American Democracy in Crisis
Our democratic institutions and traditions are under siege. We need to do everything we can to fight back.
By Hillary Clinton
It’s been nearly two years since Donald Trump won
enough Electoral College votes to become president of the United States.
On the day after, in my concession speech, I said, “We owe him an open
mind and the chance to lead.” I hoped that my fears for our future were
overblown.
They were not.
In the roughly 21 months since he took the oath of office, Trump has
sunk far below the already-low bar he set for himself in his ugly
campaign. Exhibit A is the unspeakable cruelty that his administration
has inflicted on undocumented families arriving at the border, including
separating children, some as young as eight months, from their parents.
According to
The New York Times, the administration continues
to detain 12,800 children right now, despite all the outcry and court
orders. Then there’s the president’s monstrous neglect of Puerto Rico:
After Hurricane Maria ravaged the island, his administration barely
responded. Some 3,000 Americans died. Now Trump flatly denies those
deaths were caused by the storm. And, of course, despite the recent
indictments of several Russian military intelligence officers for
hacking the Democratic National Committee in 2016, he continues to
dismiss a serious attack on our country by a foreign power as a “
hoax.”
Trump and his cronies do so many despicable things that it can be
hard to keep track. I think that may be the point—to confound us, so
it’s harder to keep our eye on the ball. The ball, of course, is
protecting American democracy. As citizens, that’s our most important
charge. And right now, our democracy is in crisis.
I don’t use the word
crisis lightly.
There are no tanks in the streets. The administration’s malevolence may
be constrained on some fronts—for now—by its incompetence. But our
democratic institutions and traditions are under siege. We need to do
everything we can to fight back. There’s not a moment to lose.
As I see it, there are five main fronts of this assault on our democracy.
First, there is Donald Trump’s assault on the rule of law.
John Adams wrote that the definition of a republic is “a government of
laws, and not of men.” That ideal is enshrined in two powerful
principles: No one, not even the most powerful leader, is above the law,
and all citizens are due equal protection under the law. Those are big
ideas, radical when America was formed and still vital today. The
Founders knew that a leader who refuses to be subject to the law or who
politicizes or obstructs its enforcement is a tyrant, plain and simple.
That sounds a lot like Donald Trump. He told
The New York Times,
“I have an absolute right to do what I want to with the Justice
Department.” Back in January, according to that paper, Trump’s lawyers
sent Special Counsel Robert Mueller a letter making that same argument:
If Trump interferes with an investigation, it’s not obstruction of
justice, because he’s the president.
The
Times also
reported that Trump told White House aides that he had expected
Attorney General Jeff Sessions to protect him, regardless of the law.
According to Jim Comey, the president demanded that the FBI director
pledge his loyalty not to the Constitution but to Trump himself. And he
has urged the Justice Department to go after his political opponents,
violating an American tradition reaching back to Thomas Jefferson. After
the bitterly contentious election of 1800, Jefferson could have railed
against “Crooked John Adams” and tried to jail his supporters. Instead,
Jefferson used his inaugural address to declare: “We are all
republicans, we are all federalists.”
Second, the legitimacy of our elections is in doubt.
There’s
Russia’s ongoing interference and Trump’s complete unwillingness to stop
it or protect us. There’s voter suppression, as Republicans put
onerous—and I believe illegal—requirements in place to stop people from
voting. There’s gerrymandering, with partisans—these days, principally
Republicans—drawing the lines for voting districts to ensure that their
party nearly always wins. All of this carries us further away from the
sacred principle of “one person, one vote.”
Third, the president is waging war on truth and reason.
Earlier this month, Trump made 125 false or misleading statements in 120 minutes, according to
The Washington Post—a
personal record for him (at least since becoming president). To date,
according to the paper’s fact-checkers, Trump has made 5,000 false or
misleading claims while in office and recently has averaged 32 a day.
Trump is also going after journalists with even greater fervor and
intent than before. No one likes to be torn apart in the press—I
certainly don’t—but when you’re a public official, it comes with the
job. You get criticized a lot. You learn to take it. You push back and
make your case, but you don’t fight back by abusing your power or
denigrating the entire enterprise of a free press. Trump doesn’t hide
his intent one bit. Lesley Stahl, the
60 Minutes reporter,
asked Trump during his campaign why he’s always attacking the press. He
said, “I do it to discredit you all and demean you all, so when you
write negative stories about me, no one will believe you.”
