Editorial | A year of assault on democracy

One year after the unusual episode of the assault on the United States Congress by a throng of exalted, encouraged by Donald Trump In the final stretch of his presidency, it is possible to follow the trail left by that event in terms of social division, the confrontation between two irreconcilable blocs and the erosion of the country’s image. The sum of an irresponsible president and a mass fired up by the victory of Joe Biden, which Trump never accepted, brought the Union to the brink. A state of mind that barely counteracts the convictions of some assailants handed down by the courts and the restoration of institutional normality.

The events of January 6, a year ago, certified something that, as Trump’s term progressed, became more and more explicit. Half of the United States is not willing to assume social and political realities different from those they consider to be typical of the nation, even if it is about the relationship between the white community and the rest, especially the African American. Nor is it possible to get rid of the unlimited distrust towards the federal Administration in the states furthest from the great centers of political, economic, cultural and academic decision-making. There’s a conservative withdrawal, possessed by the reaction of a recalcitrant traditionalism, which has not stopped growing since the presidency of Bill Clinton, which was accentuated with that of Barack Obama and that he took the streets with self-confidence during Trump’s.

The difficulties facing Biden in the Senate to carry out its economic policy in electoral year, aggravated by the defection of at least one senator from the Democratic Party; the threat hanging over the abortion legislation in several states, pending the decision of the Supreme Court, with a conservative majority of 6 to 3; the relentless colonization of the Republican Party by Trump and his heirs, who have disfigured the traditional image of American conservatism; all this and much more refers to the indisputable reality of an irremediably divided society. A factor of weakening before the international community, in general, and before China and Russia, in particular, with the West on the lookout.

It is not an exaggeration to say that the madmen who occupied Congress, beyond their appearance between grotesque and tragicomic, attacked the most solid traditions of an old democracy, tried to violate the pillars of the rule of law and laid the first stone so that it can be considered the midterm legislative elections, on November 8, as more than a passing ceremony. If Biden retains or improves his short majority in the House of Representatives and the Senate is tied or the Democrats win a seat, some relaxation of tensions can be expected until early 2024; If the polls are smiling at Trump’s emuli, it is foreseeable a fight without quarter, with the former president at the forefront of the harassment operations, no longer against the current Administration but against democratic normality. Whichever direction the investigation opened by the New York Prosecutor’s Office takes him and two of his children.

Everything that happened in the United States from the scrutiny of Biden’s victory to the onslaught of Congress is far from being a written off chapter in the country’s more recent history. It is, on the contrary, a ballast that conditions everything in the attempt of the White House and sensible conservatism to channel institutional life along the path of normality. The brands of division and sectarianism remain incandescent and the risk that the heat of the coming campaign will fan the fire is very high.

Reference-www.elperiodico.com

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