Today’s Op-Ed reaction comes from the article
Two Decades After 9/11, It’s Looking Like American Democracy Won’t Survive the 2024 Election
By Austin Sarat published on Verdict Justia on September 11
Sarat begins the article by stating American democracy barely survived the election of 2020 and blames the authoritarianism of the Republican Party for that. Sarat then pessimistically states that American democracy will not survive 2024.
Since this is the introductory paragraph I don’t mind assertions without evidence but the rest of the article needs to show how democracy barely survived 2020 and why it will not survive 2024. Sarat does not provide that evidence.
Sarat blames President Donald Trump for destroying Democracy. He notes “ Donald Trump is seeding the ground of skepticism and doubt about the integrity of the 2024 contest. In 2020, he spent months denouncing the use of mail-in ballots and raising questions about the procedures that would be used to determine the winner of the election.”
Sarat falls to mention anything about the Time magazine article The Secret History of the Shadow Campaign That Saved the 2020 Election. If democracy was in danger in 2020 I would think a shadow campaign to ensure a certain result would be worth mentioning.
Sarat then goes on to outline numerous statements made by President Trump regarding his indictments as proof that President Trump is trying to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the 2024 election. Sarat notes that it is not just President Trump but also his allies like Speaker McCarthy, former Governors Mike Huckabee and Sarah Palin who have questioned election integrity.
Sarat writes “ It looks like Trump is succeeding again in throwing America into an Alice-in-Wonderland world, where a person who is guilty of election interference presents himself as a defender of election integrity and a victim of election interference.”
It is sad that Sarat would presume guilt over innocence. To my knowledge President Trump has not been convicted in a court of law. One of the tenets of American democracy is the presumption of innocence until proven guilty. If Sarat’s vision of democracy relies on a guilty until proven innocent standard then perhaps it is not a democracy that should be widely embraced.
Sarat looks at what America would look like if President Trump loses including references to the Proud Boys rioting. He does not address what Antifa might do if President Trump wins. He only notes if President Trump wins there won’t ever be another free and fair election.
Sarat holds the view that his version of democracy is the only one that supports the rule of law. Therefore when 49% of respondents disagree with him and believe the charges against President Trump were politically motivated it is bad news for Americans.
Sarat is a partisan writer who did not write a compelling article. He neglected to compare the fragility of the 2024 election to other contested elections in our history such as 1800 or 1876. He didn’t even touch on the 1860 election. If the United States could survive those elections it will surely survive 2024.
Sarat can only see President Trump as a tyrant and therefore is incapable of writing an article of sufficient depth about the threats to democracy in the 2024 election.
Read the article above and let me know your thoughts.
William Wilberforce has been called an agitator for his commitment to ending the slave trade. One of his well known speeches on the subject was given on May 12, 1789.
Cardinal Richelieu has been hailed as a great statesman and as a subversive authoritarian. Depending on who you talk to he was a man needed to strengthen the monarchy in France, or he was a tyrant seeking personal power. Next week I will have a book review that may shed more light on Cardinal Richelieu.
When Lenin was working on his major writing projects he would often pace across the room formulating the ideas that he would write down by saying them out loud. Once he had the idea for what he wanted to write he would often repeat the idea to Nadezhda Krupskaya, who would provide feedback. Once this process was complete he would then write the ideas down.
Here is an AI rendering of what that might have looked like when he was drafting What is to be Done.
This month this community will focus on political subversion. What is subversion? When is it justified? What is the interplay between subversion and agitation? These are some of the topics to be discussed this month.
“You get used to the despot’s shortcomings, when they are not great vices, and the change of an autocratic ruler leads to involuntary fear.”
Sergei Trubetskoi
