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In the wake of the chaos of last week in Washington, the Republican Party is even more plunged into existential crisis. As the US House of Representatives debates for the second time to impeach Donald Trump and the world watches the collapse of the most powerful nation on the planet, RFI asks what lessons can be learned to prevent European democracies from following the same way.
Since reality TV star Donald Trump’s meteoric rise to the world’s most powerful presidency in 2016, cynicism and populism have become mainstream politics in many democracies around the world, including Europe. . Just days before the transition of power in the United States, the fragile nature of Western liberal democracy has been exposed, as we are reminded that the privilege of democratic rights cannot be taken for granted.
The American Republican Party, the GOP – the party of abolition and Abraham Lincoln – has been fragmented by a president who has armed a popular support base that no longer adheres to the values of mainstream conservatism, and has been cheated and cajoled by conspiracy theories and lies in the belief that their rights have been eroded and that they are the real victims of a society controlled by the so-called “liberal elite”.
What was seen on Capitol Hill last week was just the latest high point in President Trump’s roller coaster tenure, which holds a messianic grip over his core of fanatic supporters.
So how can the Republican Party rehabilitate itself in the looming post-Trump era and reclaim the credibility and integrity it once held among the Conservative electorate?
David Coffey of RFI put this question to Nicholas Dungan, president of the consulting firm Cogitopraxis and Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council.
“The problem is, these people who were elected Republicans are beholden to a base, which Trump created. So if we compare that, for example, with what happened in France, where Macron basically blew up the former Instead, Trump made a hostile takeover of the former Republican Party.
“So we also have to understand that in the United States, parties are essentially political labels. There are only two. And there is no other real alternative. So this is not the case. very fragmented system that we have in some European countries.
“This existential crisis is a crisis within the Republican Party and in the United States as a whole … It is a serious crisis of values. And it will not be fixed by the next Biden administration. When Biden says: not who we are, “When you see the Capitol taking over, that’s not true. This is exactly who some Americans are. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have done it. “
So, indeed, the question remains whether Trumpism will continue to be a part of daily American politics, even after the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden on January 20.
While the GOP base now includes QAnon followers, conspiracy theorists, the Birther movement, and Tea Party radicals, who can pave the way for the Republican Party and fill the void once Trump is gone?
“We just don’t know, ”says Dungan. He had all these people like Mitch McConnell and others who were subordinate to him for four years, they’re not going to do that anymore. But they don’t have a natural leader either. And all naturalVein who presents himself as a republican, moderate and legitimate institutionalist – in other words a Republican version of Joe Biden – would not follow these radicalized people. The party is therefore divided, the country is divided. And we envision a leadership crisis in the United States. “
Following the events of last Wednesday on Capitol Hill, Trump appeared before a teleprompter in the wake of the riot and gave an address that was no different than reading a hostage from a script given to him by his captors.
But he offered assurances that there would be a smooth transition of power between now and the January 20 inauguration. Within hours, the president was back on Twitter, once again stoking the vitriol of his support base, continuing his baseless claims that the November election was rigged.
Businesses drop ‘toxic Trump’
Many people wonder who is keeping the president in check during the last days of his tenure.
“Nobody knows that. And I’ve been telling people about it in Washington over the last 24 hours. And that’s why I think we could very well look for purely technical reasons in the 25th Amendment, section four. Because here’s the problem: Impeachment doesn’t work. Impeachment is not a way to remove Trump from office or be in power by January 20. “
So, with the mental health issues taking hold and the nuclear codes still in his possession, there are real fears that Trump could crack. And the cracks are appearing in the foundations of the Trump organization.
The Trump brand, the cornerstone of its business empire, is now toxic. On Monday, the PGA of America canceled the 2022 PGA Championship event scheduled to take place at a Trump-owned golf course in New Jersey. The Marriott Hotel Group withdrew funding from all Republicans who backed claims that the 2020 election was rigged. And the Trump organization’s biggest lender, Deutsche Bank, has said it will no longer have relations with the group.
Evidence of these cracks had been visible for some time, according to Dungan.
“Trump has been trying to sell the Old Post Office Hotel, the Trump Hotel around the corner from the White House, for a year. And there is no taker. His business is therefore in great difficulty.
“He might run out of places to live and run out of money. There was speculation he might not be able to stay in Mar-a-Lago as much. [resort in Florida as he would like. That he could go to Bedminster and so forth. But the fact is the guy’s options are narrowing. This is Shakespearean. This is classic.”
Macron ‘knows nothing’ about the US
Following the riot on Capitol Hill, French President Emmanuel Macron spoke of shared values with the United States. But according to Dungan, Macron doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
“These are not shared values, the values that Europeans have, the image that Europeans have of the United States, is the image that they want to have of the United States. But it’s an image which is an illusion in their own mind.
“And they don’t know the US. Macron knows nothing about the United States. He’s never spent any time there.”
In the run-up to the 2017 election, France’s traditional “Les Républicains” and the left wing “Parti Socialiste” completely collapsed, and their support-base evaporated overnight, paving the way for a former Rothschild banker, Emmanuel Macron, to cobble together a centrist coalition.
With elections in France only a year away, can Macron maintain his centrist position?
According to Dungan, “Macron needs to be extremely cautious. This is a time when caution is not what is needed. Boldness is what is needed. I think his political future is very, very tenuous.
“I don’t see anybody credible in opposition. But then nobody saw Trump coming. And nobody saw Brexit coming. The fact is, first of all, the French are always discontent about virtually everything that is happening. They think the country is going down the tube.
“It’s true that the French tend to vote in the national interest and not just single issue voting, like we see in the United States and increasingly in the UK.
“Macron’s problem is going to be that everything that has gone wrong with the Covid-19 crisis, and everything that’s been put on hold in terms of reforms, are going to be held against him, because the French system is so incredibly centralised.
“We will not be out of this Covid crisis until the very time of the French presidential elections. So it’s going to be very difficult to have a campaign. And there will be there will be right-wing candidates from the traditional right, who basically will say ‘this guy is a social democrat in disguise’ or ‘socialist’ in disguise.”
Win-win for autocrats
In the end, one can reflect during the final days of the Trump administration that the authoritarian leaders that Trump cozied up to – Vladimir Putin, Turkey’s Erdogan and Xi Jinping – have all come out better after four years of his tenure as president. They’re happy, as US credibility on the world stage has been massively eroded.
“Xi Jinping and Putin have gained credibility in the sense that the US is lost. Biden will try to restore that, but everybody now knows that these things can happen in the United States. That is not good for the US, and it’s not good for the world.
“We need to be realistic about the fact that it is a genuine problem and not something that’s going to be waved away by one election. If you go back to the storming of the Capitol…this is not an organised political movement. It is a social movement of discontents, malcontents, who…don’t believe in the democratic system.
“This is not the gilets jaunes (Yellow Vests) – these guys were very unorganised, they didn’t torch anything. They destroyed very little. They could have done much more damage to life and limb, and the elected representatives of the US. They seemed so surprised to be in there. They didn’t even realise why they were there.”
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