A Perfect
Storm
Democracy on the Defensive in Trump's America
Coronavirus, economic collapse and now mass
demonstrations for racial equality: The United States is facing a trio of deep
crises. Instead of offering leadership, President Donald Trump is exacerbating
divisions and showing authoritarian tendencies. With the presidential election
still several months away, the country's health is at stake.
By Guido
Mingels, Roland Nelles, Ralf Neukirch und René Pfister
05.06.2020,
19.26 Uhr
Once
darkness had fallen, the general went to see the situation for himself. Mark
Milley strode across the battlefield in olive-green camouflage and heavy boots,
not to inspect a residential street in Fallujah or mountains in Afghanistan,
but the streets of Washington, D.C.
A reporter
asked Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, if he had a message
for the American people. His response: "Just allow freedom to assemble,
freedom of speech, that's perfectly fine, we support that," he said.
"We took an oath of allegiance to the Constitution of the United States of
America to do that, and to protect everyone's rights and that's what we
do."
It was a
striking statement given that it came just a short time after security
personnel, including members of the military police, deployed batons and
flashbang grenades to forcibly push peaceful protesters out of the streets
surrounding the White House. There are competing narratives as to whether they
had been warned before force was deployed, but it is clear why they were moved:
to provide a photo op for U.S. President Donald Trump.
Around 6
p.m. on Monday, after several days in which the White House had looked like a
defensive fortress surrounded by a sea of furious demonstrators, Trump stepped
outside. Up to that point, the president had hardly said a word about the
largely peaceful protests or the limited rioting that had beset Washington,
D.C., and dozens of other towns and cities across the nation. He was unable to
find the courage or desire to give a consoling speech following the horrific
slaying of George Floyd, a black man who was murdered by a white policeman who
kneeled on his neck for almost nine minutes.
Once the
crowds were cleared on Monday evening, Trump stood in front of St. John's
Church, which had been damaged by fire the previous evening. He fiddled with a Bible,
then held it aloft, as though unsure exactly what to do. When Trump was asked
about his favorite verse in what he described as his "favorite book"
last year, he had been unable to come up with one.
In front of
the church, a journalist asked the president about his thoughts about the
current situation. Trump muttered a few unintelligible comments into the wind.
He was surrounded exclusively by white men and women, including Defense
Secretary Mark Esper and the four-star General Milley, who had been tasked by
the president a short time earlier with coordinating the military response to
the unrest in the country.
Quick
Pushback
The scene
was as ridiculous as it was ominous, more reminiscent of South American
potentates than of American democracy. Trump, who is fond of taking about
"my generals" and also claimed to have the "support of the
army," had arranged for a military escort for his foray into the streets
of America. He also indicated that he wanted to send military units into
American cities to confront the protesters, whom he has described as
"terrorists."
The
pushback came quickly. Defense Secretary Esper voiced his disapproval of the
plan, as did several others. After Trump’s church appearance, retired General
John Allen, who once commanded NATO troops in Afghanistan and was part of the
fight against Islamic State, said, "The slide of the United States into
illiberalism may well have begun on June 1, 2020." James Mattis, also a
retired general and once Trump's defense secretary, wrote in The Atlantic that
Trump was the first president who was seeking to divide the country rather than
unite it. But Trump's political allies were still there for him. The New York
Times published an op-ed by Republican Senator Tom Cotton headlined, "Send
In the Military."
Trump and
his political accessories are using the rhetoric of authoritarianism.
Militarized police forces haven't just been using violence to quell plundering
and rioting, they have also been attacking peaceful demonstrators. Journalists
have been arrested as well.
Should we
be worried about the United States? Is a fundamental shift taking place in a
country that is synonymous with deeply rooted democracy? The current chaos on
the streets of America isn't just the product of the country’s economic and
societal tensions. The president himself has repeatedly exacerbated those
conflicts with his rhetoric. Trump, it seems, needs the chaos. He feeds off it.
Few other
democratically elected leaders have as much power as the U.S. president, a
reality that can lead to abuse. Trump has made personal loyalty the most
important qualification for those with whom he surrounds himself. He harbors
deep admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin and once voiced his
support for the violent crushing of the pro-democracy protests on Beijing's
Tiananmen Square, saying it was a sign of strength.
