse when the judiciary is captured — precisely because when fascists and fanatics are interpreting the laws that other fanatics and fascists have made, kiss your future goodbye. That is how everything from Sharia Law coming the Islamic world to Russia descending into a failed state came to pass. Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination could well mark the end of American democracy — already, just a day after she was sworn in, the Supreme Court has upheld a ruling against certain votes — those that don’t arrive by election day — being counted.
You can see how slippery this slope is — and how fast a society can plunge into the abyss.
America’s extremists rival any Taliban or ISIS, by the way. Again, that’s not a joke or an exaggeration. They are going to take away healthcare from millions. . .in the middle of a pandemic. That is going to cause the death toll to explode — it’s already in the hundreds of thousands. Those who back them are willing to sacrifice themselves and their families for the cause. Properly understood, American extremism is a movement of martyrs, seeking a society of the pure in faith and blood, to whom violence and brutality and death are tools of cleansing and purification — which is exactly, precisely what Islamic extremist movements are, too. Take it from those of us who have lived all this before: you are now, if you are a sane American, dealing with your fanatical Taliban style extremists, with Nazi overtones, to boot.
I understand “real” Americans might think that’s overblown, but what experience do they really have with social collapse or authoritarianism? Precisely none. Those of us who do will say that American extremism doesn’t just resemble bona fide extremist movements, whether neo-Nazism or Islamic fundamentalism — it is a variant of those, just with a difference face. This is what a social collapse is: when the most ignorant, violent, and brutish in society come for your freedom, too, at last.
That brings me to the good news. Americans have one last chance to save their democracy. Again, I’m not kidding when I say, “save their democracy.” If I had to place America’s collapse on a spectrum, having seen five to ten societies collapse, and studied plenty more, I’d say it’s on the more extreme end: hard, fast, and vicious. If Americans don’t take this last chance, it is indeed certain they will not be living in a democracy shortly.
But what does it mean to “take this last chance to save America democracy?” It means, probably, much more than you imagine it does. It doesn’t just mean voting for Biden. That is a necessary step, of course. But it is just a beginning.
What does this battle, to reclaim American democracy, really involve? If you understand that every single institution of democracy save one has now been captured by America’s extremists, then the statement takes on a much bigger meaning than “vote for Biden.” It means this.
There must now be a plan to retake all the institutions that the fanatics and fascists have captured. And make them truly democratic again. There should be no compromise offered or quarter given. When you are dealing with fanatics, after all, you should scorch the earth and burn the ground they stand upon — or, like poisonous weeds, they will simply take root, and strangle you, all over again.
Let me unpack all that and put in plain English.
The battle to reclaim American democracy only begins with the Presidency. Then it must continue. With the Senate. With the Supreme Court. With the judiciary as a whole, which has been captured by extremists. With the agencies of government now acting effectively as paramilitaries and Gestapos. With the branches of government that are being held captive. With the procedures of governance that have been perverted and subverted as instruments against democracy.
There should be a top-to-bottom strategy, agenda, vision, to reclaim American democracy, from root to branch. It should be the core of what the Democrats want to accomplish. Yes, they will be too timid and short-sighted to really attempt it, or even create it. That is where you come in. You must hold them to account. Pressure them. Make them have such a strategy and vision.
Or you are going to lose your democracy for good.
All that means something like using each step in reclaiming democracy as a stepping stone for the next.
Take the example of the Presidency. If and when Biden is finally successful — a fight that will probably take months — should he “pack the court,” as they say? Of course, he should. And nobody should say he is doing that: they should simply say what is accurate — that he is modernizing a failing institution that does not reflect the values and interests of the American people anymore. Americans don’t really want less healthcare during a pandemic — so why do they have to live under the thumb of a Supreme Court that believes such absurd, idiotic, murderous things? That is what authoritarianism is.
Modernizing the Supreme Court, too, means probably setting term limits — something Biden has already foolishly conceded he won’t do. Why should anyone sit on the highest court for a lifetime in a purported democracy? It makes no sense whatsoever. Combine that with picking four to five new justices, and you begin to see how much work there is to do.
There should be a clear plan to retake the Senate, too. And then to abolish the filibuster. To set a concrete agenda for putting in place procedures that can stop “minority rule” — another euphemism for authoritarianism — and simply creating the gridlock that’s now become all too normal, bogging down democracy, stopping it dead with ridiculous moves of gamesmanship.
Modernizing these two institutions alone — the Supreme Court and Senate — alone will take the better part of a first Biden term, if not well into a second. And yet we’ve barely begun in the strategy to fully reclaim democracy.
What about rooting out of government all those who have helped take part in the current Administration’s abuses? Shall we really pretend, as a society, that the people who devised plans to throw kids in cages — or did the throwing — don’t deserve legal punishment? There can and should be a wave of prosecutions — not for the lesser crimes of nepotism and influence-peddling and so forth, but for the highest crimes of these last four years: crimes against humanity, attempted genocide, and so on. “Real” Americans might roll their eyes — but you cannot rebuild a robust, working democracy without justice for the worst abuses of power. You cannot pretend these things didn’t happen, and hope to live in a functional society.
The invisible fascists and fanatics — the middle-level bureaucrats of the authoritarian machine — need to flushed out of the inner workings of American governance, where they are currently hiding away, like moles, eating away at the workings of democracy. How long will that take? That process, too, will take years, perhaps the better part of a decade. We are talking special tribunals, perhaps something like a Nuremberg Trials process.
