Mwalimu-G
Elder Lister
Stephen Collinson and Caitlin Hu
'We’re at an inflection point'
It wasn’t that he noted that he’s made good as President on his vow at the annual confab as a private citizen two years ago that America would be “back.” Or that he was Zooming in to Bavaria from the White House. Rather, it was Biden’s warning that democracy is under assault.
“We’re at an inflection point between those who argue that, given all the challenges we face — from the fourth industrial revolution to a global pandemic — that autocracy is the best way forward … and those who understand that democracy is essential — essential to meeting those challenges,” Biden said in his speech on Friday.
Sure, raise the alarm about tyrants abroad. But no President since the US rose to global leadership a century ago has lectured the world from such a fragile domestic platform, after fellow Americans attacked their country’s own free election process last month.
The glass half-full view is that US political institutions were tested, but survived a demagogic president who refused to leave power peacefully. But the threat to democratic self-government in the United States didn’t vanish when Donald Trump decamped to his retirement quarters in Florida. In fact, the evidence of the last month suggests the opposite.
Republican senators, bullied by Trump’s voters, gave him a pass for inciting a de-facto coup attempt by acquitting him in his impeachment trial. A trail of GOP illuminati is heading south to pay homage to the King-in-exile. Trump will make a comeback at the annual party of the American Conservative Union next weekend. Across the US, conservative state legislators are rushing to make it harder for Democrats to vote, following Trump’s lie that the election was stolen. State Republican parties are not reacting to his defeat by ditching his losing formula; they’re purging heretics who stood up for truth. And Trump clones are emerging to fight the midterm elections.
While America is right to be concerned about democracy ebbing abroad, the rest of the world might have more to worry about over democracy in America