The Russia
investigation and his impeachment did not show him the limits of his power, and
instead awakened in him a desire to hit back hard and to get rid of anyone
within government who does not fulfill his every whim. In the waning months of
his first term in office, just a few months before Election Day, he is
increasingly putting his authoritarian tendencies on full display.
In the
Hands of Loyal Acolytes
Not long
ago, it seemed absurd to question the strength of America's system of checks
and balances. U.S. democracy, more than 200 years old, has survived numerous
crises and its resilience has always withstood attempts to grab power. But
after more than three years of Trump, and despite him being the democratically
elected president, the foundations of American democracy have grown brittle.
Trump has continually pushed back the limits of what was considered acceptable
under his predecessors. Flouting tradition, he placed the powerful Department
of the Interior and the intelligence agencies in the hands of loyal acolytes.
"It's
very frightening," says Rosa Brooks, a professor of law at Georgetown
University. "I hope that I'm being much too paranoid but it's hard not to
think of things like the Reichstag fire at this moment."
From the
German perspective, of course, the comparison seems farfetched. In February,
1933, the National Socialists used the fire in Berlin’s Reichstag building as
an excuse to issue the "Decree of the Reich President for the Protection
of People and State.” This essentially meant the suspension of the Weimar-era
constitution and the beginning of the Nazi dictatorship.
The U.S. is
far away from that. The system of checks and balances is a long way from being
defanged and opposition is lively, as the streets in recent days have shown. In
the House of Representatives, the Democrats have a solid majority and both
Washington and New York are home to newspapers that wield tremendous power.
But the
president is flirting with authoritarianism. And his party is following along.
On Monday,
Trump retweeted a post by Cotton, the Republican senator, reading: "If
local law enforcement is overwhelmed and needs backup, let's see how tough
these Antifa terrorists are when they're facing off with the 101st Airborne
Division."
On Monday
night, military helicopters circled at low altitude above the streets of the
capital to intimidate demonstrators and looters. In military jargon, the tactic
is known as a "show of force," and tends to be used in foreign
battlefields in places like Iraq or Afghanistan. Meanwhile, National Guard
troops in battle equipment lined up in front of the Lincoln Memorial, their
faces covered. And then, suddenly, a high fence was erected around the White House
on Thursday. To protect the president from the American people.
Daniel
Ziblatt, a professor of the science of government at Harvard, co-authored the
book "How Democracies Die" two years ago. It quickly became a widely
respected work about the rise of autocrats and the strategies they employ.
"When we wrote the book, we wanted to avoid seeming too alarmist,"
Ziblatt says today. "Now, I think we were too optimistic. We thought the
Republican Party would break with Trump when he began attacking the democratic
system. But that hasn't happened."
Destructive
Rioting and Curfews
The U.S.
has been beset by a perfect storm. In absolute numbers, no other industrialized
country has been hit as hard by the coronavirus pandemic as the United States,
with more than 100,000 dead. The economic consequences of the virus have also
been devastating: More than 40 million Americans have lost their jobs, a
disaster second only to the Great Depression. And now, the killing of George
Floyd has torn open the country's oldest wound: the deep-seated racism left
behind by slavery.
During the
initial weeks of the coronavirus crisis, many people took comfort in the notion
that "we’re all in this together.”
The phrase was repeated daily by news anchors, politicians and
celebrities. But many black people in the United States saw it as an affront.
They have been hit much harder than white Americans by unemployment - even
George Floyd had lost his job as a bouncer at a restaurant in Minneapolis.
Furthermore, the chance that a black American will die from COVID-19 is three
times higher than for white people.
"Our
country will thrive and prosper again," Trump said in his inaugural
address in January 2017. But now, dozens of U.S. cities have seen destructive rioting,
and curfews have been imposed on 60 million Americans.
Racist
police violence has a long, ugly tradition in the United States and white
terror existed long before Trump rose to power, but almost all presidents in
recent history have tried to unite the country. When a white terrorist shot and
killed nine black people during a Bible study on June 17, 2015, in Charleston,
South Carolina, Barack Obama sang a moving rendition of "Amazing
Grace" at the memorial service. It comforted the nation.
