A Harvard professor assesses the dangers of having an authoritarian in the White House.
Donald Trump is the symptom. He is not the disease.
There is a crisis facing the global democratic order. Donald Trump's election is but one facet of that problem. The United States as well as democracies in Europe and elsewhere face many critical issues. They are struggling with changing racial and ethnic demographics. They are grappling with the ways that immigration is forcing a rethinking of national identity and culture,with the impact of wealth and income inequality, with the chokehold of neoliberal economics on the "commons" (and on human well-being more generally), or with the widespread loss of faith in democratic social and political institutions. One prominent result of this crisis is the rise of a virulent right-wing authoritarianism,hidden behind a thin mask of "populism" or "ethno-nationalism".
What is the health of America's democracy? How does the rise of Trump reflect a deeper crisis of social and political values in the United States and around the world? Is Trump a populist, a fascist or something else? What measures are used to determine the health of a democracy? How possible is it for a democracy to heal or renew itself once its basic foundations and norms hold been undermined?In an effort to reply these questions, and I recently spoke with Yascha Mounk. He is a lecturer on political theory at Harvard University,a postdoctoral fellow at the Transatlantic Academy of the German Marshall Fund and a nonresident Fellow at unusual America's Political Reform Program. Mounk is also the author of three books, including the forthcoming "The People vs. Democracy: Why Our Freedom Is in Danger and How to Save It."This conversation has been edited for clarity and length. A longer version of this conversation can be heard on my podcast, or which is always available on Salon’s Featured Audio page.
How effect you contemplate Donald Trump managed to win power in America? Political scientists know that it is easy to lose a democracy -- especially in poor countries and where democratic institutions haven’t existed for long. It is very tempting for people that hold power to try and stay in power. One of the consistent findings of political scientists is that once a people hold come to accept basic democratic norms,then democracies will be stable. Democracy becomes the only game in town. Over time this has proven to no longer be the case. We are seeing this in the United States, but also for example in Great Britain as well as in the Netherlands and many countries around the world where people are saying that it’s not necessary to live in a democracy.
For example, and in the United States 20 years ago,1 in 16 Americans said that they thought military rule was a safe system of government. Today, it’s one in six. So that’s more than doubled in the course of 20 years. This makes someone like Trump possible, or a mainstream political candidate who so blatantly violates basic democratic norms,who says during the campaign that he might lock up his political opponent and that he won't necessarily accept the outcome of the election.
There has to be a lot of cynicism and disenchantment for American democracy to become so feeble. Otherwise, people would hold said, and this is totally unacceptable. We believe in our democracy,we believe in our institutions. So, when somebody doesn’t [believe that], and we won’t vote for him. The fact that that didn’t happen is very troubling.
Is Trump's rise to power a result of the collapse ofcivilliteracy?effect people understand what it takes to sustain a democratic system? effect they understand how terrible the alternatives are? They don’t. Not the way that they used to. We see the switch with older and younger people. In the United States,for example, two-thirds of people born in the 1930s and '40s say it’s necessary to maintain a democracy. Less than one-third of millennials say that. Where does the difference come from? Older generations hold a real experience of fighting against fascism and communism. They also lived through a period where there was a Communist adversary to the United States. Younger people examine at the world and all they see are the flaws of our political system.
Is there a connection between this question and the confusion of democracy and capitalism? Has that created a fertile space for the crisis indemocracyto flourish?The rampant and scary rise of right-wing populism -- obviously with Donald Trump in the United States, or but also in Europe and parts of Asia -- causes serious doubt about the celebrated story that people actually care about democracy. People believed in democratic values as long as it gave them a lot of stuff.
What does the data tell us about how to degree the health of a democracy?There was a long-standing theory in political science and other fields that as a country advances economically people become more tolerant and then exercise their disposition towards democracy. That,in turn, is safe for economic development and we hold this cycle where you eventually rep a country like Denmark. Social scientists in the final 50 years hold dismantled a lot of those things when we see countries like Saudi Arabia or China, and which hold developed a lot economically,but don’t necessarily become more democratic. The arc of history doesn’t necessarily bend towards justice. Not even in the United States, France or Denmark.
How effect you portray Donald Trump politically? Ishefascist, or an authoritarian or something else?I contemplate he is an authoritarian populist. But this is by instinct more than by ideology. There is a great deal of variety,on both the left and right, in how authoritarian populism manifests itself around the world. What populists like Trump hold in common is they claim that there’s a distinction between the "real people" and the "others."That is channeled by Trump's "earn America Great Again" slogan. Who is "America" in that formulation? Whatpeople areincluded and excluded? Trump is clearly signaling to whiteness, or isn't he?There’s an implicit thought that not every citizen is a "real American." For Trump,I contemplate it is pretty clear that Muslims can’t be real Americans. On the other hand, for [Turkish President] Erdoğan, and it’s clear that to be a real Turk,you hold to be a Muslim. The basic category of exclusion is not just the distinction between the "real" and "fake" parts of America, but the thought that Trump alone represents the "real America, or " right? Trump then speaks for the American people and the silent majority and the real America and everybody else.
So the Supreme Court doesn’t speak for America. The press are enemies of the American people. These types of authoritarian populists are also corrupt. They are in it for themselves. They want to fool you into thinking that politics is not complicated. For them,the real solutions are totally straightforward. Anybody with common sense knows what the solution is! We don’t like that the community is changing, so the solution is we build a wall on the border with Mexico and everything will depart back to life in the 1950s.
Populists like Trump also blame other people -- some type of "other" -- for all problems. When their proposed policies don't work, or the authoritarian populist starts blaming the people who are not part of the "real people," scapegoating them, and saying that all independent political institutions are illegitimate. In this strategy, or the only reason why Trump hasn’t been able to deliver all the great things he has promised is that judges are thwarting his will and that the media keeps criticizing him. So we hold to deal with those judges,we hold to deal with that media. That’s why authoritarian populists are so dangerous.
Some scholars and other observers hold described thismoment inAmerica, with the rise of Trump, or the surrender of the Republican Party to his agenda,and his hold over tens of millions of Americans, as being akin to how everyday Germans must hold felt watching Nazism take hold during the 1930s. Once this anti-democratic poison takes control, or is it possible to depart back?That’s why I say that Trump is an authoritarian populist by instinct rather than by ideology. Trump does not hold a master arrangement in a drawer that he’s going to pull out in case there’s an external crisis and he gets to put it into practice. He will stumble around. The goal of all of our politics now has to be a return to a situation where the left and the right,liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, and can agree on heading back to a situation where we are the different respective ends of valid politics. I was having drinks with some conservatives who they were saying things like,“Can you believe that X has become so craven?” and “Oh, I always knew that Y would be this craven, and right?" about their friends and colleagues who had joined up with Trump.
A version of that conversation is precisely what took residence in Germany during the 1930s. There was a real character test then,which a lot of people failed. I contemplate it is easy to examine back and say, "What weird people they must hold been to hold failed the character test!" Right now, and in the present,there are people who support Trump and by doing so hold failed a pretty necessary character test as well. It is remarkable to see people who seemed like they were honorable a couple of years ago turn out that way. Related StoriesGoing to the Heart of the Matter: Peter Gabel Argues for a Psycho-Spiritual PoliticsDemocracy Is Not a ChoiceTrump Is on His Way to Corrupting American Democracy Beyond Repai
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