INSIGHT: A Choice between Democracy and Autocracy; Belarus Dictator Stays in Office; China Grinds its Heel on Hong Kong; Palestinian Intrigue; Global Financial Bombshell
Why for now, we will focus on Trump, while keeping a close watch on overlooked developments around the world.
INSIGHT: WHY THIS ELECTION MATTERS MORE THAN ALMOST ANYTHING
Is Donald Trump a dangerous president?
I recently heard from an INSIGHT reader complaining that we’re focusing excessively on Trump — not only excessively, but also too negatively. That confirmed that INSIGHT readers come from all political persuasions, as I hoped. I decided to answer him and anyone else sharing the sentiment.
Like any publication, we make editorial decisions. My view is that few things matter more today than the outcome of the U.S. election. It will determine the future of this nation: whether it will remain a democracy that embraces universal values, or drift further toward autocracy, inspiring the worst instincts at home and abroad.
I will always discuss important global events. But for the moment, Trump and the election will take center stage. Because, as I and others believe, Trump poses a significant threat to U.S. democracy.
INSIGHT Highlights in this Issue
How Trump Threatens America’s Democratic Future
Why a Dictator in Belarus Held a Secret Inauguration
What China is Doing to Grind its Boot on Hong Kong
How the Middle East accords are Triggering Palestinian Intrigue
Why No One Paid Attention to a Bombshell on Global Corruption
TRUMP AND THE SURVIVAL OF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY
This election is not merely a choice between a Democrat and a Republican. At it’s core, it’s not about taxes, health care, trade or the environment. It’s not even about how the Supreme Court will look or what it will do under a dominant rightist majority. It is, more than anything, about the character of the nation. About whether the United States will continue its centuries-long history of attempting, however haltingly, to move toward its founding creed. It’s about whether America will return to pursuing progress, or instead give up on those battle, and make itself a comfortable home for racists, antisemites, and those who have no patience for democratic niceties, such as checks and balances and limits on a president’s power.
Staying the course will inevitably accelerate the autocratic drift already put in motion by President Donald Trump.
Trump was asked this week if he would accept the results of the election and commit himself to a peaceful transfer of power. This was his answer:
"Well, we're going to have to see what happens. You know that I've been complaining very strongly about the ballots, and the ballots are a disaster…Get rid of the ballots, you'll have a very transfer -- you'll have a very peaceful -- there won't be a transfer, frankly. There'll be a continuation."
In that word salad there was one clear message: The answer to the question was, “No.” He refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power. That has never happened in the history of the United States of America.
Asked about the comment, the renowned historian Michael Beschloss observed:
“You want to go into history to look for something like this? Go into Italian history and look at Mussolini. This is the way dictators come to power."
From the moment Trump entered the political arena in 2015, it was clear he was a different kind of politician, eager to break with established practices and norms. Shaking up the system from time to time can be salutary. But Trump went much further.
From the beginning he undercut America’s core values: respect for a free press, equal rights for all, a judiciary bound to the law, not to the leader, the legitimacy of elections, and even democracy itself.
Political scientists have studied the collapse of democracies. Trump’s behavior is a textbook example. Take a look at this list of “Democratic Erosion Warning Signs” from Professor Jeff Colgan of Brown University. See how many Trump has already put into play.
Or look at the alarming findings from the Varieties of Democracy study:
The United States is undergoing “substantial autocratization” — defined as the loss of democratic traits — that scholars say has emerged precipitously under Trump. This is particularly alarming in light of what the group’s historic data show: Only 1 in 5 democracies that start down this path are able to reverse the damage before succumbing to full-blown autocracy.
America was polarized before Trump. Partisan animosity was palpable during the Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations. But Trump is the first to deliberately stoke it, promoting ethnic divisions, trying to inflame conflicts, shouting “law and order!’ in pursuit of votes; raising already hot tempers to a boil. His militia backers have taken him seriously when he has openly mentioned the possibility of civil war.
Trump’s behavior is so startling that former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis — famously reluctant to speak about politics — said Trump is
“The first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people…We are witnessing the consequences of three years of this deliberate effort.”