When we can’t trust what we hear from our leaders, experts, and news
sources, we lose our ability to hold people to account, solve problems,
comprehend threats, judge progress, and communicate effectively with one
another—all of which are crucial to a functioning democracy.
Fourth, there’s Trump’s breathtaking corruption.
Considering that this administration promised to “drain the swamp,” it’s
amazing how blithely the president and his Cabinet have piled up
conflicts of interest, abuses of power, and blatant violations of ethics
rules. Trump is the first president in 40 years to refuse to release
his tax returns. He has refused to put his assets in a blind trust or
divest himself of his properties and businesses, as previous presidents
did. This has created unprecedented conflicts of interest, as industry
lobbyists, foreign governments, and Republican organizations do business
with Trump’s companies or hold lucrative events at his hotels, golf
courses, and other properties. They are putting money directly into his
pocket. He’s profiting off the business of the presidency.
Trump makes no pretense of prioritizing the public good above his own
personal or political interests. He doesn’t seem to understand that
public servants are supposed to serve the public, not the other way
around. The Founders believed that for a republic to succeed, wise laws,
robust institutions, and a brilliant Constitution would not be enough.
Civic,
republican virtue was the secret sauce that would make the whole system work. Donald Trump may well be the least lowercase-
R republican president we’ve ever had.
Fifth, Trump undermines the national unity that makes democracy possible.
Democracies are rowdy by nature. We debate freely and disagree
forcefully. It’s part of what distinguishes us from authoritarian
societies, where dissent is forbidden. But we’re held together by deep
“bonds of affection,” as Abraham Lincoln said, and by the shared belief
that out of our fractious melting pot comes a unified whole that’s
stronger than the sum of our parts.
At least, that’s how it’s
supposed to work. Trump doesn’t even try to pretend he’s a president for
all Americans. It’s hard to ignore the racial subtext of virtually
everything Trump says. Often, it’s not even subtext. When he says that
Haitian and African immigrants are from “shithole countries,” that’s
impossible to misunderstand. Same when he says that an American judge
can’t be trusted because of his Mexican heritage. None of this is a mark
of authenticity or a refreshing break from political correctness. Hate
speech isn’t “telling it like it is.” It’s just hate.
I don’t know whether Trump ignores the suffering of Puerto Ricans
because he doesn’t know that they’re American citizens, because he
assumes people with brown skin and Latino last names probably aren’t
Trump fans, or because he just doesn’t have the capacity for empathy.
And I don’t know whether he makes a similar judgment when he lashes out
at NFL players protesting against systemic racism or when he fails to
condemn hate crimes against Muslims. I do know he’s quick to defend or
praise those whom he thinks are
his people—like how he bent
over backwards to defend the “very fine people” among the white
nationalists in Charlottesville, Virginia. The message he sends by his
lack of concern and respect for some Americans is unmistakable. He is
saying that some of us don’t belong, that all people are not created
equal, and that some are not endowed by their Creator with the same
inalienable rights as others.
And it’s not just what he says. From day one, his administration has
undermined civil rights that previous generations fought to secure and
defend. There have been high-profile edicts like the Muslim travel ban
and the barring of transgender Americans from serving in the military.
Other actions have been quieter but just as insidious. The Department of
Justice has largely abandoned oversight of police departments that have
a history of civil-rights abuses and has switched sides in
voting-rights cases. Nearly every federal agency has scaled back
enforcement of civil-rights protections. All the while, Immigration and
Customs Enforcement is running wild across the country. Federal agents
are confronting citizens just for speaking Spanish, dragging parents
away from children.
How did we get here?
Trump may be uniquely hostile to the rule of law, ethics in public
service, and a free press. But the assault on our democracy didn’t start
with his election. He is as much a symptom as a cause of what ails us.
Think of our body politic like a human body, with our constitutional
checks and balances, democratic norms and institutions, and
well-informed citizenry all acting as an immune system protecting us
from the disease of authoritarianism. Over many years, our defenses were
worn down by a small group of right-wing billionaires—people like the
Mercer family and Charles and David Koch—who spent a lot of time and
money building an alternative reality where science is denied, lies
masquerade as truth, and paranoia flourishes. By undermining the common
factual framework that allows a free people to deliberate together and
make the important decisions of self-governance, they opened the way for
the infection of Russian propaganda and Trumpian lies to take hold.
