The Weakness of Democracy

Donald Trump is the most dishonest and most ignorant president in living memory, perhaps in American history. With his disdain for fundamental elements of democratic practice, such as freedom of the press and separation of powers, he is a danger to our American democracy.

But his election and the continued support he receives from a significant minority of voters are themselves symptoms of weaknesses which seem to be inherent in modern democracy itself. When we extend our gaze beyond the US, we can more easily perceive that democracy often works badly. I am not talking about fake democracies, where there is voting but no choice, as in the Soviet Union and the states it controlled. Even in countries where there is real opposition and secret ballots, voting can produce terrible results.

Venezuela, currently suffering a constitutional and humanitarian crisis, appears to have a functioning democracy, but the system has been rigged in favor of Nicolás Maduro, the successor of Hugo Chavez. Physical attacks on and arrests of opposition leaders, banning of opposition parties, sudden changes in the date of the election, and vote buying helped produce a victory for Maduro in 2018.

Algeria is currently experiencing a popular revolt against the elected president Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who was first elected in 1999, when the five other candidates withdrew just before the vote. He has been re-elected in 2004, 2009, and 2014, and announced he would run again this year, until massive protests forced him to withdraw as a candidate. He is very ill and has not said a word in public since 2013. His power has been based on military control, corruption, voting manipulation, and extensive use of bribery to create supporters and discourage opposition. The rebels are calling for an overthrow of the whole system.

These two cases are exceptional: the illusion of democracy hid authoritarian reality where democracy had never achieved a foothold. Much more common over the past two decades has been a gradual decline of existing democracies across the world, a process which could be called autocratization. A recent study shows that gradual autocratization has weakened democracies, in places as diverse as Hungary, Turkey and India. By extending government control of media, restricting free association, and weakening official bodies which oversee elections, modern autocrats can undermine democracy without a sudden coup. The authors argue with extensive data that the world has been undergoing a third wave of autocratization covering 47 countries over the last 25 years, after the first two waves in the 1930s and in the 1960s and 1970s.

The efforts of would-be autocrats to maintain their power by restricting democracy discourage trust in democracy itself. Nearly three-quarters of voters in Latin America are dissatisfied with democracy, according to a survey in 18 countries by Latinobarómetro, the highest number since 1995.

This is the context for the current failures of democracy in the United States (Trump) and Great Britain (Brexit). What can explain these failures? Physical coercion of political opponents is nearly non-existent. Corruption and voter suppression certainly play a role, at least in the US, but probably not a decisive one. Voters were overwhelmingly free to choose. Why did so many make such bad choices? I believe that conservative politicians in both countries used carefully chosen political tactics to appeal to widespread voter dissatisfaction. Those tactics are fundamentally dishonest, in that they promised outcomes that were impossible (Brexit) or were not actually going to be pursued (better health care than Obamacare). White voters made uncomfortable by the increasingly equal treatment of women and minorities were persuaded that it was possible and desirable to return to white male supremacy.

Voters made poor choices, even by their own professed desires. There is a dangerous disconnect between the voting preferences of many Americans and their evaluations of American political realities. A survey by the Pew Research Center at the end of 2018 offers some insight into the fundamental weakness of American democracy. A wide bipartisan majority of 73% think the gap between rich and poor will grow over the next 30 years. Two-thirds think the partisan political divide will get wider and 59% believe the environment will be worse. Only 16% believe that Social Security will continue to provide benefits at current levels when they retire, and 42% think there will be no benefits at all. Nearly half say that the average family’s standard of living will decline, and only 20% believe it will improve. These are not just the views of liberals. 68% of Republicans say that no cuts should be made to Social Security in the future. 40% say that the government should be mostly responsible for paying for long-term health care for older Americans in the future.

Yet when asked about their top political priorities, Republicans offer ideas which don’t match their worries about the future. Their three top priorities for improving the quality of life for future generations are reducing the number of undocumented immigrants; reducing the national debt; and avoiding tax increases. The richer that a Republican voter is, the less likely they are to want to spend any money to deal with America’s problems. Republicans with family incomes under $30,000 have a top priority of more spending on affordable health care for all (62%) and on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid (50%), while those with family incomes over $75,000 are give these a much lower priority. 39% of poorer Republicans say a top priority is reducing the income gap, but that is true for only 13% of richer Republicans. Republican politicians follow the preferences of the richest Republican voters, but that doesn’t seem to affect the voting patterns of the rest.

