Avoiding a Trump presidency requires Biden finding some compromise or accommodation with alienated voters. Instead he has opted for division; his camp are the real patriots, just like Trump calls his followers real Americans. The other side are the implacable enemy, and when the election is over, rather than increased unity, for many the result will be seen as a terrible, maybe existential, defeat.
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The norms, customs, and conventions that have been the foundations of American republicanism are dissolving. Perhaps more precipitously than in the Roman Republic, liberal democracy seems to be passing in America.
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A significant number of interlinked think tanks, organisations, and individuals are engaged in extensive preparations for Trump’s return – and for reform of the ‘administrative state’ and every aspect of American government policy. The program of the reactionary forces in America is as radical as that of the interwar fascists.
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Social change creates the space for revolutionary new thoughts. A rejection of liberalism and democracy is evident – even in nations that have been liberal democracies the longest. Trump could prove an ill-disguised Trojan horse for a vanguard of illiberal crusaders in pursuit of a post liberal America.
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US foreign policy is underpinned by ideational myths, like that of the ‘innocent nation’, which requires a succession of ‘immoral’ enemies to sustain it. Does Australia fully comprehend the potential implications of the American sense of righteousness and mission?
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A group with the potential to capture the state appears to be forming in the US – coalescing around a set of illiberal and authoritarian ideas. Australian observers, commentators, and policy-makers need to watch this movement closely.
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Formidable illiberal forces are emerging in the US, which, in power, could have profound consequences for America domestically and for America’s position in the world. After the 2024 US presidential election, America’s reliability, predictability, and compatibility as an ally could even be less than under Trump.
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Bidenesque tales of a beneficent and wise ruler, who only wants his land to be the richest and strongest nation because of the benefit that it would bring to all, can’t be allowed to obscure the real situation in America, nor its brutally realist pursuit of its own interests through power.
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US President Biden’s proposed virtual Summit for Democracy looks like an enormous gamble at a time when the biggest challenges facing the global community will require the engagement, coordination, and cooperation of all states, not only democratic ones.
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US political factions seem to have moved beyond seeing each other as legitimate competitors in a democratic marketplace of ideas. The other side is perceived as the holder of totally unacceptable moral, economic, and political ideas and values, and only their total overthrow will suffice. Each side sees the other as the “enemy inside the gates”. Can the divisions in America be resolved in a pluralistic compromise?
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The latest UN reports again show clearly that the world is not on track to achieve the objectives of the Paris Agreement. Avoiding warming beyond 1.5°C may now be well beyond reach. Will there be social and political ramifications of the failure of political leadership in democratic states?
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Diplomatic efforts and international pressure intensify as tensions appear to increase in the Myanmar crisis, with casualties reported as the military continue attempts to disperse protestors.
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A special edition of the annual Munich Security Conference took place on 19 February 2021, with presentations from US President Joe Biden, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron and other speakers.
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Reuters reports that after days of tension between the civilian government and the military in the aftermath of the most recent election, in which Aung San Suu Kyi’s party won 83% of the vote, the military has seized power, imposed a state of emergency for a year, and detained Suu Kyi and others.
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COVID-19 has drawn a clear line between Asia and the rest of the world. What’s particularly striking about this latest divergence is the lack of significance in types of governance. The countries that have been successful in Asia have very different forms of government, as well as different histories, religious backgrounds, and relationships with the countries of the West. How can this be explained?
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Ironically, Christian nationalist opposition to religious liberty has plagued American democracy since before the Revolution, and a strong authoritarian strain still runs through American religious thinking. The Trump Administration provided disturbing evidence of how Christian nationalists have penetrated key political institutions, with eclipse of constitutional liberal democracy by a competing virtual theocracy as their aim.
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How to Save Democracy From Technology: Ending Big Tech’s Information Monopoly puts forward a confused and inadequate set of arguments concerning the “gigantic Internet platforms Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, and Twitter”. Its focus on yesterday’s technological challenges while tomorrow’s threats are almost upon us is disappointing, and misses where the real threat to democracy and individual freedom is beginning to take form.
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The ‘1776 Commission’ is the denouement of all the bizarre notions that have populated Trump’s seemingly random and disjointed dialogue throughout the four years of his presidency. His speech announcing it was a not very well-disguised panegyric for an agenda that isn’t just a denial of history, but could see America remain deeply and passionately divided well beyond Trump’s presidency.
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The Letter on Justice and Open Debate published on 7 July 2020 and signed by 150 noted authors, academics, and public intellectuals cuts straight to a key fault line in liberalism. A collection of privileged individuals are claiming an unfettered right to say or write whatever they wish on the grounds that this right is the “lifeblood of a liberal society”. If this highly contestable claim is correct, it can then be asked if a liberal society is justifiable.
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Confronting the dramatic trends taking place in the rates of global warming, destruction of the environment, extinction of biodiversity, and global social injustice urgently requires unprecedented societal and economic transformations. Can major democratic economies overcome the combination of disillusionment with government and distrust of experts, and position themselves to bring about the transformations these crises demand?
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