"I
hope that I'm being much too paranoid but it's hard not to think of things like
the Reichstag fire at this moment."
Rosa
Brooks, a professor at Georgetown University.
The
contrast to Trump could hardly be greater. Last year, the current president
awarded one of the country’s two highest civilian honors to the racist radio
host Rush Limbaugh – a man who once said: "If any race of people should
not have guilt about slavery, it's Caucasians." When the first
disturbances began following the killing of George Floyd, Trump issued a
warning that culminated in the sentence: "When the looting starts, the
shooting starts." The sentence was used in the 1960s by racist politicians
and police chiefs. Trump seemed to intentionally be throwing a match into a
barrel of gasoline. And now, the country is burning.
"I am
here to fight for my black skin," says a breathless Tranesha Smith, 25, in
Oakland. She is holding up a homemade sign as a dark wall of police assembles
in front of her. The sign reads "Peace for George Floyd" on the front
and, on the back: "You killed my black brother." She says she is
fighting for her children, for all black people. And for justice.
Understanding
the Rage
"No
justice, no peace," is one of the most frequently chanted slogans at the
demonstrations. It is often followed by a second sentence: "No racist
police!" Thousands have taken to the streets of Oakland in recent days,
just as they have in dozens of other cities and towns around the country: in
Minneapolis, New York, Los Angeles, Dallas, Washington, Houston, Portland,
Louisville and Chicago. Windows have been broken in Oakland, which is located
across the bay from San Francisco, and there has been looting.
But on this
recent afternoon, the protests are peaceful, at least in physical terms. The anger
is still there, expressed in slogans like "fuck the police!" which is
chanted over and over again. The heavily armed officers, dressed in
dark-colored riot gear, show no emotion under their helmets. Tranesha Smith,
who works as an elder-care nurse, is wearing sandals, torn jeans and a colorful
top.
Oakland is
a good place to understand the rage of black people in America. Many African
American people from the South moved to the so-called "Harlem of the
West" in the middle of the 20th century. In the 1960s, it was the
birthplace of the militant Black Panthers, who confronted the virulent police
brutality of the time with violent force. Their logo can be seen these days on
many of the T-shirts worn by demonstrators. Another popular motif is an image
of Colin Kaepernick, the former quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers who
popularized the practice of kneeling during the national anthem as a sign of
protest. Oakland has a long tradition of black resistance.
And with
good reason. Whereas black residents made up roughly half of the city's
population in 1980, their share is below a quarter today. One reason for their
displacement is the economic boom in Silicon Valley and the entire Bay Area,
where high-salaried tech workers drove up housing prices, making it too
expensive for many long-time residents to stay. Gentrification has long-since
taken root in San Francisco, where black faces are frequently only seen among
the homeless.
"I'm
here to fight for my black skin."
Tranesha
Smith, a protester in Oakland
The
geography of Oakland is itself evidence of structural racism: The neighborhoods
where the city's black population tends to live are located in the lowlands and
crisscrossed by highways raised on cement pillars. White residents tend to live
higher up on the hillsides, with views of the bay.
As the
demonstrators march past City Hall, they chant the names of the victims:
"Say their names! George Floyd! Say their names! Breonna Taylor! Say their
names! Ahmaud Arbery!"
Breonna
Taylor was killed by police in Kentucky in March. Ahmaud Arbery was a young
black man who was apparently shot and killed while jogging in Georgia by a
white civilian. They are just three names in a long list of black victims. Many
American cities have their own George Floyd.
"But
this time, it's different," says Jackie Byers, 48, from a local human
rights organization called Black Organizing Project, who is also marching with
the demonstrators. It's different, Byers believes, than during the unrest in
Ferguson in 2014, when Michael Brown was shot and killed. And different from
the 1991 uprising in Los Angeles after police beat Rodney King half to death.
"A
Stab in Our Hearts"
What’s new,
says Byers, is that millions of Americans could see the expression on the face
of the policeman Derek Chauvin as he presses his knee into the neck of George
Floyd for eight minutes and 46 seconds. The video immediately went viral on the
internet. The lack of emotion, the impassiveness, says Byers, "is like a stab
in our hearts." It reflects, she says, the degree of arrogance of white
law enforcement officers who don't have to fear ever having to face justice for
their actions.
