The January 6 insurrection on the US Capital can only be compared in severity with the 1814 British burning of the White House. The aggravation of the rivalry between Democrats and Republicans represents an existential threat to US democracy.
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| 3D render of Democrats Donkey vs Republicans Elephant symbols on dark blue background © pryzmat / shutterstock.com |
The United States (US) is on a perilous path that has a
potential to end in tragedy, pulling apart the nation. As January 6
demonstrated, a few thousand resolute individuals can initiate the
fragmentation of the union, a process that began with the bickering between
Democrats and the Republicans. If it hopes to survive, the US must change its
course.
In contrast to popular belief, life in the US is not as rosy
as it may appear in the popular media. Americans suffer from inequality in
gender, income, and wealth. They receive poor healthcare and face frequent
violence. Minority groups are routinely subjected to cultural and racial
discrimination. Poverty and homelessness are visibly growing. Minorities and
the poor disproportionately die from the COVID-19 and its variants.
In the US, human
rights have deteriorated. Nepotism, corruption, racism, and impunity
of much of the criminal class persist. Former US President Donald Trump
retained his immediate family members among his top advisors. He threatened and
harassed political opponents, whistleblowers, and others. He pardoned criminal
associates and friends. His administration continued promoting discrimination
and xenophobic nationalism. US President Joe Biden is still unable to explain
how his son Hunter secured a high paying directorship in Ukraine’s largest
privately owned gas producer Burisma Holdings Ltd when his father was the White
House’s point man for that country. US presidents often enjoy impunity
with regard to such arrangements.
The list of human rights’ concerns is impressive in a nation
that accuses other nations of not living up to the highest standards. It
includes violence against women and girls, an increasing number of hate crimes,
the tolerance of gun violence and mass shootings, abuse of Native American
women and girls, permitting an environment of Islamophobia, a carceral system
that reduces 1.3-percent of the population to modern-day slavery, and
international trafficking of women and children.
In particular, the judicial system rather than reducing
injustice perpetuates it.
The US possesses the world’s highest criminal
incarceration rate, disproportionately imprisoning
Native Americans and blacks. The justice system routinely excuses law
enforcement guilty of excessive
force employed against minorities, protesters, detainees, and
prisoners. The US by far leads all other democracies in “police
killings”. A high number of detainees die in
custody and abuse of
migrant workers and asylum seekers is rampant. In 2022, a major blow to women’s
rights was especially initiated by the US Supreme Court’s reversing the 1973 Roe
v. Wade, which gave rights to abortion for nearly 50 years.
January 6 Insurrection
Many of the problems derive from the competitive political
rivalries between the two dominant parties. Both have developed the reflex of
serving the rich at the expense of other segments of the population. The
bickering between Democrats and Republicans peaked on January 6, 2021 in the
attack on the US Capital in Washington, D.C. That assault could only be
compared with the 1814 British attack
on Washington DC when they set the White House on fire.
On January 6, 2021, the US President Donald
Trump gave a speech before a large crowd of his supporters in
Washington, D.C.. He persisted in promoting his conspiracy theory claiming that
Democrats had stolen the presidential election. He repeatedly asserted that
Democrats rigged the Presidential election in favor of their candidate. This
inspired his supporters to march to the Capitol to threaten the US Congress as
it was about to certify the election of Democratic candidate Joe Biden’s
victory. “All of us here today do not want to see our election victory stolen
by emboldened radical-left Democrats,” said Mr. Trump. He urged the supporters
to take action. “Together, we will drain the Washington swamp and we will clean
up the corruption in our nation’s capital,” he said.
Inspired by Trump’s bombastic rhetoric, his supporters broke
into the Capitol and rampaged through its corridors, forcing the US Vice
President Mike Pence and the members of the US Congress to flee to save their
lives. Several people died before it was brought under control. That assault on
the Capitol did not make Mr. Trump damp down his rhetoric. Instead, it impelled
him to repeat that the election was fraud and rigged by the Democrats. His
position fortified his standing among Republicans, many of whom question the
validity of the 2020 election results and demand for more restrictions on
voting rights.
The insurrection could have turned into a revolution, and
proved fatal to American democracy.
Power of the people
We must not underestimate the power people have to change
things. We should remember, for example, that the Soviet Union headquarters in
Moscow was not attacked by resurrectionists but fell apart under pressure from
generally peaceful nationalist protesters. The Soviet fall simply began when
some small nationalist groups in Latvia and Lithuania demanded independence for
their republics. Other republics gradually joined the movement with similar
demands, leading, within 2 years, to the fall of the Soviet Union in
December 1991.
In the case of the January 6 resurrection, we might imagine
what would have happened if the police had faced an aggressive confrontation
from the insurrectionists. Camouflaged federal police might have responded
heavy-handedly in Humvees as the local police had done in the 2014 Ferguson
crisis. The assembled crowds were protesting the killing by a white police
officer of an unarmed African-American 18-year-old,
Michael Brown., At the moment the fatal shots were fired, the teenager was
reportedly “trying to surrender”. As the protests grew, the police didn’t
hesitate to greet the crowd with “teargas and stun grenades.”
