Americans, accustomed to being winners, are now looking around and seeing a country that cannot secure its own seat of government … that is struggling to distribute a vaccine … that has been cyber-robbed by Russia … that has it was half a year late, with a stimulus plan that both sides wanted … that can’t even orchestrate a peaceful transition of power.
Why does it matter: This is weakness, not strength. The democracy that President-elect Biden will take over is ragged, archaic, precarious.
By numbers: The consent of the governed is at the heart of American democracy. But Biden will lack this fundamental authority.
- 40% of Americans and 80% of Trump voters say they believe Biden is not the legitimate winner of the 2020 election – the largest proportion of participants in the history of American polls.
- 145 members of Congress, including 7 senators, voted to cast their ballots for the Pennsylvania Electoral College – a move aimed at giving victory to the loser.
The whole picture: Presidential democracies (I think France and Brazil) are prone to the crisis at the best of times. None lasted nearly as long as America’s.
- He was fragile and old just before Trump’s election, burdened with an anachronistic constituency, a dangerous, long-running transition between elections and investments, and a deeply shattered blanket of state and federal constituencies.
- “You can no longer agglomerate US democracy with Canada, Germany and Japan,” Eurasia Group President Bremmer told Axios. “We are now halfway between them and Hungary.”
What’s next: If Trump faces criminal prosecution as a civilian, expect the crisis to worsen. On the other hand, if he not facing criminal prosecution as a civilian, half the country will see this as a message that the president is truly above the law and has widespread impunity – even when inciting an attempted insurrection.
Our balloon, from Axios’ Sara Fischer: The erosion of America’s peaceful democracy did not take place in a vacuum. Opponents of the United States, especially Russia, have long sought to undermine American democracy through state-backed cyber and disinformation campaigns.
- These campaigns eroded media confidence and confused the American information ecosystem, fostering a state of chaotic tribalism in the United States.