From: Ozodi Osuji ozodiosuji@yahoo.ca [NigerianID
IS THE USA DYING?
Levitsky, Stephen & Ziblatt, Daniel (2019). How Democracies Die. New York: Broadway Books. 308 pages.
Ozodi Thomas Osuji
This is a book by two Harvard University professors of political science. The book, however, might have been written by historians; it weaved political science and history in a manner to give the reader an excellent picture of how supposed democracies die. They don't always die in a coup d'état but may die gradually, as we are witnessing in the USA.
It used Italy (the rise of Benito Mussolini in 1922), Germany (the rise of Adolf Hitler in 1933), Argentina (the rise of Juan Peron in 1956), Chile (the rise of Pinochet in 1973), Venezuela (the rise of Hugo Chavez in 1998) and other countries as case studies on how hitherto democratic countries died.
The social and political processes that it showed precipitated the eventual collapse of those else while democracies are in an advanced state in the USA. The gradual weakening of democratic institutions of governing, such as the legislature, executive and judiciary, the undermining of the press (Trump calls the media fake news thus undermining its credibility, asking his base not to take anything from it seriously); the rise of antagonistic politics whereby the traditional governing parties no longer respect each other but are at war with each other, delegitimizing each other hence making it near impossible for the people to see their government as legitimate and credible.
Republicans no longer accept Democratic leaders in the USA; this began long before their total rejection of the Presidency of Barack Obama. Having rejected the presidency of Obama, Democrats returned the favor and from day one of the Presidency of Donald Trump have not seen him as a legitimate President of the USA. Trump is presented as a clown who is in above his head; he is left no choice but to rule by sheer chutzpah; the fact is that Liberals do not see him as their President.
With such polarization, respect for traditional governing institutions is weakened. Look at what Republicans are now doing to the US Supreme Court, the only institution that still enjoys substantial Americans respect; in a couple of recent rulings the Supreme Court did not rule as Trump expected them to rule; thereafter, the Republican discrediting machine went to work presenting the Chief Justice, John Roberts as an alien; by the time they are done few persons would respect rulings by the Supreme Court.
Already, only a few persons respect Congress and the Presidency; add the Supreme Court to the mix. Trump had done his best to desecrate what he calls the mainstream media. The New York Time, the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times that used to be a must read for most of us are now a no go area for Republicans. Instead, they get their news from such yellow journalism outlets as Fox news and Breitbart.
The next thing you know is that there is a presidential election and Republicans lose and refuse to accept it (Trump is probably going to try to do so come November 3, 2020). So what are you going to do in that situation?
Clearly, Democrats will not tolerate Trump in office one day beyond January 20, 2021. So there is a political stalemate. Many Americans have had enough and start looking for a savior on a white horse.
A young military general decides that he needs to restore law and order (as 30 years old Napoleon Bonaparte did in France) and intervene and sends the recalcitrant politicians parking. He begins ruling in an authoritarian manner.
Perhaps, there will be opposition to him, as is always the case. There is a civil war. The fascistic group wins and rules.
In time democratic institutions are banished and the rule of one man and his family ensues. That was, by the way, what Julius Caesar was trying to accomplish when Brutus and Cassius murdered him and generated a civil war. Caesar's adopted son, Octavius won over the forces of Mark Antonio; Octavius changed his name to Caesar Augustus thus initiating the rule of emperors.
Rome went from been a Republic for five hundred years to rule by one family for five hundred years; thereafter, German Barbarians sacked it and it went out of existence although the Eastern half of the empire, the Byzantine Empire lasted until 1453 when the Turks finally disposed them and embarked on the Ottoman Empire that lasted until the first world war.
There are serious issues in America. They cannot be swept under the rug or papered with political platitudes.
America was founded for the rule of English upper class men. It was not for poor whites and women and certainly not for Africans. Over time, poor white folks were given the vote. After the civil war blacks were grudgingly accepted as human beings. In 1920 women were given the vote. This political evolution culminated in the Johnson administration of the 1960s.
Johnson administration and Congress gave blacks civil rights, fair housing and passed the Nationalities Act in 1965 that allowed nonwhites to become American citizens.
As a result of these systemic changes the landscape of the USA is radically changed. What used to be a white man's country, ruled by a few English men (who belonged to the Anglican Church) became a country where non English white men could rule. Then nonwhites could rule!
This is radical change of the political culture. The rulers of the land became angry, they watched as ruler-ship is slipping away from them.
The emancipation of blacks meant that blacks left farms and went to live in urban ghettos. Somebody had to do the farm work so the USA opened its southern border and allowed Latin Americans who could not read or write to pour in and those replaced black folks as farm hands. Those Latinos began going to schools. Some of them are now well educated. Many of their kin from Central America are still pouring into the USA. From been a handful Latinos are now 52 million; they are Catholics and have large families.
Demographers project that Latinos will become the largest ethnic group in the USA by the end of this century. Latinos are mix of Spanish, Indians and Africans.
The white battle cry went up. The barbarians are at the gate, lock the gate. Trump was elected to build walls, to prevent the influx of Latinos, Africans, Muslims and other non-Western European white folks into the USA.
Before we become sentimental let us quickly own that there is reason for white folk's fear of nonwhites. Science and technology is a British, French and German and Scandinavian thing. Tell us who is not from those Western countries that has made seminal contribution to science and technology, may be a handful. Thus, Americans fear becoming a non-scientific and technological country as perceived savages pours in and take over.
Worse, the presumed savages began talking about multiculturalism, talking as if their cultures are good. If your culture is good how come it could not feed you and you had to come to the West to eke out a miserable living. Why do you want to introduce a culture that made you poor to a people whose culture made them go to the moon? You are foolish.
They say that when you go to Rome behave like Romans if you want to be accepted by Romans, but, no, Africans and other foreigners in the USA now want Americans to teach their cultures at America's schools. That did it for white nationalists, supremacists. They have had enough.
They closed ranks and are trying kick out non English people. Yes, they want to get rid of Slavic Europeans after all those, too, were not allowed here until the twentieth century.
Return the country to its roots, English North America. Even if it takes authoritarian regimes to do so that is fine with the one percent that rules the USA.
The point here is that the USA is on its way to authoritarian, totalitarian dictatorship. This needs not be.
Our two Harvard political scientists described the problem with outstanding clarity and proffered ways to strengthen democratic institutions in the USA to preserve the democratic polity.
The problem is that nobody is listening to them or wants to listen to them. Therefore, what happens next in the USA is your guess.
In the meantime, it might do you some good to read this book, How Democracies Die; you will learn a thing or two of how political demagogues come to power and liberal democracy dies.
Ozodi Thomas Osuji
July 26, 2020
(907) 310-8176
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue+subscribe@googlegroups.com
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialogue+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/CALUsqTQXeuQB_r8Hp3pTF56%2Bg20d-MSY_G1h-GyOfdzhxWV%3Dhw%40mail.gmail.com.
No comments:
Post a Comment