Perspectives of a post-democratic world | USA and Canada

The world as a whole may not have realized but as I write this article, and indeed since Donald Trump failed in the 2020 presidential election, the Republican Party has been actively working to dismantle the democratic foundations of the United States — among other ways — by systematically restricting people’s voting rights.

The more Americans vote, the more reactionary white Republicans feel threatened by the chances of full democracy, and the more aggressive they become in their efforts to suppress the will of the people.

Just two weeks ago, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell coordinated his Republican counterparts to block the creation of a party committee to block the creation of a party committee to investigate the January 6 presidential election in the U.S. capital.

If the coup attempt had taken place in any other country, we would have quickly classified it as it really is – a violent attack by the dictator tinpot against the democratic will of the people. In the US, however, the massive machinery of the Republican Party is working at both the state and federal levels to push atrocities under the rug and sustain the deception of democracy.

The last hint of a violent end to Trump’s presidency was that if anyone needed any more indications, it is only for whites who believe in white supremacy in America. If these armed and violent white people cannot have their way, then they will burn the foundations of this country’s claim to democracy.

Elimination of voters in excess

In the same vein, Republicans are actively involved in introducing bills to remove voters so that significant sections of the population have no say in their future. This XIX. At the end of the century and the twentieth. It’s just a matter of repeating the Jim Crow laws that were enacted at the turn of the century to prevent African Americans from exercising the hard-won right to vote.

In the case of legislation recently introduced in Texas, Republicans are also trying to make it easier for judges to invalidate election results, with Trump and his gang of corrupt lawyers led by former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani and his corrupt lawyers. , tried but failed to do so after Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election.

Republicans, in short, are making sure that only white Americans or, more specifically, white supremacist Republicans will vote. And, if someone else gets slipped and gets a large number of votes, they want to invalidate the result.

This is the current state of what is known as the “oldest democracy in the world”.

Racist Republican attacks on American democratic rules are also not limited to the right to vote – they also extend to immigration laws. Republicans across the country work overtime to make it especially difficult for Hispanic immigrants to become U.S. citizens because they tend to vote democratically.

Of course, Republicans are not solely responsible for the deplorable state of American democracy. Numerous influential politicians, black and white, Republicans and Democrats, have long been buried in the deep pockets of billionaire predators and cooperators. Barack Obama, America’s first black president, was one of them. These billionaire and billion-dollar companies seem to respect the democratic will of Americans as long as they choose candidates who will be loyal and obedient to their power.

Democratic Party leaders, such as Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi, say they are champions of democracy who strive to expand and protect the voting rights of all Americans. But their protests make no sense. The corruption of the Democratic Party is part of the problem here. Yes, on January 6 the rebels of the white-supreme supremacists protest against the capture of the Capitol, but they have died silently before and long before that unfortunate day, when the U.S. Capitol is attacked and continues to be clean-shaven. and lobbyists and propagandists in business attire. No one sees it, no one denounces it, no one objects to the regular attack on Capitol Hill, which is integral to American politics on a daily basis.

So the systematic collapse of American democracy began before the white supremacist Republicans launched their last, and perhaps most malicious, attack on American voting rights.

However, the current situation in the US is very worrying – not only for Americans, but for all the peoples of the world.

The excitement of democracy

There is no need to exaggerate or underestimate the catastrophic consequences that developments in the US can have on the world.

Many around the world have long seen America as the dominant model of democratic governance, seeking guidance and desire. So the systemic collapse of American democracy raises the possibilities of a post-democratic world – a world that countries do not have a functional democratic model to look at. What will happen to the struggles for democratic rule around the world when the “oldest democracy in the world” falls on its face?

Of course, the US has never been an ideal democratic model. A country created on the basis of genocidal killings of indigenous peoples, holding on to the trajectory of deadly slavery in Africa and endured by a major ideology of white domination before and after the Civil War and Civil Rights movement, can be a model of democratic government for anyone.

But nonetheless, a fragile democratic desire has struggled to survive at the heart of this republic. Formerly enslaved African Americans fought and won the right to vote against all odds – with great sacrifice, enduring constant attack on their humanity. After decades of constant struggle, black Americans gained the right to vote in 1870 with the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Yes, the 15th Amendment theoretically gave African Americans the right to vote, but soon Jim Crow Laws ensured that these rights remained fictitious rather than effective. The intimidation, murder, and horrificness of voters systematically prevented blacks from going anywhere near the polling booths. The descendants of these very southern racists are now trying to prevent African Americans and the rest of the ever-permitting communities from having a say in their future.

The world is at a loss

The US scene is not very promising. More conspiratorial theories that continue to hold that the last presidential election was exchanged are more destructive than Republican efforts to limit voting rights or whitewash the January 6 coup attempt, that Trump is still the real president and the current administration is not legitimate. Those who promote these conspiracy theories are not stupid. They know what they are doing. They are constantly questioning the legacy and effectiveness of democratic institutions in this country, so that their alternative events become as legitimate as the democratic will of people who think differently than themselves.

It is no coincidence that Michael Flynn, a former military man now in the service of Donald Trump’s fascist intentions, is now on the record proposing a coup in the US like Myanmar. You can’t tell this country where it is now.

US democracy is crumbling. But do people around the world have other examples to explore in their efforts to achieve democratic governance? Should they turn to hypocritical European democracies, which are always on the verge of becoming a fascist dictatorship? Should Putin’s mafia go to Russia ruled? Do they want mechanized totalitarianism in China, systemic destruction in Brazil, the horrors of Indian domination in India, the false pantomime of democracy in Syria, Iran, or Turkey? Should we look at the autocratic regimes in much of the Islamic world or the Israeli colonialism built on the backs of the Palestinians?

Where exactly is the future model of world democratic rule?

Today, there is no democracy that works in part that can provide a model or model for the world. The foundations of liberal democracy have taken the prey of capitalism in the modernity of the European Enlightenment, which blindly robs the world while preaching to the world “Liberté, egalité, fraternité”.

Today, the only exemplary models of democratic aspiration in the world are massive social uprisings like the Black Lives Matter and national liberation movements like the Occupied Palestine.

But none of these movements achieve their goals alone – they need each other. The newly formed symbiotic relationship between the Black Lives Matter and the Palestinian liberation struggle allows the two movements to direct and grow together.

Without active solidarity with the Black Lives Matter, the national liberation of Palestine can easily be undone by the deplorable banalities of Arab politics. Without active solidarity with the Palestinians, the Black Lives Matter can further degenerate the identity politics that are dependent on the career opportunism of people like Barack and Michelle Obama.

The only view of total democracy for all impoverished and tyrannized, robbed and condemned people around the world is cross-border solidarity, beyond the banalities of specific national cultures and towards a transnational public sphere where each nation is saved by the experiences of the other. Barack Obama and Donald Trump are two sides of the same coin, as Mahmoud Abbas and Benjamin Netanyahu are members of the same circle of despair and deception.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the attitude of Al Jazeera’s editorial.