Law enforcement guards guard the U.S. Capitol building after protesters stormed the building in Washington, DC, earlier on January 6.
Photographer: Victor J. Blue / Bloomberg
Photographer: Victor J. Blue / Bloomberg
American democracy survived the storms of the Capitol building. What became known as American exception may not.
The idea that the U.S. has a unique advantage for reasons of its history and seemingly rock-solid democratic institutions rests long behind U.S. claims to global leadership, as well as the expectation – at least among allies – that they should exercise it.
The concept is riddled with contradictions, underpinned by crude military and economic strength and rejected by many people, including Russian President Vladimir Putin and America’s outgoing leader Donald Trump, who directed his supporters on Capitol Hill to certify his defeat in the election – by 7 million votes. – in November.
Although it has eroded over the years, the gentle power of what former President Ronald Reagan liked to call a ‘shiny city on a hill’ was at times powerful. On Wednesday, it received a body blow.
“Yes,” said Howard Dean, former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, when asked on Bloomberg TV whether the spectacle on Wednesday is the end of the American exception. “That was probably the day Trump took office.”
The consequences could include a weakened ability to confront and compete with co-superpower China, or to call out Russian, Turkish, Saudi or other leaders for democratic and human rights violations, including smaller economies in Africa and Latin America.
“It’s not just going to be a long time before we can credibly plead for the rule of law,” Richard Haass, a former U.S. diplomat and president of the Council on Foreign Relations, a New York-based think tank, said on Twitter. . . “It will also take a long time for us to persuade allies to trust us or teach others, because they are not stable enough to have nuclear weapons.”
China quickly used the events in Washington to drive home a story of American hypocrisy, with Hua Chunying, spokesman for the State Department, a live sign compared to the U.S. approval of pro-democracy protesters who stormed the Hong Kong legislature in 2019. The U.S. under Trump has regularly linked trade to political action, which has penalized Beijing for its repression in Hong Kong and the treatment of its Uighur Islamic minority in Xinjiang province.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, elected in a strongly controlled electoral system that excludes opponents of Tehran’s Islamic regime, said in a statement on state television that Wednesday’s events “really show us how weak and weak Western democracy is . ” He added that Trump had damaged America’s reputation and “created so many problems for America’s relationship with the rest of the world.”
Elected President Joe Biden has said he intends to convene a summit of the world’s democracies to reload the issue that led the West through the Cold War. Proponents say the initiative could also be in conflict with China’s Belt and Road Initiative, which could create a forum in which a common approach to trade and technology standards could be launched in competition with Beijing.
China has also taken advantage of Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris climate accords to position itself as a global campaigner to tackle climate change, a cloak that the US hopes to become under Biden again, but one that requires strong guidance and cooperation from the US.
It is not clear how the image of U.S. lawmakers hiding from protesters will help the effort. Nor has Biden’s promise to revive US – led alliances been weakened by four years of Trump’s skepticism, including the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
Rep. Jason Crow comforts Susan Wild as he takes cover as protesters disrupt the joint session of Congress.
Photographer: Tom Williams / CQ-Roll Call, Inc.
But while the world watches flag-waving protesters infiltrate the U.S. legislature, the shock was all the greater because such scenes would usually be better known from parliaments and presidential palaces in weak, budding or non-democracies. Former President George W. Bush even likens Wednesday’s events in the United States to a ‘banana republic’.
“Extract photos”
“We all saw the disturbing photos last night of the storms of the US Congress, and these images made me angry and sad,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Thursday, blaming Trump’s refusal to concede.
Europeans have acknowledged the threat of the American exception – and in some cases their own – in TV footage they have seen before, said Jonathan Eyal, a Romanian-born foreign policy analyst at the Royal United Services Institute, a British brainstorm, said.
‘The impetus for this is the same as what we saw in Eastern Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall: the feeling that the transfer of power was illegal, that the rules of the game were not agreed, and a conviction that the loser loses everything, ”Eyal said. “It’s also a big shock to me that you have a large number of people in the US who came to the same conclusion after 200 years of constitutional order.”
Protesters walk through the US Capitol after breaking the barriers to the building in Washington, DC
Photographer: Victor J. Blue / Bloomberg
In a televised speech Wednesday, Biden appeared well aware of the challenge and asked Americans to “think about what the world is looking at.” And even the final discredit of American exception cannot, according to Eyal, necessarily lead to the weakening of alliances or the promotion of democracy.
As long as Biden aggressively refutes false equivalents, such as between the excesses of those who demand a democratic vote in Hong Kong and those who want to improve it in Washington, and as long as he can persuade Trump’s 74 million voters, they will not lose everything by does not lose the mood, can work a little more American humility in his favor.
Not only has Trump likely burned his chances of running in the 2024 election again by inciting violence, but an agile administration could use Wednesday’s events to his advantage and make a less “Olympic” and therefore more convincing approach to his critique of other countries’ failures, according to Eyal.
“Yes, the next few days will be pretty awful for the US soft power, but in a year or so not at all,” he said. “It’s not that bad to be part of the team.”
Facing its own Trump-like populist threat from the far right, French President Emmanuel Macron recalled in a TV address Wednesday night the nations’ centuries-long common history as democratic republics, suggesting that no appetite is lost for cooperating with the next government.
“What happened in Washington DC today is definitely not America,” Macron said, switching to English at the end of his remarks. “We believe in the strength of our democracy. We believe in the strength of American democracy. ”
– With help from Tom Keene, Francine Lacqua, Golnar Motevalli and Michael Winfrey