They've used their money and influence to capture our political system,
impose a right-wing agenda, and disenfranchise millions of Americans.
I don’t agree with critics who say that capitalism is fundamentally
incompatible with democracy—but unregulated, predatory capitalism
certainly is. Massive economic inequality and corporate monopoly power
are antidemocratic and corrode the American way of life.
Meanwhile, hyperpolarization now extends beyond politics into nearly
every part of our culture. One recent study found that in 1960, just 5
percent of Republicans and 4 percent of Democrats said they’d be
displeased if their son or daughter married a member of the other
political party. In 2010, 49 percent of Republicans and 33 percent of
Democrats said they’d be upset by that. The strength of partisan
identity—and animosity—helps explain why so many Republicans continue to
back a president so manifestly unfit for office and antithetical to
many of the values and policies they once held dear. When you start
seeing politics as a zero-sum game and view members of the other party
as traitors, criminals, or otherwise illegitimate, then the normal
give-and-take of politics turns into a blood sport.
There is a tendency, when talking about these things, to wring our
hands about “both sides.” But the truth is that this is not a
symmetrical problem. We should be clear about this: The increasing
radicalism and irresponsibility of the Republican Party, including
decades of demeaning government, demonizing Democrats, and debasing
norms, is what gave us Donald Trump. Whether it was abusing the
filibuster and stealing a Supreme Court seat, gerrymandering
congressional districts to disenfranchise African Americans, or muzzling
government climate scientists, Republicans were undermining American
democracy long before Trump made it to the Oval Office.
Now we must do all we can to save our democracy and heal our body politic.
First, we’ve got to mobilize massive turnout in the 2018 midterms. There
are fantastic candidates running all over the country, making their
compelling cases every day about how they’ll raise wages, bring down
health-care costs, and fight for justice. If they win, they’ll do great
things for America. And we could finally see some congressional
oversight of the White House.
When the dust settles, we have to do some serious housecleaning. After
Watergate, Congress passed a whole slew of reforms in response to
Richard Nixon’s abuses of power. After Trump, we’re going to need a
similar process. For example, Trump’s corruption should teach us that
all future candidates for president and presidents themselves should be
required by law to release their tax returns. They also should not be
exempt from ethics requirements and conflict-of-interest rules.
A main area of reform should be improving and protecting our elections.
The Senate Intelligence Committee has made a series of bipartisan
recommendations for how to better secure America’s voting systems,
including paper ballot backups, vote audits, and better coordination
among federal, state, and local authorities on cybersecurity. That’s a
good start. Congress should also repair the damage the Supreme Court did
to the Voting Rights Act by restoring the full protections that voters
need and deserve, as well as the voting rights of Americans who have
served time in prison and paid their debt to society. We need early
voting and voting by mail in every state in America, and automatic,
universal voter registration so every citizen who is eligible to vote is
able to vote. We need to overturn
Citizens United and get
secret money out of our politics. And you won’t be surprised to hear
that I passionately believe it’s time to abolish the Electoral College.
But even the best rules and regulations won’t protect us if we don’t
find a way to restitch our fraying social fabric and rekindle our civic
spirit. There are concrete steps that would help, like greatly expanding
national-service programs and bringing back civics education in our
schools. We also need systemic economic reforms that reduce inequality
and the unchecked power of corporations and give a strong voice to
working families. And ultimately, healing our country will come down to
each of us, as citizens and individuals, doing the work—trying to reach
across divides of race, class, and politics and see through the eyes of
people very different from ourselves. When we think about politics and
judge our leaders, we can’t just ask, “Am I better off than I was four
years ago?” We have to ask, “Are
we better off? Are
we as a country better, stronger, and fairer?” Democracy works only when we accept that we’re all in this together.
In 1787, after the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, Benjamin
Franklin was asked by a woman on the street outside Independence Hall,
“Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” Franklin
answered, “A republic, if you can keep it.” That response has been on my
mind a lot lately. The contingency of it. How fragile our experiment in
self-government is. And, when viewed against the sweep of human
history, how fleeting. Democracy may be our birthright as Americans, but
it’s not something we can ever take for granted. Every generation has
to fight for it, has to push us closer to that more perfect union. That
time has come again.
