Will the USA Continue to be a Democracy?

by Vijaya Chandrasoma

The much vaunted constitution of the USA was written and ratified in the late 18th century by white colonists, when the United States consisted of 13 Southern “colonies”. An era of white supremacy when slavery was legal and taken for granted. The Founding Fathers framed the constitution with ironclad clauses to ensure the perpetual dominance of white supremacists over black slaves and the few native Americans they had neglected to kill in the most comprehensive genocide in history.

The US constitution is globally hailed as a model to be emulated by any nation with aspirations of democratic governance. However, the original constitution was framed with democratic principles to benefit only a section of its population, which defies the very definition of the ideology.

Changes in the structure of American society and its diversity have been recognized over the past 200 years, and the constitution amended to accommodate these changes. African men are now deemed to be 100% human. Blacks are allowed to study and work in the same schools and workplaces as their white counterparts, and even allowed to drink from the same water fountains.

More progressive reforms, like access to contraception, reproductive freedom for women, homosexuality, interracial and gay marriage have been legalized in recent times by the Supreme Court. However, these rulings can be reversed, depending on the political opinions of the current president and/or the ruling party in Congress. As was proved by the recent reversal, in the face of national furore, of women’s reproductive freedom, which had been the law of the land since 1973.

There are a few clauses in the constitution which have not kept up with changing times and traditions, and remain entrenched in a different era. The most undemocratic of these is the Electoral College. The original clause was designed so that the Electoral College “would keep misinformed/poorly educated people from making a mistake and choosing the wrong president”.

These guard-rails to ensure that the presidency would be available only to a specified section of the people – the very antithesis of the Great Experiment of democracy – was betrayed in 2008. American voters had suffered a temporary episode of political amnesia, making white supremacists lower their guard. The unthinkable happened. A black man slipped through the cracks of the Electoral College and was elected to the White House.

The President and the Vice President of the United States of America are not, as in every other democracy, elected by all its voters. These posts are filled not by the candidate who wins the national popular vote, but by the winners of the “Electors” of the 50 individual states.The Electoral College presently consists of 538 Electors, composed of 435 members of the House of Representatives, 100 members of the Senate and three for the national capital of Washington D.C.

The inequities behind this method of election are obvious. The Senate is represented by two Senators of each of the 50 states, regardless of population and racial diversity. Wyoming, with an almost exclusively white population of 580,000, is represented by two Senators, as is California, with a racially diverse population of 39 million. Vermont, with a similar white electorate of 620,000, gets two Senators, as does nearby New York, with an ethnically diverse population of 19 million. These are just two examples of electoral inequity. There are many others.

The House of Representatives is also under-represented for minorities through gerrymandering, the manipulation of boundaries of electoral constitutional districts to favour one party or class.Also, the winner-take-all approach of the system, where the candidate who wins a majority in a state wins all its votes submitted to the Electoral College, nullifies the votes cast for the losing candidate in that state.

President Obama transformed a deepening recession caused by the Bush administration into a booming economy within two years into his presidency, translating into 72 months of economic growth before the end of his two terms in 2016. And achieved it, to the growing resentment of white supremacists, with the minimum of drama and the maximum of an efficient, scandal-free administration of the highest integrity.

President Obama’s election brought to the surface the deep racial hatred which had been seething beneath the surface over the years. The fact that a brilliant, highly qualified African American had been elected with wide support of traditional conservatives and independents was of no relevance in the racist minds of the radical right. Supported by billionaires and corporations, they took immediate steps to ensure that such an “abhorrence” will never happen again.

The Electorate College, representing the Sword of Damocles that had been poised over the democracy of the nation, finally fell in 2016. A white man once again assumed the presidency. Tradition was restored. “God had returned to His heaven, all was right with the (white) world”.

Five previous presidents have been elected with a minority popular vote in the history of the USA. The last one, Donald Trump, elected in 2016, best illustrates the democratic anomaly of the Electoral College.

Donald Trump won the presidency in 2016 with a 302/236 majority in the Electoral College, but a 2.8 million deficit in the popular vote. He was elected with the financial support of billionaires and corporations, and the social media help of his Russian buddies, who could depend on a puppet in the White House to carry out Putin’s bidding.

Trump also brought to the White House a Molotov cocktail of narcissism, incredible ignorance, racist cruelty, a past of sexual crimes, money laundering, fraud and bankruptcy, a complete disregard for anyone else but himself, and the vocabulary of a third grader. Strangely, these “qualifications” won for him a cultish sycophancy of the white supremacist majority of the Republican Party, including his erstwhile presidential rivals.

All Trump had to do win a second term in 2020 was to coast on the successes of his predecessor, from whom he had inherited a booming economy of 72 months’ growth with record low unemployment figures. Successes which he predictably and falsely claimed as his own creation.