Trump has shown disdain for ethical norms, not even pretending to abide by them, firing inspectors general whose jobs is to police wrongdoing inside government. In personnel matters, he has surrounded himself with public officials whose principal qualification is loyalty to him, personally, rather than to the country’s laws.
This election is not about whether Biden or Trump will be president. It’s about whether the United States will be recognizable four years from now.
Read my CNN article on the only way to prevent Trump from destroying America’s democracy.
As a preview:
“Refusing to commit to a peaceful transfer of power after losing an election is pointing a loaded gun to the heart of democracy. Refusing to surrender power is pulling the trigger.
Trump has signaled to his supporters -- in the streets and in the halls of Congress -- that the battle will not end after November 3.”
But there’s a way to save the great American democratic experiment. I spelled it out in the article.
A President Who Refused to Surrender Power: Belarus
If you’ve been reading INSIGHT, you know about the massive pro-democracy demonstrations in Belarus, where the dictator Alexander Lukashenko claims he won an election that impartial observers believe was won in a landslide by his opponent, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, the opposition leader. (Check out her unlikely story)
The protests have not ended, and Lukashenko has rejected pressure from Belarus and from Europe, to negotiate with the opposition, instead enlisting support from the neighboring autocrat, Russian President Vladimir Putin.
This week, Lukashenko held a secret ceremony in which he was sworn for a sixth term as president, declaring, “the day of our victory.”
The news reinvigorated protests.
It also inspired a caustic warning about Trump from Republican Sen. Mitch Romney, who drew a parallel between Lukashenko’s behavior and Trump’s refusal to commit to a peaceful transfer of power.
China Grinds its Heel on Hong Kong
It’s hard to remain optimistic when your struggle faces such daunting odds. The efforts of Hong Kong’s democracy activists – which include a huge share of the population – have mesmerized me. But, just as the odds had suggested, Beijing is steadily tightening its control of the territory, in violation of commitments it made when Hong Kong was handed over from British to Chinese control
Security forces have been arresting leading democratic activists, grinding Beijing’s heel on a battered movement. This week again they detained one of the most iconic young figures in the quest for democracy. The breathtakingly courageous Joshua Wong was freed from prison in June, and headed straight to the streets, to march for freedom in Hong Kong. He was banned from running for the city’s Legislative Council the following month.
Beijing is trying to do as much as it can without crossing a line that might trigger harsh international sanctions — assuming such a line exists — and, more importantly, spook international investors. Wong was released on bail.
Still holding out hope against the odds, Wong declared:
“They can prosecute us, they can arrest us, they can lock us up in prison but they can’t censor our commitment to fight for freedom.”
Palestinians Scramble to Deal with New Reality
In the aftermath of the agreement between Israel, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain, Palestinian politics has been thrown into turmoil.
As soon as the deal was announced, rumors spread that a powerful foe of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was set to challenge him for power. Mohammed Dahlan has been in exile in the UAE since falling out with Abbas.
Dahlan denied the rumors that he helped forge the deal and in exchange the UAE and the US would help him seek power in the Palestinian Territories. The rumors grew louder after PA security forces started arresting dozens of Dahlan supporters in the West Bank.
For more, see my article in World Politics Review
The Bombshell Most Didn’t Hear Detonate
The torrent of news is drowning out important stories. Among them is a bombshell investigation about financial malfeasance, known as the FinCEN scandal.
A leak of thousands of documents, similar to the Panama Papers, found that banks continued to process trillions of dollars – trillions, with a T – in transactions that they knew had been flagged as “suspicious activity,” possibly linked to drug traffickers, terrorists, corrupt officials, and others.
The documents showed among the top banks engaged in the practice Deutsche Bank, JP Morgan, Citibank and Bank of America, HSBC, and others.
JP Morgan moved tens of millions of dollars that it flagged as suspicious for Paul Manafort, the convicted former chairman of Trump’s 2016 campaign, who has well-documented links with Pro-Putin figures in Ukraine. The bank also facilitated transactions for the key figure in one of the largest corruption scams in recent years, stolen from the Malaysian people.
That’s it for now. Stay tuned for Tuesday’s first presidential debate.
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Frida