Whoever wins US polls, will democracy still be in crisis?

Most commentaries that one gets to read on elections in the US portray not just a picture of a bitterly polarised polity, but also of a deep anxiety of loss, and a deepening sense of tragedy. Has all progress and dignity achieved through the nation’s 250 years of democracy evaporated because of one person? Does Donald Trump have such enormous skill, imagination and determination to kindle negative instincts of at least half of America? The America that feels disempowered, and is apparently in its own cycle of fear about immigrants and the educated elite. Trump’s words are being interpreted to mean that there will be a quasi-dictatorship in place if he wins. This inferno of discussion rages as people are queuing up outside polling booths across America.Trump is said to have created a class, race and gender divide all at the same time, which is either a testimony to his own powers or a simple exploitation of the divisions formed within American society. All cartoons and caricatures in newspapers have put America on the edge in this election. Sadly, this holds a mirror to the inflated claims that liberal education and democracy had permanently eliminated base instincts and divisive politics from public life.American democracy offered a certain standard from the mid-20th century onwards, but how did it reach such a pass? Have all democracies come to such a pass? Or, is it the ploy of the establishment elite to say that there will be a catastrophe, and there will be no room for negotiations if they are eliminated by those like Trump? The cry to save democracy may, in fact, be a cry to save themselves.India saw a campaign in 2024 that was pitched similarly by the Congress party, the nation’s ancient establishment. But the crisis they felt about democracy was not the crisis that ordinary people felt. The party’s numbers did not shore up significantly. They made a slight improvement, which they were compelled to celebrate as a definitive victory because that allowed them space to continue without change. They did not see it as a beginning point of long, hard work the situation demanded. They went to town speaking of their ‘victory’ as the smashing of an authoritarian regime. But, the regime returned quietly and continues to do its work, which is read as damage by some and security by many.The old establishment in India pontificates on democracy without willing to give up its dynastic privileges. If one looks at it closely, the dynasty mimics the status quo that caste brings into Indian society. Dynasty mirrors a static quality where some rule perennially and some are destined to labour forever. This does not help democracy. medium nocaptionhttps://youtu.be/eA1FizeuiZY?si=xta1SYzSsvIk6x00The Congress dynasty has become a model for other dynasties across party lines, and all dynasties are bad for democracy. The political party system has been so captured by political dynasties that it does not offer a decent choice to the electorate in the polling booth. After such rigged victories, they go around claiming that, after all, it is the people who elected their princes and princesses.For instance, if Wayanad was a super safe seat for the Congress, why did the party not promote an ordinary activist for the bypoll there? Why did it have to hand it over to another fifth-generation dynast? Is this how democracy is saved?The old establishment that has appropriated liberal territory in recent years to carve a new identity for itself, leaves no space for independent thinking. It too operates by kindling fear — without us, there is no democracy; without us, the Constitution is gone; without us, the reservations are gone.The staid ‘us’ versus ‘them’ public discourse clearly has not benefited them in three continuous general elections, but still the dynasty will not vacate its perch. It will not give up being self-righteous.On the other side, the Indian right-wing establishment that arranges its majority through communal politics does not show the courage to say that its numbers were sharply reduced in June 2024 because democracy was at play. They do not say that they did not give themselves a victory, however reduced, by rigging voting machines. They do not loudly say that their victory should be read as a celebration of democracy, a political system that their opponents campaigned would be destroyed and buried by them. medium nocaptionhttps://youtu.be/fitZBy3pkSM?si=1sba0KABffVM0KPNThere is too much pride associated in the new establishment about the means through which they have achieved power. Plain crediting of democracy would be dispiriting for the millions who voted for them, day-dreaming the absolute dominance of their faith over that of others, one day. They do not want to take away that passionate ideological mission from them.Returning to America, has the nation by its own arrogance, its own silences, and the dubious marketing blitzkrieg of its own superior democratic model lose everything it had gained, at least since the 1960s, when different kinds of rights movements (environmental, women, consumer and civil rights) took shape?It is shocking that in a nation known for its scientific and technological advancement, abortion is a crime today. America was held up as an ideal to the rest of the world by America itself. What did America do then to curtail its own progress, balance and equity? A book by Hedrick Smith, titled Who Stole My American Dream? published in 2012, may offer some insights.Even when the US practised segregation, and were without universal adult suffrage, they still called themselves the oldest democracy. Perhaps that was low-grade democracy, but nobody said so or made the distinction. Interestingly, a lot of these things were foundational principles when India became a republic in 1950, and the Indian independence movement had assured constructive reform since the 1930s. The leaders of the Indian freedom movement had done so in the middle of the world slipping into Nazi eugenics and engaged in drawing iron curtains. If one watches a movie like Loving (a 2016 film available on Netflix), about the life of Richard and Mildred Loving, it is clear that even in the mid-1960s, America was struggling legally with interracial marriages.Did America forget its own revolution and reform, and has a country like India taken its democratic freedoms for granted? That’s a question, in fact, that can be asked about most democracies today. The best of social sciences and humanities education is also unable to offer a solution. Has academia become isolationist and elite without a larger common pursuit? Has the profit motive become the flat universal dream that overrides every other dream in democratic societies? medium nocaptionhttps://youtu.be/3W-rUY0nDxo?si=9xwArtFdAnn9EkpREven when it was said that the ‘business of America is business’, it still had wide scope for innovation, social change and dreams of equality. Afterwards, ‘hope’ became a smart election slogan. The grand social theories that spoke in terms of humanity, when humanity was in crisis, are all gone. The world assumed it had global organisations and statesmen, but local games, protectionism, identity politics and chauvinism have taken over. If one speaks of nationalism, then there are also sub-nationalisms that compete with greater viciousness and damage in a country like India.In June 1976, to mark the first year of the Emergency in India, Edward Kennedy, the brother of President John F Kennedy, spoke in the American Senate on the democratic decline in the subcontinent. He did so with great moral authority: “Whatever the justifications or economic merits of emergency rule may be, friends of India are inevitably concerned over the apparent direction that Government of India has taken in implementing the terms of the emergency proclamation… they form a pattern that raises the question as to whether Mrs Gandhi has bent beyond repair India’s Constitution and democratic practices — despite her stated intention to do otherwise.”Kennedy further said, quoting President Julius Nyerere of Tanzania: “Across Asia and Africa, Third World nations are shaping their political systems and social policies according to what they see as their own needs. In many countries ‘democracy’ has been defined in ways that are in marked contrast to American and Western tradition.”This display of moral authority, and distinguishing American democracy over somewhat inferior models in the rest of the world, is something lost to American democracy since. Survey after survey says that the American public do not want to be involved in wars overseas, but they want America to have moral authority over the world. That can happen perhaps if America recovers its own democracy and deepens it. But sadly, when the results come out soon, whoever wins the American elections, the other side will claim the death of democracy. That is the true crisis democracy faces. Nobody anymore agrees on what it is.What Kennedy said 50 years ago is perhaps more true today, both inside as well as outside America. People call whatever suits them as democracy and those who hold the opposite view as being far away from it.Lead illustration: Chad Crowe (US)Read more from the author here.