US Democracy Fools No One

Attempting to turn a pluralistic world into a world of black and white. Being at odds with the spirit of urgent change needed for the world to come together, in the face of major challenges such as COVID-19 or climate change. Not being a “city upon a hill” so much as a derelict building. For some time now, the international community has been highly critical in its response to the American democracy summit.

From the raging COVID-19 pandemic to the insurrection at the Capitol, from Black Americans crying “I can’t breathe” to the fateful withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, the myth of American democracy has been pummeled by reality time and again. A recent study by the Pew Research Center showed that the popularity of American-style democracy worldwide has taken a nosedive. An opinion poll by the Associated Press from earlier this year showed that nearly half of all Americans considered their country’s democracy dysfunctional. Whether a country’s democratic systems are functional or not, the people of every nation have the final say; given the criticism leveled by their public, where do American politicians get the confidence to brag?

The failure of American democracy is reflected in its inability to govern. American politics are becoming more polarized by the day, with the Democratic and Republican Parties deeply divided on a number of major public issues, causing the country’s administration to sink into a bog of inefficiency and incompetence. Whether in relation to mutual buck-passing on pandemic control and prevention (which has led to the spread of the pandemic), or by holding each other back in matters of health care, infrastructure and other issues affecting people’s lives, ultimately the public suffers the consequences.

The failure of American democracy is reflected in social disorder. Resentment is on the increase due to growing wealth inequality, racial discrimination and social injustice. Elections are dominated by money politics, and thanks to the instigation of extremist politicians, voters of different parties are often at odds with one another. Populism is on the rise; the “politics of hate” have become a national plague and a source of continued social instability and divisiveness.

The failure of American democracy is reflected in its export of turmoil. From Iraq to Afghanistan, from the ebbing of democratization in Africa and Latin America to the chaos delivered to countries engaged in the Arab Spring, the United States has forced American democracy on other countries, heedless of the vast differences in history and national circumstances, leading those countries either into protracted wars or serious economic and social crisis and making the world less peaceful and stable as a result.

According to Cristina Lafont, a professor at Northwestern University, U.S. citizens have lost political influence due to the number of ways in which those in power make political decisions without involving the general public. In a recent article, Robert Kagan, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, even warned that “[t]he United States is heading into its greatest political and constitutional crisis since the Civil War.”

American democracy is “rubbish covered in gold and jade” — all show and no substance — and yet some U.S. politicians constantly seek to export democracy to other countries, creating factions and exploiting situations at the international level. The international community has long seen the U.S. effort to export democracy for what it is, namely a means of continuing to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries, of upholding the United States’ global hegemony, of stoking divisions internationally under the banner of “democracy” and of wantonly sabotaging the democratization of international relations. An article published on the website of RT, the television network of Russia Today, held that “the United States is harming democracy all over the world.”

The original idea behind democracy is that it should allow people to be masters of their own destiny, but both at home and abroad, the United States is doing precisely the opposite. The world should not be taken in by “democracy” such as this.