Nostalgia for the “whites only” society of the past also pushes Americans into the Republican Party. About three-quarters of those who think that having a non-white majority in 2050 will be “bad for the country” are Republicans.

A significant problem appears to be ignorance, not just of Trump, but also of his voters. Many are ignorant about the news which swirls around us every day. A poll taken last week by USA Today and Suffolk University shows that 8% of Americans don’t know who Robert Mueller is.

But much of the ignorance on the right is self-willed. Only 19% of self-identified Republicans say the news media will have a positive impact in solving America’s problems. Only 15% are “very worried” about climate change and 22% are not worried at all. Despite the multiple decisions that juries have made about the guilt of Trump’s closest advisors, one-third of Americans have little or no trust in Mueller’s investigation and half agree that the investigation is a “witch hunt”. Despite the avalanche of news about Trump’s lies, frauds, tax evasions, and more lies, 27% “strongly approve” of the job he is doing as President, and another 21% “approve”. 39% would vote for him again in 2020.

Peter Baker of the NY Times reports that “the sheer volume of allegations lodged against Mr. Trump and his circle defies historical parallel.” Yet the percentage of Americans who approve of Trump is nearly exactly the same as it was two years ago.

Ignorance and illogic afflict more than just conservatives. The patriotic halo around the military leads Americans of both parties to political illusions. 72% of adults think the military will have a positive impact on solving our biggest problems, and that rises to 80% of those over 50.

The British writer Sam Byers bemoans his fellow citizens’ retreat into national pride as their political system gives ample demonstration that pride is unwarranted. His words apply to our situation as well. He sees around him a “whitewash of poisonous nostalgia”, “a haunted dreamscape of collective dementia”. He believes that “nostalgia, exceptionalism and a xenophobic failure of the collective imagination have undone us”, leading to “a moment of deep and lasting national shame”.

One well-known definition of democracy involves a set of basic characteristics: universal suffrage, officials elected in free and fair elections, freedom of speech, access to sources of information outside of the government, and freedom of association.

We have seen some of these attributes be violated recently in the United States. Republican state governments have tried to reverse electoral losses by reducing the powers of newly elected Democratic governors. Trump, following the lead of many others, has urged Americans to ignore the free press and to substitute information that comes from him. Many states have tried to restrict the suffrage through a variety of tactics.

Across the world, democracy is under attack from within. Winston Churchill wrote, “it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried”. Unless we want to try one of those other forms, we need to fight against autocratization, at home and abroad.

Steve Hochstadt

Berlin

March 26, 2019

What is Antisemitism?

Antisemitism is alive and well these days. In Europe and America, the number of antisemitic incidents are increasing every year, according to those who try to keep track.

News about antisemitism has recently wandered from the streets and the internet into the halls of Congress. The presence of two newly elected young Muslim women in the House, who openly advocate for Palestinians against Israel, has upset the strongly pro-Israel consensus that has dominated American politics for decades. Accusations of antisemitism are especially directed at Ilhan Omar from Minneapolis, who has used language that is reminiscent of traditional antisemitic themes in her criticism of Israeli policies. Her case demonstrates that it can be difficult to distinguish between unacceptable antisemitism and political criticism of the Jewish government of Israel and its supporters.

Some incidents seem to be easy to label as antisemitic. For example, when a large group of young people physically attacked Jewish women while they were praying. Many women were injured, including the female rabbi leading the prayers. The attackers carried signs assailing the women’s religious beliefs, and the press reported that the women “were shoved, scratched, spit on and verbally abused”.

An obvious case of antisemitism? No, because the attackers were ultra-Orthodox Jewish girls and boys, bussed to the Western Wall in Jerusalem in order to attack the non-Orthodox Women of the Wall, who were violating misogynist Orthodox traditions about who can pray at the Wall. This incident fulfills every possible definition of antisemitism. For example, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance offers the following description of public acts that are antisemitic: “Calling for, aiding, or justifying the killing or harming of Jews in the name of a radical ideology or an extremist view of religion.” The ultra-Orthodox leaders who encouraged the assault would argue that they were protecting, not attacking Judaism, and that the Women of the Wall were not really Jewish anyway.

