Democracy worries in the US going into 2024
Thomas Zimmer takes a look at the disturbing recent polls in the US about democracy and political violence. He makes a couple of important points. One is that when Republicans and Democrats respond to a general question about “democracy,” they start from very different understandings of democracy. The Democratic version is the one-person one-vote kind. The Republican version tends to be an only-our-ethnic-group-should vote type, also called a Herrenvolk democracy.
Democracy as a contested issue
Even in the “democratic world,” our experience of this is not so long in the past as we might prefer to think. Essentially, the segregation system in the American South from 1890-1965 was a whites-only democracy. And, of course, the right of women to vote was only put into the US Constitution in 1920. In democratic England just prior to the First World War, the electorate was restricted to something like 60% of English men due to age and property requirements.
According to the American Values Survey, about three quarters of Americans say democracy is at stake in the next election. In a vacuum, this sounds reassuring: Everybody is very worried about threats to democracy. That’s good, right?
Unfortunately, these numbers do not indicate a robust pro-democracy consensus – this is not the (small-d) democratic majority standing up against the MAGA threat. Actually, those on the Right, very much including people who vote for Trump, are at least as concerned about what may happen to democracy in the next election as those in the anti-MAGA camp are. In fact, about as many Americans believe Biden winning reelection would “threaten American democracy and way of life” as there are people thinking Trump coming back to power would endanger democratic self-government.1
Experience in US elections and in other countries also indicate that vague appeals to preserve democracy aren’t in themselves especially effective, and that latter result suggests as much for the 2024 elections. Trump may have little actual skills in governing and foreign policy - very little, actually. But he’s a talented demagogue, and he positions himself in populist manner as defending The People against the Globalists and the Biden Crime Family and leftwing Hollywood stars who stole the 2020 election from him even though he got eleventy million more votes than Biden.
Violence in democratic politics
Measuring attitudes toward political violence is even trickier:
When the 2023 American Values Survey came out, the result that got the most public attention was this: “Today, nearly a quarter of Americans (23%) agree that ‘because things have gotten so far off track, true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country,’ up from 15% in 2021.” Broken down by party, a third of Republicans agree that “patriots may have to resort to violence,” compared to 13 percent of Democrats; but the numbers have increased considerably in both camps over the past few years.
Zimmer notes that this particular survey question was framed in terms of whether “true American patriots” might have to use violence “in order to save our country.” He notes that the particular wording on that question might have more resonance for conservatives. Both before the January 6 (2021) Capitol insurrection and even more so afterwards, the rhetoric of “patriot militias” about the need to violence against their enemies is at the moment basically exclusively from the Trumpista right. Despite ding-dong fantasies that Black Lives Matter protesters “burned down cities,” there is no remotely comparable level of such rhetoric on the left or center-left in the US.
And since most Americans have some knowledge about the Declaration of Independence and the American Revolution and the notion of a right to rebel against tyranny, who knows what those responses are measuring? There are also some “antifa” groups around the US that are willing to physically engage with violent rightwing protests. David Neiwert, who has been reporting on this stuff for decades, observes that for the real existing antifa groups, their focus is generally defensive:
Most of all, [antifa’s] operating philosophy is no t- contrary to the right's characterization of the movement - focused on creating violence, but rather on preventing it if possible, particularly violence against vulnerable minorities frequently targeted by right-wing extremists and hate groups. At the same time, unlike other leftist groups, it does not eschew the use of violence to defend those minorities from violence-which is why so many of its members get caught up in street brawls and are regularly seen engaging in violent acts. And it justifies some violent acts as preemptive.
The majority, but not all, of Antifa's violence is reactive - unlike that of the Proud Boys and other street brawling groups with whom they have been engaging, whose violence is almost entirely deliberate and provocative. Those [radical rights] groups' entire reason for existence is to create violent scenes in liberal urban centers, all supposedly in defense of "Western civilization."2[my emphasis]
Theocracy vs. Democracy
Bill Astore takes the occasion of religious fundamentalist, theocrat, and Christian Zionist Mike Johnson becoming Speaker of the House to reflect on the founding concept of American religious freedom under the Constitution:
From its earliest days, the colonies were a haven for Christian dissenters, meaning those who didn’t kowtow to the establishment Church of England, which indeed was and is a state church. Among the founders were deists like Thomas Jefferson and non-theists like Thomas Paine. Not surprisingly in the “rational” Age of Enlightenment, America was founded on the notion of freedom of belief and tolerance of others and their beliefs, however imperfectly that tolerance was often practiced. (Few Americans, even today, for example, cop to being atheists, especially if they’re in politics.)
The colonists recognized that the conjunction of state power with organized religion corrupted both. They knew history, including their own, hence that “wall” [between church and state] that Thomas Jefferson spoke of. That wall wasn’t anti-church or anti-religion. It was erected to protect religion and personal beliefs from being tainted by state interests and power.3 [my emphasis]
The Christian theocratic tendency is very strong among Republicans.
Annika Brockschmidt has a very good grasp on how that functions:
As many commentators have noted since his election as speaker, Mike Johnson has been an integral part of a movement that’s been sawing away at the democratic foundations of the country for decades: The Christian Right. But Johnson, like much of the Christian Right itself, is also profoundly influenced by fringe Christian thinkers and movements that few reporters and analysts of U.S. politics are familiar with. …
Johnson is a White Christian nationalist (and a true believer at that), part of a growing number who see right-wing reactionary Christianity, White supremacy, and authoritarian politics as an integral part of “real” American identity. Those who do not fall under it must submit, or be forced, if need be, through violence.
Johnson was elected to the House of Representatives in 2016, after serving two years in the Louisiana state legislature. Before his time in Congress Johnson worked for 10 years as a lawyer for Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian Right powerhouse and SPLC-designated “hate group.” The ADF advocates for the disenfranchisement of and discrimination against LGBTQ people and seeks to criminalize abortion—it was the driving force behind the fall of Roe v. Wade, which protected the right to abortion, last summer.4 [my emphasis]
Zimmer, Thomas (2023): Do Americans Value Democracy? Democracy Americana 11/19/2023. (Accessed; 2023-19-11).
Neiwert, David (2023): The Age of Insurrection: The Radical Right’s Assault on American Democracy. Brooklyn & London: Melville House.
Astore, Bill (2023): Preacher Mike Johnson: There shall be no wall between the state and (my) church. Bracing Views (Substack) 11/16/2023.
Brockschmidt, Annika (2023): Mike Johnson Isn't Just Your Average Christian Right Avatar - He's Influenced by Fringe Movements Unfamiliar to Most Political Analysts. Religion Dispatches 11/05/2023. <https://religiondispatches.org/mike-johnson-isnt-just-your-average-christian-right-avatar-hes-influenced-by-fringe-movements-unfamiliar-to-most-political-analysts/> (Accessed: 2023-27-11).