According
to the Mapping Police Violence database, 99 percent of all deaths caused by
police between 2013 and 2019 resulted in no charges whatsoever. Each year,
around 1,000 people in the United States lose their lives at the hands of the
police, though the likelihood of being one of those victims is almost three
times higher for blacks than it is for whites.
Another new
aspect, says Byers, is that there are now two life-threatening viruses fueling
the rage of black Americans: racism, which is deeply rooted in American culture
and history, and SARS-CoV-2, which has hit blacks much harder than whites.
Together, they have created a social explosion.
The fact
that a greater proportion of black Americans die from COVID-19 is also a
consequence of the conditions in which they live. On average, black Americans
are much poorer than white Americans, which frequently translates to worse
health and inadequate access to quality medical care. The average income of a
black household in the United States is around $40,000 per year. For white
households, that number is $70,000. Black Americans are also relatively more
exposed to the virus because they are more likely to work at lower paying jobs
that they cannot perform from home – working in supermarkets, delivering
packages or caring for patients in the hospitals.
Walking
around the Chicago’s Austin neighborhood with Elce Redmond, one gets a sense of
how American capitalism has treated black residents. A community organizer,
Redmond has spent 30 years focusing his attentions on Austin, one of the city's
poorest and most dangerous districts. Some 81 percent of its population are
African-American, and 13 percent are Latino.
Broken Out
or Boarded Up
Until the
end of the 1980s, Redmond says, Austin was a solid, stable neighborhood. But
then, spurred by globalization, numerous companies moved production overseas, plunging
many people into unemployment and the neighborhood into a constant battle
against poverty, drugs and crime. In some streets, nice homes with well-tended
yards show that not everyone is losing the battle. But just one block away,
entire rows of houses stand empty, with the windows either broken out or
boarded up.
Children
who grow up in Austin have a difficult start in life. "People used to
think they had a chance if they worked hard and didn't give up," says
Redmond. But that faith is waning. "The American dream doesn't work
because there is a wall: institutional racism." To show what he means,
Redmond points to a large building whose windows have been bricked up. It used
to be Emmet Elementary School, but like many schools in Chicago's poorer neighborhoods,
the school was closed down in 2014. "The only path to advancement is
education," says Redmond. "There are plenty of dedicated teachers
here, but there is a lack of financial means and there is a lack of desire to
change things."
The
American education system is heavily tilted toward the haves and away from the
have nots. Schools in wealthy neighborhoods receive more public funding than
those in poor neighborhoods because funding is dependent on local tax revenues.
"Children who need help don't have a chance," Redmond says. And the
many local initiatives in Austin can hardly change that situation. Now they are
having to deal with the coronavirus as well. "This is a virus
hotspot," says Redmond, a situation, he says, that came about in part
because of high residential density and a lack of quality health care. The
local hospital was shut down years ago.
The virus
has combined with this widespread rage to feed the current unrest on American
streets. The sentence George Floyd uttered as he was dying, "I can't
breathe," has become the slogan of the nationwide demonstrations against
police violence. But it also reflects the particularly hard impact of the
COVID-19 pandemic on the black population in the past several months.
Colin
Kaepernick's kneel of protest has also taken on new meaning in recent days,
mirrored as it is by the way the policeman knelt on George Floyd's neck. In
many parts of the U.S., kneeling has become a way for the police to demonstrate
solidarity with protesters. These scenes shouldn't be forgotten amid the news
coverage of burning buildings, plundered shops and clouds of tear gas.
A Question
of Power
America
finds itself at a high-stakes crossroads. Although there has been looting and
rage, hundreds of thousands of white Americans have joined the anti-racist
protests. Indeed, the protests seem to also be aimed at the man in the Oval
Office, whose administration does not include a single black person in a
prominent cabinet position and whose campaign events are almost exclusively attended
by white supporters.
Outside the
White House, the United States is becoming increasingly diverse, making it
increasingly difficult to win an election without support from black and Latino
voters. The unrest is thus not just about racist police officers or jobs, but
about who has the say in the United States, about power.