He further delighted the hearts and minds of his sponsors with an immediate tax cut of over a trillion dollars which almost entirely benefited the ultra-wealthy. The corporations were kept happy with the removal of most of the regulations enacted to ensure that corporate pollution would not be allowed to destroy the purity of the air we breathe and the water we drink, and exacerbate the clear and present dangers of climate change. And Putin was rewarded with a slavish relationship much to the derision of the world.

Then the Coronavirus hit, and exposed Trump’s total incompetence in leadership. His criminal mismanagement of the spread of Covid 19 was responsible for hundreds of thousands of avoidable deaths.

Had he behaved like a normal human being, and heeded the advice of epidemiologists and economists on containing the virus and mitigating its effects on the economy, he would not only have saved hundreds of thousands of avoidable deaths, he would have won his second term in 2020. Without the constraints of a subsequent election, he would then have had unfettered freedom to achieve his dictatorial ambitions and the establishment of a Trump dynasty in perpetuity.

But he didn’t. His corruption and incompetence cost him the election in 2020, when he was trounced by President Joe Biden by a landslide in both the Electoral College and the popular vote. American democracy surely dodged a bullet.

True to form, Trump refuses to concede his defeat, and took 60 cases alleging election fraud to the courts, including the Supreme Court with his hand-picked majority. All were thrown out for lack of evidence. He continues to parrot his big lie that the election was stolen, a lie believed by 50% of the Republican Party.

His last desperate attempt to overturn the 2020 election, was by inciting his thugs to storm the Capitol, where Congress was in session to formally declare the presidency of Joe Biden. A purely constitutional and ceremonial function, which also was defeated. An act of sedition that will probably see him in the Big House.

With the midterms looming in November, the Democrats are lagging behind. President Biden’s approval ratings have plummeted amid an economic downturn, with a 40-year high in inflation. These ratings threaten the small majorities Democrats enjoy in Congress in the midterms.

However, Trump’s corruption and crimes have made his political acolytes vulnerable in the midterms and the presidential elections of 2024. Recent revelations from the public hearings of the Congressional Committee investigating into the insurrection of January 6, 2021 indicate that hard-core Republicans of Trump’s Party are losing their stranglehold on moderate conservatives. Although it is still likely that the Republican Party will wrest the majorities in both Houses in the midterms, there is hope that many of the elected Republican members of Congress will not be Trump acolytes.

The 2024 presidential election will be pivotal in the fate of American democracy. Trump is still the Republican front runner, but it is likely that he will be prevented from running as his seditious role in the January 6 coup is being conclusively proved. The Republican front runners then will be the equally authoritarian Florida Governor de Santis and former Vice President Pence, whose chances increase as Trump’s fade.

If Trump defies the odds and wins a second term, or if one of his Republican think alikes, like de Santis, wins the presidency, that will signal the end of democracy in the USA. New voter restrictions, backed by state legislatures and the current Supreme Court, will usher in an era of theocratic autocracy, which will give the elected Republican president the powers and tenure for life of a Putin or a Xi Jinping.

The only chance for America to regain its reputation and the mantle of the Leader of the Free World, is to have a moderate, Republican or Democratic, win the presidency in 2024.

President Biden has brought back decency and integrity to the White House. But he will be 82 years old in 2024. He has indicated that he will run, but would be ill-advised to do so. In fact, 75% of the Party does not want him to run. The likely alternative candidates for the Democratic nomination will be Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar. A few others are bound to emerge in the coming months.

There is a viable third alternative. A true conservative who believes in free elections and the rule of law will also fit the bill. The numbers of such conservatives are increasing as the investigations of the January 6 coup prove the seditious complicity of Trump’s MAGA base.

These are genuine conservatives of the pre-Trump mould, who supported Trump’s conservative policies, but despise his seditious attempts to illegally and violently cling to power. In fact, much of the evidence against Trump on his role in the January 6 attempted coup has been provided by Republicans who had been loyal to him during his presidency.

The name that immediately comes to mind is Liz Cheney, the Deputy Chair of the Select Committee of the January 6 insurrection. She was a Trump supporter with an unblemished, pro-Trump voting record, a true conservative until the January 6 insurrection and attempted coup.

Attorney General Garland has repeatedly asserted his right to prosecute anybody, including Trump, provided that is where the evidence leads. He intends to “bring to justice everybody who was criminally responsible for interfering with the peaceful transfer of power from one administration to another, which is the fundamental element of our democracy”.

If Trump is arrested and convicted, the thugs of his cult will resort to random violence in the streets. If he isn’t arrested, there will be protests throughout the nation. His principal role in inciting the January 6 insurrection, and doing nothing to stop the violence as it unfolded for over three hours, has been proven beyond any doubt.

As for the future, the threat to American democracy will not be permanently removed until the Electoral College is eliminated, and future Presidents and Vice Presidents are elected on the basis of the popular vote. American democracy will not survive another Trump.