Verbatim Mac

Impact – uniqueness democracy eroding/authoritarianism on the rise

Rises in populism and illiberalism currently hamper democracy—democracy empirically solves peace, market expansion, and civil society

Diamond, Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution, and Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University, 2016

(Larry, “Democracy After Trump”, Foreign Affairs, November 14, 2016, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/world/2016-11-14/democracy-after-trump?cid=sso-link, accessed 7/10/17, GDI-JG)

Perhaps the most ominous trend, however, has been the increasingly manifest problems of democracy within the advanced nations of Europe and the United States. A crucial factor in the success of the third wave of democratization was the unparalleled power of a seemingly successful U.S. democratic model—which U.S. President Ronald Reagan, channeling American colonial governor John Winthrop, called a “shining city on a hill”—to inspire admiration and emulation around the world. Of course, democracy in the United States has always had many scars and imperfections. But during the 1980s and 1990s, the world saw it as economically dynamic, politically functional, morally self-confident, and militarily supreme. The fall of the Berlin Wall and then of the Soviet Union left the United States as the lone superpower at a time when its democratic allies in the EU were attempting to unify the continent in a common market based on liberal values and institutions. In the post–Cold War era, democratic values became universal—in the sense that they appealed to large swaths of humanity in virtually every region of the world—while all ideological rivals were in retreat or, like Iran, geographically contained. With financial and political support from Europe and the United States during these two decades, freedom flourished, markets expanded, civil societies grew, representative institutions strengthened, and democracy became, for the first time in human history, the most common form of government in the world. There is no consensus on what we are witnessing, but what is beyond dispute is that populism and illiberalism have been surging in the West.∂ During this third wave, democracy gained durable footholds in Africa and Asia and became pervasive in Latin America, but its high quality and unquestioned stability in the West remained the foundation of its global success. Europe and the United States provided both an end state toward which emerging democracies could move, and support to help them get there. It was thus possible to imagine the turn of the millennium as the dawn of a new democratic century.∂ That vision has now begun to unravel. There is no consensus on what we are witnessing, but what is beyond dispute is that populism and illiberalism have been surging in the West. Recent events in Europe have been particularly worrisome—across the continent, populist parties have sought to mobilize “the people” against allegedly corrupt elites. In Hungary and Poland, right-wing populist governments have subverted the independence of the judiciary, civil service, and media. Antidemocratic parties have won significant vote shares in Hungary and the Czech Republic, while illiberal, anti-immigrant ones, such as France’s National Front and Germany’s Alternative für Deutschland, have achieved impressive electoral gains in a number of West European democracies.∂ In June, a further shock was delivered by Brexit—the stunning vote by the United Kingdom to leave the European Union. For the 52 percent of the British electorate that voted out, the referendum was the essence of democracy: a reassertion of national sovereignty and individual dignity against elites in London and Brussels, who had grown distant from common people and unresponsive to their concerns. But for more upwardly mobile and cosmopolitan British people, as well as for the bulk of Europeans looking at the vote from the continent, Brexit was a turn away from inclusion, integration, and a liberal democratic Europe. ∂ On November 8—last Tuesday—voters in the United States delivered an even more stunning upset by electing the populist Trump to the presidency, in a shocking turn of events that Trump himself had correctly predicted would be “Brexit, plus, plus, plus.” In fact, the core constituencies that delivered the Brexit vote and the Trump presidency were stunningly similar: working class white voters with limited skills and education, who feel culturally displaced and economically threatened by immigration, globalization, and racial and cultural diversity. Both votes pitted culturally diverse cities against predominantly white rural areas, small towns, and decaying post-industrial rust belts. Both campaigns left their countries more polarized than before. And both have deepened worries about the future of the liberal democratic order.

US Democracy not as stable as it seems—backslide to authoritarianism under Trump possible

Mickey et al, Associate Professor, Political Science, University of Michigan, 2017 [Robert, “Is America Still Safe for Democracy?” Accessed 7/14/17, Published February 2017, Journal of Foreign Affairs Vol 96 No. 3 GDI-MJR]

The election of Donald Trump as president of the United States—a man who has praised dictators, encouraged violence among supporters, threatened to jail his rival, and labeled the mainstream media as “the enemy”— has raised fears that the United States may be heading toward authoritarianism. While predictions of a descent into fascism are overblown, the Trump presidency could push the United States into a mild form of what we call “competitive authoritarianism”—a system in which meaningful democratic institutions exist yet the government abuses state power to disadvantage its opponents.∂ If democratic backsliding were to occur in the United States, it would not take the form of a coup d’état; there would be no declaration of martial law or imposition of single-party rule. Rather, the experience of most contemporary autocracies suggests that it would take place through a series of little-noticed, incremental steps, most of which are legal and many of which appear innocuous. Taken together, however, they would tilt the playing field in favor of the ruling party.∂ It may be tempting to assume that the United States’ centuries-old democracy is impervious to democratic erosion, but such confidence is misplaced. In fact, liberal democracy—with full adult suffrage and broad protection of civil and political liberties—is a relatively recent development in the United States. By contemporary standards, the country became fully democratic only in the 1970s.∂ But American authoritarianism has not been just a southern phenomenon. From the time the fbi, the cia, and the National Security Agency were created, presidents used them to monitor White House staff , journalists, political opponents, and activists. Between 1956 and 1971, the fbi launched more than 2,000 operations to discredit and disrupt black protest organizations, antiwar groups, and other perceived threats. It even provided Dwight Eisenhower with derogatory information about Adlai Stevenson, his Democratic rival in the 1952 election. Likewise, the Nixon administration deployed the U.S. Attorney General’s Office and other agencies against its “enemies” in the Democratic Party and the media. And congressional investigations into alleged subversion further threatened civil rights and liberties. Like southern authoritarianism, the abuse of federal intelligence and law enforcement agencies largely ended in the 1970s, in this case after the post- Watergate reforms.∂ American democracy remains far from ideal. Ex-felons, who are disproportionately black, are often prohibited from voting; many states are experimenting with an array of new voting restrictions; and the concentration of campaign donations among the wealthy raises serious concerns about how representative U.S. democracy truly is. Still, the United States has been a bona fide multiracial democracy for almost half a century.∂ Yet just as the United States fulfilled its democratic promise, the foundations of the system began to weaken. Ironically, the very process of democratization in the South generated the intense polarization that now threatens American democracy.