how-democracy-dies
Snip:
Runciman begins with a story. Watching the inauguration of Donald Trump on 20 January 2017, in a draughty lecture hall in Cambridge, where he is head of the Department of Politics and International Studies, professor of politics and a fellow of Trinity Hall, he observed how the mood of the students who had gathered there changed when Trump started speaking. Initially almost festive, it turned suddenly to one of fear and foreboding:
The speech Trump gave was shocking… He bemoaned “the rusted-out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our nation… the crime and gangs and drugs”. In calling for a rebirth of national pride, he reminded his audience that “we all bleed the same red blood of patriots”. It sounded like a thinly veiled threat. Above all, he cast doubt on the basic idea of representative government, which is that the citizens entrust elected officials to take decisions on their behalf… Was he going to mobilise popular anger against any professionals who now stood in his way? Who would be able to stop him? When he had finished speaking, he was greeted in the lecture hall back in Cambridge by a stunned silence. We weren’t the only ones taken aback. Trump’s predecessor but one in the presidency, George W Bush, was heard to mutter as he left the stage: “That was some weird shit.”
None of this suggests Trump is about to install fascism in America. The US is not Weimar Germany, and it will take more than the digital revolution to destroy American democracy. Near the end of the book, Runciman makes a prediction: “On 20 January 2053 there will be a ceremony in Washington, DC to mark the inauguration of the duly elected president of the United States… American democracy will survive the presidency of Donald Trump.”
More at the link:
https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/2018/05/how-democracy-dies
