AMERICAN PRINCIPLES AND DEMOCRACY ARE IN DANGER

Trump’s election is the culmination of decades-long efforts to roll back America’s progress toward achieving its founding principles of democracy; equality under the rule of law; equal opportunity for all to pursue life, liberty, and happiness; and government of, by, and for the people.

In modern political history, these efforts began in the 1960s with Nixon’s southern strategy with dog whistles to racism, accelerated in the 1980s with Reagan’s supply side economics, turned nasty in the 1990s with Gingrich’s demonization of the political opposition, and exploded in 2016 with Trump’s emergence. Historians like Heather Cox Richardson trace anti-democracy efforts back to the southern plantation and slave owners of the pre- and post-Civil War periods. [1]

The rejection of democracy is based on the belief that some people (or some men) are better than others and that they deserve to rule over the lesser human beings. This rejects the Declaration of Independence’s assertion that all people (or even all men) are created equal. This belief in oligarchy (rule by a small group) has led to the use of a range of tactics by elites to assert their control and supremacy – from slavery, to Jim Crow laws, to anti-immigrant laws, to voter suppression, to gerrymandering, to buying elections and elected officials. The latter three have been used very effectively in recent years.

For example, a long-standing voter suppression technique has been barring convicted felons from voting for life and creating a criminal justice system that disproportionately convicts Blacks of felonies. As you may remember, the 2000 presidential race between Al Gore and George W. Bush was decided by a few hundred votes in Florida. At that time, there were over 800,000 disenfranchised felons in Florida who were disproportionately Black and who most likely would have changed the outcome of the election if any significant number of them had been allowed to vote.

Current gerrymandering of congressional districts probably gives Republicans 15 to 20 more seats in the U.S. House than they would have with fairly-drawn districts. This determined which party had control of the House after both the 2022 and 2024 elections.

To some degree, money from wealthy individuals has been corrupting our elections probably forever. However, this was exacerbated by the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision that allows unlimited spending on campaigns by wealthy individuals and corporations. One clear cut, current example of wealth purchasing political office is J. D. Vance. He almost certainly wouldn’t have been elected to the U.S. Senate in 2022 without the $15 million or so his key backer, billionaire Peter Thiel, spent on his behalf. And he almost certainly wouldn’t have been Trump’s vice-presidential pick if Thiel and billionaire Elon Musk hadn’t pledge tens of millions of dollars to Trump’s campaign on the condition that he pick Vance for vice president.

In large part, Trump, his campaign, and the Republicans have been able to sell the rejection of democracy and equality under law by appealing to the frustration, anger, and grievance of the primarily, but not exclusively, white, working class. Workers are angry because their economic security and well-being has been stripped from them. Meanwhile, the rich have gotten much richer and huge, monopolistic corporations and private equity financiers have exerted more and more power over workers. Workers’ jobs have been shipped out of the country, their union memberships have been taken away or denied, and their pensions have been lost to corporate and private equity bankruptcies. Furthermore, their costs of living, for housing, health care, and everyday goods, have skyrocketed. Their wages have been stagnant in the face of inflation and record-setting corporate profits, including in the essential-for-living food and gasoline industries. [2]

Trump is a master of demagoguery and, with significant success, he and his campaign have blamed the struggles of workers on immigrants, minorities, non-Christians, LGBTQ+ and transgendered people, and even women who don’t adhere to a patriarchically defined role.

Trump, personally, doesn’t appear to have any political ideology other than wanting power, prestige, and wealth, including the power to take revenge against anyone who would stand in his way. J. D. Vance’s and Trump’s billionaire backers, however, are committed to establishing an oligarchy. Thiel and Musk are openly anti-democratic and anti-egalitarian. They believe American democracy is a failed experiment and should be replaced by an authoritarian government. They view democracy as inefficient and wasteful. They believe that its commitment to equality and justice erodes (their desired) social values and order. [3]

Thiel wrote in 2009, “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.” (That begs the question of freedom for whom.) He also wrote that democracy and capitalism are no longer compatible, in part because women have been granted the right to vote. [4]

Thiel, Musk, and other wealthy backers of Trump (and probably more importantly as backers of J. D. Vance), view Trump as ineffective due to his erratic, impulsive nature and cognitive limitations, including a lack of knowledge and attention span. They see him as a transitional means to an end, with Vance as their power behind the throne and as the next president. So, keep your eyes on Vance, Musk, and the other powerful people around Trump. Trump is a master at creating distractions to get the media and the public to pay attention to little, often outrageous stuff, while the important action is going on behind this obfuscation screen.

In future posts, I’ll discuss what can and needs to be done to constrain Trump and his cronies. For example, hopefully, at least some Republicans in the Senate will take their responsibility to vet and approve Trump’s cabinet nominees seriously. State governments and Attorneys General can take action to protect vulnerable people, to move forward on important policies (such as climate change), and to block the Trump administration’s egregious actions.

[1]      Richardson, H. C., 4/7/21 and 7/3/24, “Letters from an American blog,” (https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/april-7-2021 and https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/july-3-2024)

[2]      Reich, R., 11/11/24, “How to root out Trumpism,”  (https://robertreich.substack.com/p/the-root-of-trumpism)

[3]      Reich, R., 10/3/24, “Vance and the future of the anti-democracy movement,” (https://robertreich.substack.com/p/vance-and-the-future-of-the-anti)

[4]      Richardson, H. C., 7/30/24, “Letters from an American blog,” (https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/july-30-2024)