In 2016,
Trump received 3 million fewer votes than Hillary Clinton, who won 89 percent
of the African American vote. Trump only won because of the Electoral College,
which grants the primarily white states in the Midwest influence far
outstripping the size of their populations. Demographically, though, whites are
shrinking as a share of the population.
In Texas, a
Republic stronghold for decades, the non-white population has already overtaken
the white population. "We are experiencing the death rattle of the America
represented by Donald Trump," believes Eddie Glaude, an historian at
Princeton University. "Politically, that leads to panicked efforts to hold
onto an America that is dying out. It has been accelerated by COVID-19."
"People
used to think they had a chance if they worked hard and didn't give up."
Elce
Redmond, community organizer in Chicago
The
Republicans have entered into a devil's bargain with Donald Trump. He delivered
all that the party has ever pined for: tax cuts, conservative judges and sharp
anti-abortion rhetoric. In return, the party has completely subordinated itself
to Trump, whose re-election strategy hinges on the support of white voters
without a college education. The strategy can only be successful if large
portions of the electorate are kept away from the voting booth.
The
Republican conception of free and fair elections was on full display in
Wisconsin in early April, during a vote in which Democrats also chose their
favored candidate for the presidency. Governor Tony Evers, a Democrat, wanted
to delay the vote to give citizens an opportunity to vote by mail due to the
coronavirus pandemic.
Endlessly
Long Lines
But
Republicans in the Wisconsin statehouse didn't just reject that effort, they
ensured that the number of voting booths was drastically reduced – particularly
in areas where many African Americans lived. In Milwaukee, 175 of 180 polling
stations were closed. Those wanting to cast their ballots had to stand in
endlessly long lines.
It was part
of a long tradition. "There is no Republican majority in America, except
on election days," wrote the New York Times in a recent editorial. Instead
of striving to attract new groups of voters, the Republicans have adopted a
different strategy: They are trying to prevent minorities from voting at all.
And it is made easier by America's system of administration, which is not easy
for Continental Europeans to understand.
Because
American's do not carry federal IDs, citizens must register to vote. And every
state decides on its own which document is required to do so. Since 2014, the
state of Alabama has demanded a driver's license. Documents entitling holders
to social housing are no longer sufficient, but for many African Americans, they
are the only official documents that they possess.
The
exclusion of black voters was an invention of the Democrats, once the party of
Southern slave owners. After the end of the Civil War in 1865, they wanted to
prevent former slaves from rising to positions of power. The Republicans, who
have almost no black support today, expanded and modernized those efforts in
the 20th century. "It used to be: If you vote, you die," says
historian Carol Anderson, referencing the lynchings that used to take place in
the South. "Today, intimidation works differently."
Crystal
Mason is familiar with that intimidation. In the 2016 presidential elections,
she wanted to cast her ballot for Hillary Clinton. Because her name was no
longer the registration rolls, however, she cast a provisional ballot. It is a
standard procedure and votes thus cast are examined after the election to
determine if they are valid.
The mother
of three had served a five-year jail sentence for a tax offense, but because
she was on parole, she was ineligible to vote. By phone, she explains that she
didn’t know about the rule, and received a shocking surprise a few months
later: She was being charged with voter fraud. Mason was ultimately sentenced
to ten more months in prison for violating her parole and sentenced to
additional five years in jail for voter fraud. A court rejected her appeal. The
three judges who ruled on her case had all been appointed by Republicans.
"Prison for a vote cast in good faith that wasn’t counted – this is a
textbook example of voter intimidation,” argues Anderson, the historian.
The Notion
of American Exceptionalism
Another
popular method Is to cleanse voter-registration rolls. The Republican-run state
of Georgia stalled 53,000 people’s voter applications shortly before the
state’s gubernatorial election in 2018. Because of alleged discrepancies within
the registration system, these residents were made to meet confusing
identification requirements in order to vote. Of those affected, 70 percent
were black – hardly a coincidence. Ultimately, Republican Brian Kemp, a fervent
admirer of Trump, won by approximately 55,000 votes.
It’s
unclear if these kinds of tactics will help Trump win the election in November.
