Dear John,
Excellent proposal -- difficult to implement! As a contribution, attached is a report I've just written, "Trump's First Year: How Resilient is Democracy in America?" published this month by the Harvard Kennedy School.
Best,
John
Professor of Practice in Diplomacy
Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy
Tufts University
Senior Fellow
Carr Center for Human Rights Policy
Harvard Kennedy School
President Emeritus
Central European University
[Admin's NOTE: The title of the report links to its text, which will open as an Adobe Acrobat (.PDF) document in your browser, unless the browser lacks PDF preview capability, in which case you can choose to download the file and read it with Adobe Reader or another app. If you are unable to retrieve it, you can find it on the Harvard Kennedy School website at https://carrcenter.hks.harvard.edu/publications/trumps-first-year-how-resilient-liberal-democracy-us.]
I'm curious whether John would amend his analysis in view of recent revelations of Russian disinformation campaigns attacking American democracy. There are other threats to democracy besides Trump, and they will still be there after Trump leaves office.
ReplyDeleteIndeed most or all of these threats will remain. “Eternal vigilance” and all that. John’s paper discusses some threats that long preceded Trump’s inauguration, notably “serious threats to electoral democracy.” (p. 29 ff) Part of Russia’s information war is directed at how we make voting choices, including promoting apathy and hopelessness about this fundamental feature of democracy. And the largely still-hidden part of this iceberg is the extent of past interference with the mechanics of voting and plans to expand this, by enemies foreign and domestic. Then there are the Republican disenfranchisement (voter suppression) campaign and the Supreme Court’s Plutocracy Now initiative through Citizens United and its progeny.
ReplyDeleteLike many other features of 21st century life, the stunning growth in technological capabilities has given us threats worthy of the benefits we also have received. The struggle to preserve and enhance democracy is not new, but the development of methods effective against democracy’s opponents sometimes seems to lag because it often is reactive in nature.