Law enforcement officers guard the Capitol building after protesters previously stormed the building in Washington, DC, on Jan. 6.
Photographer: Victor J. Blue / Bloomberg
Photographer: Victor J. Blue / Bloomberg
American democracy survived the storming of the Capitol. What has become known as American Exceptionalism may not be.
The idea that the US has unique advantages for reasons of history and seemingly rock-solid democratic institutions has long been behind US claims to global leadership, as well as the expectation – at least among allies – that it should exercise it.
The concept is rife with contradictions, underpinned by gross military and economic strength and rejected by many, including Russian President Vladimir Putin and outgoing America’s leader Donald Trump, who sent his supporters to Capitol Hill to protest the certification of his election defeat. – with 7 million votes. – in November.
Although it has eroded over the years, the soft power of what former President Ronald Reagan liked to call “a beautiful city on a hill” has at times been powerful. Wednesday it took a blow to the body.
“Yes,” said Howard Dean, former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, when asked on Bloomberg TV if Wednesday’s spectacle marked the end of American exceptionalism. “It was probably the day Trump took office.”
The consequences could be a weakened ability to confront and compete with fellow 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.
“Not only will it be a long time before we can credibly advocate for the rule of law,” Richard Haass, a former US diplomat and chair of the Council on Foreign Relations, a New York-based think tank, said on Twitter. . “It will also be a long time before we persuade allies to trust us or lecture others that they are not stable enough to have nuclear weapons.”
China quickly used the events in Washington to bring home a story of American hypocrisy, with State Department spokeswoman Hua Chunying directing. compared to the US endorsement of pro-democracy protesters storming the Hong Kong legislature in 2019. The US under Trump has often linked trade with political actions, punishing Beijing for its crackdown on Hong Kong and its treatment of are Uyghur Muslim minority in Xinjiang province.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, elected into a heavily managed 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 limp Western democracy is.” He added that Trump had damaged America’s reputation and “ caused so many problems for America’s relationship with the rest of the world. ”
President-elect Joe Biden has said he plans to convene a summit of the world’s democracies to restart the cause that led the West through the Cold War. Proponents say the initiative could also act as a counterbalance to China’s Belt and Road Initiative, creating a forum where common approaches to trade and technology standards can be launched in competition with Beijing.
China has also taken advantage of Trump’s decision to pull out of the Paris climate accords to position itself as a global champion of measures to address climate change, a mantle the US hopes to regain under Biden, but one that requires strong American leadership and cooperation.
It’s not clear how the image of US lawmakers seeking refuge with protesters will help that effort. Neither Biden’s pledge to revive US-led alliances, weakened by four years of Trump’s skepticism, including the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
Rapporteur Jason Crow comforts Rep. Susan Wild as she took cover as protesters disrupt the joint session of Congress.
Photographer: Tom Williams / CQ-Roll Call, Inc.
But as the world watched as flag-waving protesters invaded the US legislature, the shock was all the greater because such scenes would typically be more familiar in parliaments and presidential palaces in weak, nascent, or non-democracies. Former President George W. Bush even likened Wednesday’s events in the US to a “banana republic.”
‘Disturbing Photos’
“We all saw the disturbing images of the storming of the US Congress last night, and these images made me angry and sad,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Thursday, blaming Trump’s refusal to admit.
Europeans recognized the threat to American exceptionalism – and in some cases their own – in TV footage they’ve seen before, said Jonathan Eyal, a Romanian-born foreign policy analyst at the Royal United Services Institute, a British think tank.
“The driving force for this is the same as we saw in Eastern Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall: the feeling that the transfer of power is illegal, that the rules of the game do not match, and a belief that the loser loses. everyone, ”said Eyal. “It is also a deep shock to me that there are large numbers of people in the US who have reached the same conclusion after 200 years of constitutional order.”
Protesters walk through the Capitol after breaking barricades to the Washington DC building
Photographer: Victor J. Blue / Bloomberg
In a televised speech on Wednesday, Biden seemed well aware of the challenge, asking Americans to “think what the world is looking at.” And even definitively discrediting American exceptionalism does not inevitably lead to a weakening of alliances or advancement of democracy, according to Eyal.
As long as Biden aggressively refutes false equivalence, such as between the excesses of those demanding a Democratic vote in Hong Kong and those trying to disrupt one in Washington, and as long as he can convince Trump’s 74 million voters, they won’t lose everything by losing the vote could work a little more US humility in its favor.
Not only has Trump likely burned his chances of being re-elected in 2024 by inciting violence, but a nimble government could use Wednesday’s events to its advantage by taking a less ‘Olympic’ and therefore more convincing approach. its criticism of the failures of other countries. , Eyal said.
“Yes, the next few days will be pretty awful for American soft power, but not at all in a year or so,” he said. “It’s okay to be part of the team.”
Faced with his own Trump-like populist threat from the far right, French President Emmanuel Macron recalled in a TV speech Wednesday night the nations’ centuries-long common history as democratic republics, suggesting there is no lack of appetite for the following government.
“What happened in Washington DC today is definitely not America,” Macron said, turning to English towards the end of his comments. “We believe in the power of our democracy. We believe in the power of American democracy. “
– Assisted by Tom Keene, Francine Lacqua, Golnar Motevalli and Michael Winfrey