The virus has shattered the strong economy he hoped would propel his election
campaign. Millions of Americans have lost not only their jobs, but also their
health insurance in recent weeks. The economic hardship in the U.S. is now so
severe that many families no longer know how to feed their children. Miles-long
queues have formed in front of food banks, and American downtowns are on fire.
Trump is
trying to profit from the anger felt by many Americans about the looting, which
has been especially serious in New York, Washington D.C. and Minneapolis, all
of which are run by Democratic mayors. "I am your president of law and
order,” Trump said in a White House address on Monday. But it is unclear if
those kinds of appeals will actually help him.
The nation
is watching footage on its screens of burnt-out police cars and shattered
storefronts, of an America in chaos. In a recent CBS News survey, 49 percent of
respondents said they were dissatisfied with Trump’s management of the crisis,
compared to 32 percent who thought he was doing a "good job.”
American
self-confidence has always been predicated on the belief that it is special. In
his farewell address on January 11, 1989, Ronald Reagan spoke of a
"shining city upon a hill,” admired not only for its prosperity but for
its richness in ideas, its goodness and cosmopolitanism. Ten months later, the
Iron Curtain fell, and it seemed like the age of American dominance was upon
us.
This notion
of American exceptionalism also came up in Trump’s inauguration speech in
January of 2017, albeit in a vulgar form: "American will start winning
again, winning like never before,” the president said. Three and a half years
later, there are no signs of victory. The defeat in the war in Afghanistan, the
longest in U.S. history, is now as good as certain. The war will soon have
lasted 19 years and cost the lives of 2,400 U.S. soldiers and Trump is eager to
withdraw from the country, though there is little doubt that the Taliban will
take over in Kabul when he does, much like the Communists overran Saigon after
the last GIs left Vietnam. China is seizing the opportunity provided by the
crisis to impose itself on Hong Kong, and Trump is in danger of destroying the
G-7 Summit, the last influential venue for discussion among the Western
developed nations.
Capable of
Anything
As a
result, older voters in particular seem to increasingly be turning away from
Trump and toward Biden and the Democrats. In a survey conducted by Morning
Consult, a polling institute, 45 percent of those asked said they would vote
for Joe Biden, Trump’s challenger, due to the protests. What’s particularly
unsettling for Trump is that his challenger is currently ahead in the polls in
Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. Biden now even has a chance of winning in
erstwhile Republican strongholds like Arizona, Georgia and Texas. Polls predict
a very close race in these states, something would have been unthinkable a few
months ago.
Now a
seemingly outrageous question is increasingly being asked: Would Trump accept
defeat? "The next five months before the election could become very
serious. Trump has the potential to significantly affect free and fair
elections. He can undermine the entire electoral process and create maximum
chaos,” says Bill Kristol, who was long one of the country's leading
conservative voices. Kristol is known for bringing Sarah Palin, John McCain’s
running mate in the 2012 presidential election, into the spotlight, and was the
editor-in-chief of the Weekly Standard, a now-defunct conservative magazine
once owned by Rupert Murdoch.
Kristol
broke away from Trump early on, partly because he argues Trump is leading the
Republican Party to disaster. He believes Trump is capable of anything in a
fight for political survival. "He can fake a crisis, spread false
information, for example, by simply claiming a week before the election that he
discovered a conspiracy.”
A look back
to February 2016 is instructive when it comes to Trump's view of democratic
mores. At the time, he was only one of many candidates for the Republican
nomination and he had just lost the first primary in Iowa to Texas Senator Ted
Cruz. The voting was fair, but Trump still claimed he had been cheated.
"Ted Cruz didn’t win Iowa, he stole it,” Trump wrote on Twitter.
"Based on the fraud committed by Senator Ted Cruz during the Iowa caucus,
either a new election should take place or Cruz results nullified.” Neither of
those things happened.
Large-Scale
Fraud
Back then,
few took Trump's allegations seriously. Now, though, he’s in the White House,
and many people he trusts occupy positions in the state apparatus. Briefings on
the security of the presidential election, for example, are now being given by
Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, a Trump acolyte who has
spread the abstruse theory that the scandal about Russian interference in the
2016 presidential election was in fact a conspiracy perpetrated by Barack
Obama.
