How Democracy Dies
We are witnessing Democracy die in a mature, developed nation. What is happening in the United States is not unique. We see it happen many times all over the world.
Yet, it feels different to see a country that has practiced Democracy for more than a century so quickly fall into the category of Poland and Hungary, which have had much less time to cultivate Democracy.
What is the problem?
Let me make this clear: Donald Trump is not the problem. The real problem is the Republican party, its leaders, and other people who entertain him.
I am not interested in partisan politics in the United States. Both liberals and conservatives are equally susceptible to an authoritarian. It just happened by chance that an authoritarian emerged from the conservatives in the United States.
A populist authoritarian concentrating power and subverting Democracy is nothing new. We have seen versions of this happen as far back as in ancient Rome. Most democracies have some measures to shield themselves from such threats. Such as the principle of separation of powers and checks and balances. This only works as long as the other branches of the government, the legislative branch, and the judicial branch, resist the executive.
In the 2020 election, even before the election day, we saw President Trump use his office to stay in his power from attempting to extort a foreign government to investigate his political opponents to spreading conspiracy theories about voting information.
There are remedies for such abuse of power. In a parliamentary system like the United Kingdom and Japan, the Parliament can file a vote of no confidence. In the United States, Congress can vote on impeachment and remove the President.
The structure was there. However, Republican Senators, for their own short-term political ambitions, refuse to act on it. In the House, all but two Democratic members voted for impeachment and all republicans voted to reject it. In the Senate, all Democrats, both two independents, and one Republican voted to convict and remove the President. Impeachment failed because the Senate Republicans rejected impeachment.
But why did they reject it? Do they think Donald Trump was innocent of crimes accused in the articles of impeachment?
Most established Republicans rightly called Trump a dangerous demagogue until he became the leader of the party. Senator Ted Cruz called Trump a “pathological liar.” Senator Lindsey Graham called him a “race bating, religious bigot.” Yet, just a few months after these comments were made, they became Trump’s staunchest allies.
So what made them make such drastic departures from their past comments? It was a political calculation. Donald Trump maintains an unprecedented level of support from the Republican base. Making it highly risky for any Republican to be seen as disloyal to him.
In fact, many Republican members of the House and some members in the Senate publicly assisted Mr. Trump’s attempt at overturning the results of the election.
Senator Graham, who is also the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, pressured Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffenspeger to toss out votes in Georgia, a stunningly undemocratic move.
Senator Cruz expressed his support for a meritless lawsuit filed by the Texas Attorney General to “de-certify” millions of ballots cast in states Joe Biden won.
Mr. Cruz, a former primary editor of the Harvard Law Review at Harvard Law School and a former Texas Solicitor General, must know very well that there was no legal path for Mr. Trump to overturn the outcome of the election. Yet, he showed his support for the lawsuit, which was condemned by legal scholars, just to prove his loyalty to Mr. Trump so that it would benefit him politically in his future political endeavors.
This has continued until the very moment when a mob of Trump supporters, who believed conspiracy theories that the election was fraudulent, breached the Capitol security and forced lawmakers to evacuate and shelter in undisclosed locations in the Capitol.
Led by Senator Josh Hawley, a graduate of prestigious Stanford University and Yale Law School, launched a last-ditch attempt to reject the electoral votes cast for Joe Biden. Mr. Cruz and a dozen other Senators including Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham also joined Mr. Hawley.
Unlike many Trump supporters, Hawley and Cruz very well knew that the challenge was futile and would never succeed. They received legal education at the best institutions in the world and were elected to the Senate at the age of 38 and 41.
Both aspirational politicians, it is widely believed that they are eying for the 2024 Presidential election. They are fully aware that to become the nominee of the Republican party, it is vital to be seen as a successor to Donald Trump, who has an astonishingly high approval from Republican supporters. They humored this anti-democratic attempt just to increase their odds of becoming President in the future.
This is where the problem lies. Democracy does not die because of a single political figure but from “normal” political figures and institutions enabling such autocrats.
How it happened
Let me introduce a man named Franz von Papen. He was born in Germany to a wealthy aristocratic family in 1879. He went to a cadet school and became a military officer. He briefly worked in the Kaiser’s Palace and later moved on to the German General Staff.