Then there is the work of modernizing the electoral college. Probably, it should be abolished entirely. It is very likely about to throw the upcoming election into chaos, because electors don’t vote for six weeks until after the popular vote, and in the majority of states, there’s no punishment for voting against the popular will. The GOP’s influence could potentially cause at least some electors to switch sides. This whole institution — built for slave-owners to preserve the power of land, not a modern democracy — is totally obsolete, badly broken, and needs major reform, if not outright abolition.
How long will that take? It’s going to probably take years to even envision an alternative, and then begin selling it to states, which will need to ratify a Constitutional Amendment, to change it. We are talking about a historic, generational project now.
This is where we begin to go off the Dems’ radar entirely. They have some idea of “packing the court” and even modernizing the Senate, to a degree. “The Squad” — AOC and the other Democratic Socialists — have even begun to call for justice against Trumpism’s crimes against humanity. But when it comes to major, fundamental reform — like of the electoral college — the Dems simply back down without a fight.
The Dems have been beaten into learned helplessness. Their abuse began in the 60s — when America’s rogue hard right simply began assassinating all the leaders of the then rising left. JFK, MLK, Malcolm X. But they didn’t stop there. They assassinated them all — right down to John Lennon. The result wasn’t just a movement whose back was broken — but a movement whose spirit was.
The American left had learned the lesson: go too far, imagine too much, dare to dream too big, attempt reforms too fundamental — even think of them — and you will pay the price. That is why, since then, it hasn’t even dared to think of serious institutional reform and change.
But now there is no option. Without major institutional reform, American democracy simply dies. The fanatics and fascists go on controlling the Supreme Court, Senate, hiding away in militarized government agencies, and so on, even if the Presidency changes hands — that’s a common pattern in failing societies. Without deep institutional reform now, America has no future — none.
The Dems have no vision for reform at this level, and that brings me back to you. You must pressure them. I know that Americans are smart — that they get this. I know many of them back it ardently. Where the system fails is in the connection between such people, and their representatives. If Democrats aren’t pressured into aiming much, much higher, into pursuing fundamental reform of failing democratic institutions, then American democracy will not be reclaimed. The last chance will be squandered.
The fascists and fanatics aren’t going to give up. They will keep on pursuing the goal of absolute power — that is what it means to be a fanatic or a fascist. They have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams — installing a theocratic member of a fanatical sectarian cult to the Supreme Court, something the Taliban would be proud of, while a fascist President laughs and dances as hundreds of thousands die, something ISIS would be proud of. None of that is going to simply disappear magically. The Dems have no real vision or strategy to fight extremists this committed to capturing democracy’s basic institutions, by reforming those institutions so they can’t be captured. That is why they lose. And that is why you, yes you, the sane and good and smart American, must now pressure them to begin the project of real reform. And not give up without a fight, as they’ve been conditioned to do, through decades of extreme violence.
Now is not the time to back down. It’s the time to double down. Or else democracy is lost for good.
Let me add one final note.
The truest prize of all here is constitutional reform. That is how you create a truly functional society: by making rights inalienable, putting them in the constitution itself. Americans think such reform is impossible: they have given up without a fight. So Joe Biden says: “healthcare should be a human right!” but he doesn’t support putting it. . .in the Constitution.
That’s wrong. It’s not good enough. Guess who just did? Chile just had a referendum, where the people overwhelmingly voted to rewrite the constitution, to include healthcare as a basic right. One Chilean put it best: “I want there to be a written record of our basic rights, which for me are education, healthcare, housing.” Its previous Constitution was essentially written by America’s extremists, who installed Pinochet and his death squads. It’s taken Chile two generations to recover from that — and finally rewrite a constitution meant for human beings, not authoritarianism. It’s a triumph for Chileans.
But Americans should learn. If Chileans can have a modern constitution — where things like healthcare and retirement are inalienable rights, not just guns and the Bible — why can’t America? It can, but Democrats aren’t pursuing such a thing, and gave up on it long ago, because they were beaten into submission.
Maybe this is the wake-up call they’ve needed. I don’t know. What I do know is that without reform, root-and-branch, top-to-bottom, of everything from the Presidency to the electoral college to the Supreme Court to the Senate, America will die. It will not survive. Taking back the Presidency is just the first step.
All of American democracy needs to be reclaimed now. All of it. That is the battle. It will be a long one, and a hard one. It will not be easy, and it will take work, time, imagination, and courage. You have to pressure the Dems to actually fight that battle if you want to live in a democracy again — a real one.
It’s about Joe Biden and the Dems, too. But it’s also about you. You have to take responsibility and step up. Pressure the Dems to actually have a strategy, vision, agenda, to reclaim American democracy from the fanatics and fascists — all of it. That is the chance you have now. It is the last chance to do such a thing, to modernize America, to make it a functioning society again, to reclaim it from the ignorant, the violent, the brutish, the ones who want to take away your freedom, happiness, your right to live life the way you should and make the most of yourself, instead of living it the way religious theocrats and fascists want you to live, or to even have a decent modern life, meaning things like healthcare, retirement, education, medicine, income, trust, purpose, time, dignity, at all.
The Dems need a strategy to reclaim American democracy. Without compromise, one that’s comprehensive, one that reaches from top to bottom, that modernizes every last failing institution in America, and makes it functional, truly democratic, protected from capture by the fanatics and fascists ever again. This is the moment to do all that. It’s up to you to make it happen. This is your last chance.
Don’t waste it. You won’t get another one.
(Umair Haque writes on Eudaimonia & Co which is posted on Medium.) Image: Alex Edelman. Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.