Rosa Brooks
of Georgetown University argues that there can be no doubt that Trump is
setting the stage for a refusal to accept a potential election defeat in
November. Brooks has formed a working group for the Democrats that is tasked
with preparing Biden’s campaign team for the worst-case scenario: a president
planning a coup d’état. If Biden doesn’t win by a landslide, Trump will most
likely claim victory, Brooks believes.
Trump has
been saying for weeks that his opponents in the fall presidential election are
preparing to carry out large-scale fraud. The Democrats believe it’s no
coincidence that the president’s criticism is focused on postal voting, even
though it makes no sense at first glance. A study by Stanford University
published in mid-April concluded that neither Republicans nor Democrats would
benefit from a U.S. vote carried out entirely by mail.
Around half
the American electorate wants to vote by mail this fall, more than ever. This
is mainly because of the coronavirus, which has led millions of Americans to
want to avoid waiting in long lines for hours in front of their polling
locations, as is common in the U.S. At the same time, Trump and congressional
Republicans are refusing to provide additional money to ensure an orderly
election process. "That's a recipe for distrust,” says Nathaniel Persily,
who teaches at Stanford University Law School and specializes in American
electoral law.
Trump
already declared in 2016 that he won’t voluntarily concede defeat, and the
chaotic electoral system in the U.S. gives him several opportunities to
question a Biden victory. Over 10,000 different bodies are responsible for
carrying out the presidential elections – cities, municipalities, counties –
and the postal voting system is a patchwork quilt. In some states, like Texas,
vote-by-mail is only permitted if the voter gives a valid reason. Other states
have switched entirely to mail voting. There are also different deadlines and
security standards. In some states, the signature on the envelope must match
the signature given at the time of vote-by-mail registration, which opens the
door to challenges to the validity of hundreds of thousands of postal votes.
Now Rosa
Brooks and many other American lawyers are working through scenarios that,
until recently, seemed unthinkable. What if, on election day, Republicans
imposed a curfew on cities with traditionally large numbers of Democratic
voters? What should be done if the outcome is close and the president refuses
to recognize the result in a swing state like Pennsylvania? Given that it takes
days to receive and count all postal votes, what should be done if Trump
proclaims himself the winner before that happens?
Bringing
the Peace Back
"We
don't have some single entity that can validate" the outcome of the
election, Brooks says. "It’s purely political.” The more the professor has
looked into the subject, the more pessimistic she has become that a president
can be stopped if he has no qualms about ignoring the will of the people. It’s
not even clear that the Supreme Court would accept a suit against a president
who refuses to vacate the White House. And even then, what if Trump simply
disregards a Supreme Court ruling?
"The next five months before the election could
become very serious. Trump has the potential to significantly affect free and
fair elections.
Bill Kristol
The Secret
Service would have to escort the president out of the Oval Office. But the
Secret Service reports to the Department of Homeland Security, Brooks says.
"Their boss is the secretary of homeland security. His boss is
Trump."
There have
been several extremely close election results in the United States. In 1960,
Richard Nixon lost to John F. Kennedy by less than 113,000 votes. In 2000, the
race between George W. Bush and his Democratic rival, Al Gore, came down to
only a few hundred votes in Florida. But in both cases, the country was spared
a constitutional crisis by the fact that the defeated candidates ultimately
conceded defeat. This kind of humility can hardly be expected from Trump.
"Trump
is going to contest whatever happens if he loses,” Jacob Hacker, who teaches
political science at Yale University, argues. The question would then be
whether American society can force the president to back down. Trump may have
the Republican Party and parts of the state apparatus under his control, but
the protests that are happening daily across the country are increasingly
turning towards the president.
This past
Wednesday afternoon, hundreds of people, young and old, black and white, once
again protested outside the White House. They were facing down police officers
with helmets and truncheons. The crowd included Pat Rolich, 60, from Virginia.
"Trump is escalating the situation, causing more and more violence. It almost
feels like living in a police state,” he says. For him, it is clearer than ever
that Trump is no longer tenable as a president. "We need someone who can
bring peace back to our country.”
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