If Trump had ordered something similar by calling out the
National Guard, it would have resulted in a large number of the
insurrectionists being brutally killed. That in turn would have incited large
numbers of people across the country to come out in support of the
insurrectionists. Trump would then have been in a position to declare a
national emergency. That would then serve as an excuse for remaining in the
White House and canceling Mr. Biden’s coming inauguration. Protest movements
would have expanded and intensified, pitching Democrats against Republicans.
General mayhem would have followed and the US and its famed constitution, could
have become history.
Superpowers are not invincible
In 1985, people assumed that the Soviet Union, the other
superpower that shared a claim to global domination, was invincible. In March
of that year, Mikhail Gorbachev was elected General Secretary of the Communist
Party in the Soviet Union. A year later in February 1986, he introduced a
policy orientation known as glasnost (“openness”) and perestroika (“restructuring”).
Focused on opening the prospects for world peace, Gorbachev
enthusiastically proposed the concept of a new world order at the UN General
Assembly in December 1988. His initiative played out in unanticipated ways. In
November 1989, the Soviets under Gorbachev allowed the Berlin
Wall to fall. That would eventually lead to the unification of East
and West Germany in October 1990.
In March 1990, the Soviet Union’s Congress of the People’s
Deputies elected Gorbachev as its president. He pushed for an amendment to the
Soviet constitution intended to strengthen his position as president. That
month, Lithuania declared its independence, and Latvia followed in May.
By November 1991, nationalists in
Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Kirgizia Moldova, Tajikistan,
Ukraine, Uzbekistan, and other Soviet republics arose to declare their
independence from the Soviet Union. To Gorbachev’s credit, in contrast with his
predecessors, he refrained from using brutal force to restore the dying order.
In December 1991, to the disbelief of even the foreign
policy experts in the US, the Soviet Union, a global superpower collapsed. Much
of the old Soviet world collapsed with it.
The US World’s Superpower
With the fall of the Soviet Union, the US emerged as the
world’s unique superpower. With such power goes immense ethical responsibility.
It creates the opportunity to collaborate with other nations in enhancing human
rights, freedom from oppression, and global peace.
The US found itself with a chance to redefine its role in
the world. The most obvious urgency was to fill the void that the Soviets had
left behind by saving the former republics of the Soviet bloc from falling into
economic collapse, ethnic tension, and political instability. This would have
played a major role in leading the world towards the ideals of freedom and
peace.
President George H. W. Bush hadn’t forgotten Gorbachev’s
call for a “new world order.” Appropriating it for his own purposes, he
referred to it over forty times thereafter, turning it into a personal slogan.
But like most slogans, the repeated declarations were little more than talk.
Since then, the US has persistently contributed to global conflicts by
venturing military into various countries and threatening others with either
invasion or sanctions. Instead of becoming a global peacemaker, the US has
become the world’s worst troublemaker.
Following the US invasion of Iraq and the fiasco of
Afghanistan, the standing of
the US even among its allies has reached an historic low. Furthermore, the
position of the US as the world’s unique superpower is being challenged by its
adversaries, most notably China, Iran, and Russia. If the US intends to remain
a major player in international affairs, it will need to change its course. To
start, it must first clean up its house.
An action plan
“The time is always right to do the right thing,” said
Martin Luther King. The US should learn the major lesson from the fall of the
Soviet Union: being a superpower is no guarantee for survival when people begin
to rise and challenge its authority. As January 6 has shown, the biggest threat
to the US appears to be domestic. For its own good, the US must seriously
address its own internal issues.
To carry out its ethical responsibilities, the US could
start with two important steps. The first would be to give opportunities to
more than the two established parties that function as a permanent duopoly. So
long as there are only two favored parties, the rivalries between them to
govern the nation will continue, polarizing the electorate with the risk of
dissolving an ever more fragile union.
The second would be to reverse the trend of outrageously
funding the military and spend more generously to improve domestic prosperity.
Both the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany were built on strong, advanced military
forces. People thought both of them were unbeatable, yet neither exists today.
But there is more to do. To ensure domestic tranquility the
US should provide more opportunity to nearly 35 million Americans who live in
poverty. It should begin to implement programs to elevate women and halt
widespread and alarming violence against women and girls. It should have the
honesty to refrain from labeling — on the basis of ethnicity, race, and
religion — some crimes as terrorism while dismissing others simply as a
personal psychological disorder.
It is also time to make right certain obvious historical
wrongs by addressing the question of persistent cultural and racial injustice
against Native Americans, African-Americans, and other minorities. And for a
country that claims to believe in human rights, the US should make a real
effort to provide intensive training for judicial and law enforcement personnel
on how human rights play out, notably by respecting fellow human beings
regardless of gender, race, religion, and ethnicity.
As for US citizens, to function in an increasingly complex
world, instead of hiding behind a superficial idea of “exceptionalism,” you
should take seriously the responsibility leadership implies. What are the
buzzwords and propaganda patterns of your news station, your peers, your
president? Instead of repeating them blind, try another approach. Think.
Reason. Criticize. Elect ethical people who truly represent your interests. It
is only then that you can bring to overcome inequalities, to prosper, and go
boldly forward on the world stage in unison. Then, you can proudly say,
“America is great”.
This article was originally published on Fair
Observer on November 12, 2022.
