Back on this question of the history of democracy in America: The New York Times has just run a major piece, by David Leonhardt, exploring the current threat to democracy posed by Trumpism and American rightism in general. The article should go into a time capsule or be otherwise enshrined for ideally encapsulating the long-prevailing, totally failed liberal view of U.S. history and civics that many of us grew up with, and which now seems to me so astonishingly vacuous that I can’t help thinking its constant reiteration has played a role, at least, in causing the real trouble that American political liberalism and American democracy are now are in.
Not trying to get the right-wing sleazebags off the hook—but if this is all we’ve got, we might be in even worse shape than we think.
In the hands of the greats, like Lincoln and King, the familiar story may have been crucially instrumental to democracy’s progress. Those people had big things to get done. At this late date, presented with the trademark displays of baseless authority that seem to come naturally in this kind of writing, nothing is achieved. And that might be the worst thing of all.
To jump around in the article in no real order, here’s Yascha Mounck, a political science professor, on the current crisis: “There is the possibility, for the first time in American history, that a legitimately elected president will not be able to take office.” I guess placement of modifiers might be the problem here, but if Mounck is saying that the possibility hasn’t existed before, in 1800, the possibility was loud and clear. Had Burr been legitimately elected by the House over Jefferson, it’s not just possible but highly probable that certain elements would have bent every effort, anyway, to overturn that outcome by force. And it’s by no means clear that the 1960 presidential election outcome didn’t defeat the legitimate process.
Then there’s 2000. A very strong case can be made that possibility went beyond probability and became actuality.
Of course I know Mounck’s correct if he’s saying it’ll be new if, absent any grudging concession, backroom deal, or overbearing Supreme Court ruling, the legitimate winner can’t take office—new and also horrible. But this liberal insistence on seeing the current antidemocracy crisis as anomalous, and not the worst flare-up of a systemic disease, has to be, I think, a factor in the weakness of the fightback.
But the article also tries to offer a longer-range perspective. And that’s where it really falls apart, in the end to a pretty unforgivable degree, not just getting history “wrong” or whatever but wiping out the real fight—possibly especially important to keep in mind today—by which some degree of democracy really did arise in the U.S.