Once a shining example of the virtues of democracy, the United States is now a blatant case study in its trigger-fired fault lines, welcoming like-minded countries from around the world to explore on Thursday. ways to defend the western way of life.
Government officials from 110 countries, including Canada, as well as business leaders and civil society advocates and activists will gather for a two-day virtual “Summit for Democracy” aimed at slowing the march of authoritarianism.
Joe Biden’s promise to host the summit predates the November 2020 presidential election, but took on an entirely different tone after his victory was attacked during the Jan.6 assault on the Capitol by supporters of his defeated rival. but still challenging.
That’s why on Thursday you’ll likely be in the mood to sing praises to smoke detectors from inside a smoking ruin.
“It’s a really dangerous time,” said Polly Mackenzie, CEO of Demos, a British research firm focused on closing the gaps between ordinary people and political institutions in public policy areas like economic inequality and climate change.
Mackenzie describes democracy as a “vast act of compromise,” a social contract between the voters of a country that demands that they act in the best interest of the collective group, rather than selfishly prioritizing their own wants and needs.
“If you are engaging with other citizens within a society, you must feel that they are people worth engaging with,” he said at a panel discussion Wednesday organized by the Pew Research Center.
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“We overpromised democracy as maybe the idea that because you can vote, you get what you want. But really, democracy is not about getting what you want. It’s about getting what we can live for.”
That’s a contract that many Americans have abandoned, Pew’s own research suggests.
A staggering 85 percent of American respondents to a poll earlier this year said they want complete reform or major changes in their country’s political system. In Canada, only 47 percent said the same, and only eight percent asked for a full review.
#US, where #democracy is under siege, is hosting two-day global #SummitForDemocracy.
“The vote itself has become a fundamental partisan dividing line in America,” said Carroll Doherty, Pew’s director of political research. A majority of Democrats consider voting to be a right, while a majority of Republicans consider it a privilege, he said.
And twice, once in January and once in June, Pew surveyed Americans about the outcome of last year’s presidential election and found that three-quarters of Donald Trump supporters refuse to accept Biden as the legitimate president of the United States. .
Yet despite the urgency, few serious people in Washington or Ottawa seem to hope that the summit will accomplish much, much less attract significant public attention.
“I don’t think the summit is a major domestic political event. In the long run, it will go unnoticed,” said Daniel Stockemer, a professor of political studies at the University of Ottawa.
A potentially important outcome could be a show of international solidarity surrounding the US decision to mount a diplomatic boycott of the Winter Olympics this February in Beijing, he added.
“Even if nationally few people care about this summit, internationally this could show other countries that the United States is back in the game when it comes to defending democracy and human rights.”
Meanwhile, China has been stockpiling a lot of ammunition to discredit America’s argument and defuse the likely message from this week’s summit before it even started.
“The United States claims that the so-called Democracy Summit aims to defend democracy. So we have some questions for the United States,” said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian during his daily press conference on Wednesday.
Zhao proceeded to recite a long list of black marks, from the scope of the COVID-19 death toll in the US to his tortuous calculation of race unrest and inequality to ineffective military operations in the Middle East, such as evidence of a failed experiment.
“Is the United States, a country that ignores democracy, qualified to hold a summit on democracy?”
Meanwhile, the evidence continues to accumulate, almost day by day, that the true existential threat to the American political system comes from inside the home.
January 6 “was practical,” proclaims the latest issue of The Atlantic in a deep-cover story alleging that Republican operatives, informed by the 2020 experience, are engineering a more concerted and fierce effort to short-circuit an electoral defeat in 2024.
“There is a clear and present danger that American democracy will not withstand the destructive forces now converging on it,” writes author Barton Gellman in a chilling 13,000-word work.
“Our two-party system is left with only one party that is willing to lose an election. The other is willing to win at the cost of breaking things without which a democracy cannot live.”
The three main themes of the summit include strengthening democracy and defending against authoritarianism, fighting corruption and promoting human rights. Topics for discussion will include support for free and independent media, use of technology to promote democratic reform, and protection of free and fair elections.
“This summit is not a one-time event in itself,” said Allison Lombardo, deputy assistant secretary of the State Department for international organization affairs.
“We are using it to drive a year of action in which governments can announce new reforms and commitments, go home and work on them nationally and internationally.”
A follow-up event is expected in 2022, with the hope that next year’s summit will be an opportunity to assess the progress made during the intervening year.
This Canadian Press report was first published on December 8, 2021.
Reference-www.nationalobserver.com