Is it getting just a tiny bit hot in here? As a student of politics - a life long habit starting at university and seemingly unsuppressed by a recent bid to be an MP - I’m interested in big trends that might affect who, apart from us as individuals, has control over our lives.
Over the last few months we have been ‘treated’ to a whirlwind of American political developments from the bizarre ‘DEI brought the plane down in Washington’ to the ugly pardoning of thugs who assaulted police officers, to the worrying rejection of transnational organisations that deal with challenges like climate change that respect no borders.
Of course what’s going on across the pond is particularly interesting because American politics play a role in defining democratic norms. If the latest US smash hits become the new play book for democracy, we’re up the proverbial creak.
Some of it is designed into the US constitution and to a diminishing extent designed out of ours. The ability to appoint unelected heads of government department enables the President’s pals to have a good shot at high office. When combined with sky high election spending limits and the ability for rapid hire and fire of beauracrats, corporate capture of the machinery of government seems possible at lightening speed.
Our own spending limits are much more modest, but rising. And as for the chumocracy – its pretty do-able here. Recall how David Cameron was made a peer especially to become Foreign Secretary and many more junior ministers have been appointed this way, including by the Labour government.
The political appointment of judges in the US and the ability of the Head of State to issue pardons remain foreign to us. But it may have fed into an openness of UK politicians to ignore laws, rather than use their elected powers to change them. Whether it is ‘lock her up’ or ‘let them free’, political control of the political system is one of the most frightening elements of dictatorship, played with at all our peril.
None of these constitutional features are new in the US. So why do they feel so different now? Perhaps in the past they’ve mostly been used with caution, discretion and some level of humility. Now, faced with a US leader and top team not known for any of those things, we seeing them for the vulnerabilities to democracy that they are.
Democracy is more than counting votes to an agreed system and there many ways of doing it. But who gets to define it? And as importantly, who is going to defend it? According to a recent Channel 4 study, Gen Z feels ‘take it or leave it’ about the whole affair.
I don’t pretend to have a blueprint for a response. But I’m certain that the first step is to record and acknowledge the things that shock us in case soon they no longer do. Lets face it, the boiled frog which, so the story goes, ignores the rising temperature until its too late, can’t defend anything. Time to acknowledge the heat.
Here’s the moments when I felt the cooker dialled up. How about you?
Dismantling of DEI work. This rejection of the idea that minoritised groups might need protection (and have something to contribute) seemed to peak in profile at the same time as the Holocaust memorial anniversary
Casual threats of territorial expansionism, including against ‘allies’ – like Denmark and Canada – undermining post war concepts of territorial integrity
The attempted shut down of USAID without any clear transition plan for those who rely on it for their health, education or safety; and dismissal of officials without due process
Appointment of the richest man on earth to the Government unit for efficiencies (because the richest know the value of every last penny?), sidestepping usual congressional processes
End of funding to World Health Organisation – which has virtually eradicated polio and is well on the way to doing the same for malaria
Withdrawal from the UN climate talks (UNFCCC), more or less the same time as swathes of LA burnt down
Proposals for Gaza announced without any apparent consultations beyond Israeli government
Courting of trade wars
Presidential pardons (including Biden’s pardons) but especially pardoning of people who engaged in the violent assault of serving police officers
Sanctions on key people who work for the International Criminal Court, whose key role is to hold despots to account.
It’s a grim list and its growing. Many of these changes are proposed not secured. But as we know even ‘locker room talk’ can be harmful, moving perceptions of what’s normal. As they say on the London underground – ‘If you see something that doesn’t look right, See It, Say It… Sorted.’ Unless we see and say it, when it comes to protecting democratic systems, we will never sort it.