Papen served in multiple roles in the military. He left the military in 1919 and soon after entered into the world of politics as a member of the Catholic Centre Party. As the name indicates, this party was a centrist party that made a governing coalition with center-left and liberal parties.
He served in the Prussian Province Legislature. Despite being a member of the governing coalition, he gained attention by filing a vote of no confidence to the Prime Minister of Prussian who was a member of the leftist SPD which formed a governing coalition with the Catholic Centre Party. In the 1925 Presidential election, in a clear break from his party, he supported a right-wing war hero Paul von Hindenburg for President over the party nominee Wilhelm Marx.
His political gamble paid off. Hindenburg defeated Marx in a narrow election by receiving 48.3% of the vote to Marx’s 45.3% of the vote.
Hindenburg, a political novice who had never held any elected office but was courted to run by conservative and right-wing parties who saw him as someone popular enough to defeat the unified centrist-left nominee Wilhelm Marx, relied heavily on his close associates upon being elected President.
In this turbulent time of German politics where they saw the rise of the NSDAP (The Nazi Party) and the Communist Party, Hindenburg burnt through 4 Chancellors in his first term. When the end of his first term approached, all of the moderate parties from the Catholic Centre Party to the left-wing SPD to the right-wing DVP begged him to run for reelection since he was the only hope of defeating Hitler, whose staggering rise was seen as close to unstoppable.
At the age of 84, Hindenburg ran for reelection and defeated Hitler, but lost most of his supporters on the right. He owed his re-election to the unified centrist and the leftist who saw his as the only hope of stopping Hitler.
Hindenburg entrusted his close associate Kurt von Schleicher to choose the next Chancellor. Schleicher chose his friend from the German General Staff, Franz von Papen for his conservative views, and he thought he could easily exert his influence over Papen.
The Papen Cabinet, which comprised of aristocrats was extremely unpopular and had no allies in the Parliament. In the following Parliamentary election in July, the Nazi Party won a plurality of the seats, but still short of a majority. Even at this stage, the center-left SPD and the Communist Party which had the second most and the third most seats respectably refused to cooperate shutting the possibility of a non-Nazi coalitional government.
The next election, which was held in November 1933 became the last free and fair election in Weimar Germany. The Nazis retained the plurality status but dropped from 37% to 33%. The Communist Party slightly grew seats and reached 100 seats, a symbolic victory.
Papen, who was staunchly right-wing, feared the growth of the Communists. Also by this time, the relationship between Papen and Schleicher had worsened significantly and they became mortal enemies. Both Papen and Schleicher were offering Hitler Vice Chancellorship in exchange for the Nazi Party’s backing for their Chancellorship.
But when Hitler demanded Chancellorship, in an attempt to out-bid each other, both offered Hitler Chancellorship. Papen ultimately got President Hindenburg’s backing and Papen became Vice-Chancellor under the Hitler Chancellorship. Papen thought he could control Hitler and retain his power.
We all know what happened after that. Hitler consolidated power and when elderly President Hindenburg passed away, he became the Fuhrer.
The Lesson
The Weimar Republic had a relatively educated population. Its institutions were stronger than most. What gave rise to Hitler was not only the Nazis’ political violence but the non-fascist parties’ unwillingness to cooperate and the personal political ambitions of the likes of Paen and Schleicher.
Had the Communists, SPD, and the Catholic Centre Party cooperated and formed an anti-Nazi governing coalition, combined they had 60–70% votes.
Had Papen and Schleicher set their personal grievances and ambitions aside to stop the Nazis, maybe a more unified functioning government could have prevented the Nazi takeover.
This is all hypothetical. But their total self-centered actions and failure to acknowledge the threat posed by the Nazis ended their fate.
Applying the lesson to the current climate in the United States, it becomes clear that most Republican legislatures acted as at best, spectators and at worst, willing enablers of Donald Trump.
Donald Trump may not come back. But a similar, but more capable political figure will arise one day and America is uniquely vulnerable. To avoid this, pro-democracy conscience Republican lawmakers should leave their party and make their positions clear, the Senate and the House should seek to expel members who participated in the anti-democratic attempt to overturn the outcome of the election, and the public must educate itself for the danger it faces.
No one in Germany could even imagine they would become a totalitarian state just a few years prior.
In 1928, the Nazi Party had just 12 seats in the Parliament (Reichstag). Just four years later, they had 230 seats, and a year later, Hitler was a dictator.
