It’s worth remembering that, before the 1973 coup, Chile had a long stretch of stable electoral democracy. A military takeover was beyond the imagination of many, and yet it happened. Of course, it happened with full support from the United States under Nixon, but the administration found plenty of willing collaborators in country.
Granted, we’re not faced with a similar threat of powerful foreign intervention. Indeed, the current generation of Americans – and more than a few back – has never faced an all-powerful foreign foe like Chile had in the U.S. We don’t exactly walk around on tip-toe, and practically every nation of the world bears marks left by us at some point. But we ourselves don’t know what it’s like to get skull fucked by an empire.
Models exist – there’s one you’ll choose
You may have heard that Trump recently endorsed Viktor Orban, the Hungarian Prime Minister, for re-election. He’s a right-wing electoral strong man, a bit like Putin but with less opponent poisoning, and a particular favorite of the American right. Then there are the garden variety dictators that our networks never mention – Sisi in Egypt, MBS in Saudi, etc. Those countries hold demonstration elections as an unconvincing means of conferring legitimacy on the autocrat.
As hard as it may be for most people in America to accept, we really are on the brink of losing even the weak, highly attenuated say we have over our government. The Republican party would very much like to see us move more towards a Hungarian model. Say what you like about it, it’s a great way to stay in power permanently, and since that’s what they want above all things, they’re likely to try to bring it about. And if that doesn’t work, there’s always Egypt.
Old boys club, once again
The problem we have is what might be described as the curse of false expectations. Things have always been a certain way. Republicans and Democrats alternatively win an election, lose House and Senate seats in the mid terms, then usually (though not always) rebound on the re-elect year. The normal political cycle is burned into our brains and into the brains of our television pundits. We normalize everything, almost autonomically.
The trouble is, what we’re going through now is not normal. This is not the same thing that happens every two years. As I’ve said before, every time they come back they’re worse, only this time it’s worse than merely worse.
The extremely aged leaders of the Democratic party seem incapable of treating this situation as uniquely dangerous. Biden holds international conferences on Democracy. Garland encourages everyone to be nice to one another and to do what we can to preserve Democracy. Like with the climate crisis and COVID, they seem hyper focused on maintaining the appearance of moderation, at the expense of taking the kind of bold action that’s needed.
And if they’re wrong, well …
Let’s face it, a gradual coup is still a coup. The Republicans are putting the pieces in place to seriously game national elections. Democrats are acting like deer in the headlights. The right is out-organizing the left, and it’s clear that if they win the fall elections, they will finish what they started last year.
The water in this pot is getting hotter, folks. It’s time we leapt the hell out.
luv u,
jp
parties typically do an end-run around this by simply avoiding the word when it’s inconvenient. We’ve done this with Egypt and with Honduras. When it’s someone we don’t like, it’s a coup, plain and simple. In Kiev, the elected leader of the country was ousted without due process, in the midst of a negotiation over rebalancing of political authority and early elections. It’s not outlandish to call that a coup, regardless of how kleptocratic the old regime may have been.
Sure, he’s Simon the Likeable. I think of it as the liberal equivalent of conservatives seeing W. Bush as someone they would like to have a beer with. Obama has an appealing persona to people like me, mostly because he’s the first president in my lifetime that shares our experience. Of course, those considerations are an empty category, politically speaking. It doesn’t matter at all whether or not I “like” this man I don’t know. What matters is how he handles driving the enormous killing machine that is the American Presidency.