Saving Ourselves

A constant theme from the doubters of the eventual efficacy of the Mueller investigation was the entirely appropriate refrain that we must save ourselves. And surely no more truer words are spoken. As Masha Gessen warned us after Trump’s election, our institutions will not save us.

The 2020 election is setting up to even more important than 2018. And Trump has already laid out his campaign strategy – more immigrant and Muslim bashing, more attacks on the media, intimating the Democrats are treasonous for questioning his legitimacy, are anti-Semites for questioning US policy towards Israel and the Palestinians, and are abetting terrorists and murderers by supporting “open borders”. The rhetoric will only become more deranged if the economy begins to tank, as recent indicators seem to point to.

But one of the features of a well-functioning democracy is that you are not required to save yourself. Instead, there should be a well-functioning legal and judicial system that exists to support its citizens by providing protection and a framework for ensuring justice. More than almost anything, democracies rely on that legal and judicial system for almost all other rights. The emergence of Putin in Russia is exemplified by the disastrous decision to focus on economic reform instead of building a strong and independent legal and judicial system in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Needless to say, our current system with its two-tiered justice system is already remarkably challenged on that score. And a four page summary whose conclusions largely seem in conflict with the significant amount of evidence the investigation has publicly produced will only add to the belief of many of our citizens that the system is failing. The refusal of the DOJ to defend clearly constitutional laws will destroy the continuity of law and justice. And the death of the DOJ as an independent agency and, instead, becoming a tool for the political and personal whims of a president will end in corruption and put us further down the road to autocracy.

So, yes, it will be up to us to save ourselves with little help from the systems and institutions that are supposedly there to support us. But, as with Mueller, we should go into 2020 with our eyes wide open. The Electoral College and the map of the Senate are inherently undemocratic, the legacy of our original sin of slavery. Hillary Clinton won three million more votes and is not our President. A minority of voters can easily control the US Senate. There will be further attempts at voter suppression and intimidation. If Trump does manage to win re-election, it seems more likely than not that he will once again lose the popular vote. And, as far as Trump is concerned, the nastier the campaign, the better it will be. So saving ourselves will take an extraordinary effort and an extraordinary candidate. Fortunately, the Democratic field is populated with such talents and Democratic voters are highly motivated.

But it’s also important to contemplate that it is possible that we could once again be left with a President with minority support, with a Senate controlled by representatives of a minority of voters, with a judiciary packed with political hacks, a justice system that answers to the President rather than the rule of law, and with our institutions failing us. And that begins to look more and more like a failed democracy, further highlighting the stakes in 2020.