COULD DONAL TRUMP, of all people, help mend American democracy?
I bet you’ve read the story about the third presidential debate in some major newspaper yesterday. Chris Wallace, the moderator, asks the Republican presidential nominee if he would commit himself to accepting the results of the November 8th vote, whatever that might be.
“I will look at it at the time,” Trump replied. “What I have seen is so bad. First of all, the media is so dishonest and corrupt and has … poisoned the minds of voters.” He went on to suggest that Hillary Clinton’s corporate patrons and her campaign were rigging the election against him.
Trump’s comment has sent shudders through the American media and political establishments.
“Donald Trump Won’t Say If He’ll Accept the Result of Election,” exclaimed the Page One banner on the New York Times lead story. The reporters, Patrick Healy and Jonathan Martin, put us on notice that Trump’s “remarkable statement” had “cast doubt on American democracy,” besides “horrifying” Clinton, his Democratic rival and partner in the debate.
“At third debate, Trump won’t commit to accepting election results,” bewailed the Washington Post headline.
The headline on a Boston Globe column warned: “Donald Trump undermines the legitimacy of our democracy.”
Call me dumb, but I don’t get it. I’m baffled by the widespread hysteria sparked by Trump’s comment. I thought that the GOP nominee was saying simply that this electoral process has been corrupted so pervasively that its outcome could become suspect and may need to be reviewed. What’s wrong about that?
In fact, the American electoral process, especially since the Supreme Court’s Citizens v. United decision, has put up American democracy on an auction bloc for special interests to bid on. Jimmy Carter, Noam Chomsky and other American statesmen and intellectuals have been telling us that we no longer have democracy in this country. What we have is a plutocracy. And I agree with them. So do most Americans.
Just glance through the posts on your Facebook News Feed, or ask the lady next to you at a Starbucks counter, about what’s going on in the two presidential campaigns. You would immediately know, if you already haven’t, what “the world’s greatest democracy” has come to: money flooding the election campaigns; candidates selling public trust for personal gains; public officials appear to be lying under oath to hide a candidate’s illegal activity; government agencies, especially arms of the Justice Department, potentially violating the law to get someone elected, or needlessly immunizing someone against possible perjury; and so on. Yet the most surprising thing about it all, to me at least, is that nobody seems to care – or dare – to stand up and say, “Enough is enough! Let’s fix the mess.”
Amnesia and resignation appear to have paralyzed us against the long-overdue clean-up of our political system, which probably is envied by crooked politicians in some of the autocratic and pseudo-democratic countries. Frankly, I’d have liked to see Al Gore take a stand against the Republican shenanigans that cost him the presidency in 2000. Maybe Richard Nixon should have asked for a thorough review of 1960 voting in Chicago. As we know, “the Daley machine,” created by then Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley, rigged the presidential election in his city that year in favor of John F. Kennedy.
Our lethargy in the face of the meltdown of our democracy reminds me of death sentences given to Pakistani Muslims who are accused of having lost their faith in Islam. Nobody challenges those draconian fatwas or rulings, even though many Pakistanis are disgusted with them. The reason: nobody wants to be accused of running afoul of what some moronic clerics have, because of their loopy reading of scripture, proclaimed as Islamic canons.
In America, religion has been disestablished by the Founding Fathers, wisely of course. But most Americans, as most people in the world, still need religion, or some other belief system. Anthropologists tell us that faith in a creed establishes order, security and goals in believers’ minds, without which their lives lose their meaning and purpose.
In our secular American society, capitalist democracy has virtually replaced Christianity and become a “public religion,” to borrow sociologist Robert Bellah’s phrase. You call the process into question, however unfair and venal it might be, and all hell breaks loose. Trump’s refusal to accept the election results three weeks before the voting will actually take place is “horrifying,” not just to Hillary Clinton, but, as we’ve noted, to most of the American media and intelligentsia. Can someone help me understand how you may begin to rescue our democratic institutions from the ubiquitous clutches of interest peddlers unless you challenge their knavery and misdeeds that are ailing those institutions and contorting their output.
Trump is the most reckless ignoramus that the Republican Party has nominated to be our president since George W. Bush. A Trump presidency would be, not only fraught with danger, but a disgrace for America as well. Luckily, opinion polls show that he’s going lose the election big time. And he should.
All the same, I find myself, strangely as it seems, defending his refusal to pre-approve the results of the election. Yes, many other losers in presidential races chose to forfeit beforehand their right to recheck voting results, should there be serious irregularities in the process. But what has that accomplished? It has served only to perpetuate the biennial and quadrennial charade, called the “democratic process,” and has practically disenfranchised us by mortgaging our unfettered constitutional right to choose our government and legislatures to special interests of all kinds
I’d hope that Trump’s challenge to our failing electoral system would inspire others to break the taboo against trying to clean it up.
– Mustafa Malik is an international affairs analyst in Washington. He hosts the blog: Muslim Journey (https://muslimjourney.com).
