#BTColumn – Will the unthinkable happen?

The views and opinions expressed by the author(s) do not represent the official position of Barbados TODAY.

by Dr. Peter Laurie

We live in a hemisphere notorious for its dictators — Trujillo of the Dominican Republic, Pinochet of Chile, Papa Doc of Haiti and currently Noriega of Nicaragua and Maduro of Venezuela.

If you had told me a year ago that the most likely candidate for the next hemispheric dictatorship was going to be the USA, I would have laughed.

Alas, there’s now a good chance that by the middle of this decade the US will be under either a right-wing authoritarian regime or even an outright dictatorship.

I know. Sounds absurd. But just look at what’s happening. In May 2020, I wrote a column in Barbados TODAY arguing that Trumpism was the last gasp of white supremacy. I thought that once Trump had lost the 2020 election and had left the scene his legacy would fade away; white supremacy would have been defeated; reason and decency would have prevailed.

I underestimated the extent to which Trumpism, a toxic swill of white supremacy, xenophobia, and populist resentment, had infected the Republican Party. And, of course, I had not foreseen the invasion of the Congress
by the Trump rabble on January 6, 2021, a rehearsal for things to come.

Since the last election, Republicans have made it clear they will not accept any presidential election result in 2024 unless a Republican wins. Whether Trump runs again or his nominee is the candidate, the Republicans, if they lose, will either declare the election was stolen and stage an Electoral College coup, or, if they win, will trash all remnants of democracy and the rule of law in the US.

Either way, American democracy will be dealt a near fatal blow. Trump’s notorious achievement was to persuade white supremacists to come out from the shadows and go mainstream.

This virus has now infected the ranks of law enforcement and the armed forces. While it might be far-fetched to imagine the top brass staging a coup as happens in Latin America, it’s not hard to conceive of a revolt in the ranks of the military. In any event, if there is a coup of whatever kind you can expect widespread civil disorder and bloody repression to follow.

In preparation for this nightmare scenario, currently nineteen Republican-controlled State legislatures have passed laws making it more difficult to vote, especially for people of colour who make up a large segment of loyal Democratic voters.

So what has led the Republican Party — lest we forget, the party of Lincoln — to abandon democracy and fall head-over-heels in love with autocracy?   First, from a purely pragmatic point of view, Republican politicians have realised for some time that if elections are free and fair Democrats will, more often than not, win because they have a growing and more inclusive coalition of electoral support. Demographic change is not on the Republican side: America is growing more diverse.

Second, Republican voters, incited by Trump, believe that the only reason he lost was because the 2020 presidential election was rigged and all future elections will be too. Even worse, they believe that they can rightfully have recourse to violence if necessary to ‘take their country back’.

The Trumpist mob’s storming of the Capitol is now celebrated on the right as one of the great patriotic revolutionary events in American history.  What do you think the American obsession with guns is all about? Hunting? Family safety? No. Black people.

Third, and this is the crucial point that follows from the preceding, Trumpists believe that the US ‘belongs’ to white people, and their country is being stolen from them not just by fraudulent elections and non-white immigration and refugees, but also by what they perceive as the deliberate indoctrination in schools and by the mainstream media about the real history of racism and the facts about the enslavement of African-Americans.

The cultural resentment and rage have got to the point where most Republican-controlled states are banning the teaching of historical facts about the enslavement of African-Americans on the grounds that it makes white children feel uncomfortable. Indeed, it has become so absurd that one school board told teachers that in order to show balance, if, for example, you introduce a book that is critical of the Holocaust you must also introduce one that approves of it.

One of the books they seek to ban in schools is the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Beloved, the brilliant portrait of the dehumanising effects of slavery in the US by Nobel Prize recipient, the African-American novelist, Toni Morrison.

America is now at a crossroads. Making America Great Again was all about reasserting white male dominance, not just over Blacks, but also uppity women, any people of colour, and the LGBT community.  The battle for the soul of America is now joined.

Will White America come to terms with the enslavement of almost 13 per cent of its population and the racism that grew out of that crime against humanity and disfigured American society?  Or will they acknowledge the dark side of American history, and the reconciliation and healing that comes with such acceptance?

The reason I’m pessimistic and anxious about the future of democracy in the US is because the institutions that protect democracy and the rule of law in America seem on closer inspection less than robust.

Bajans, looking at the patchwork of often conflicting procedures that govern federal elections, would shake their heads in disbelief. I hope I’m wrong. Because if the US becomes a dictatorship, we in the Caribbean will suffer. And we thought the pandemic and climate change were dread.

Buckle up.

Dr. Peter Laurie is a retired permanent secretary and head of the Foreign Service who once served as Barbados’ Ambassador to the United States.