Acts of antisemitism are political acts. Accusations of antisemitism are likewise political acts, deployed in the service of the political interests of the accusers. Many, perhaps most accusations of antisemitism are made in good faith for the purpose of calling attention to real religious prejudice. But such accusations are often made for less honest political purposes.

The Republicans in Congress who demand that Democrats denounce Ilhan Omar are cynically using the accusation of antisemitism for political gain. Many Republicans have themselves made statements or employed political advertisements that are clearly antisemitic. The rest have stood by in silence while their colleagues and their President made antisemitic statements. But they saw political advantage in attacking a Democrat as antisemitic.

Supporters of the Israeli government’s policies against Palestinians routinely accuse their critics of antisemitism as a means of drawing attention away from Israeli policies and diverting it to the accusers’ motives. Sometimes critics of Israel are at least partially motivated by antisemitism. But the use of this rhetorical tactic also often leads to absurdity: Jews who do not approve of the continued occupation of land in the West Bank or the discrimination against Palestinians in Israel are accused of being “self-hating Jews”.

This linking of antisemitism and criticism of Israeli policy has worked well to shield the Israeli government from reasonable scrutiny of its policies. In fact, there is no necessary connection between the two. Criticism of current Israeli policy is voiced by many Jews and Jewish organizations, both religious and secular.

Supporters of the idea of boycotting Israeli businesses as protest against Israeli treatment of Palestinians, the so-called BDS movement, are sometimes assumed to be antisemitic and thus worthy of attack by extremists. But the pro-Israel but also pro-peace Washington Jewish organization J-Street argues that “Efforts to exclude BDS Movement supporters from public forums and to ban them from conversations are misguided and doomed to fail.” I don’t remember that any of the supporters of boycotting and divesting from South Africa because of its racial policies were called anti-white.

Those who advocate a “one-state solution” to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians are sometimes accused by conservatives of being antisemitic, with the argument that this one state will inevitably eventually have a majority of Muslims. The Washington Examiner calls this equivalent to the “gradual genocide of the Jewish people”.

The absurdity of equating anti-Zionism with antisemitism is personified by the denunciations of Zionism and the existence of Israel by the Orthodox Satmar, one of the largest Hasidic groups in the world.

On the other side, the most vociferous American supporters of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s government have been evangelical Christians. Although they claim to be the best friends of Israel, the religious basis of right-wing evangelical Christianity is the antisemitic assertion that Jews will burn in hell forever, if we do not give up our religion. Robert Jeffress, the pastor of First Baptist Church in Dallas, who spoke at President Trump’s private inaugural prayer service, has frequently said that Jews, and all other non-Christians, will go to hell. The San Antonio televangelist John C. Hagee, who was invited by Trump to give the closing benediction at the opening of the new American Embassy in Jerusalem, has preached that the Holocaust was divine providence, because God sent Hitler to help Jews get to the promised land. Eastern European nationalists, who often employ antisemitic tropes to appeal to voters, are also among the most vociferous supporters of Netanyahu and Israel.

Political calculations have muddied our understanding of antisemitism. Supporters of the most right-wing Israeli policies include many people who don’t like Jews. Hatreds which belonged together in the days of the KKK may now be separated among right-wing white supremacists.

But no matter what they say, purveyors of racial prejudice and defenders of white privilege are in fact enemies of the long-term interests of Jews all over the world, who can only find a safe haven in democratic equality.

Steve Hochstadt

Berlin

March 19, 2019

International Women’s Day and Gender Equality

Last Friday, March 8, was International Women’s Day. You might not have known that, since little notice is given to this date in the US, even though American women initiated it. Here in Berlin, one could not help but be aware of this special day, because the city government had declared it a holiday, and everything was closed except restaurants and museums.

A “National Women’s Day” was first declared by women in the Socialist Party of America for February 28, 1909. It was proposed by Theresa Serber Malkiel (1874-1949), whose story exemplifies the history of the uneasy connection between leftist politics and women’s rights in Europe and America, and the continued relevance of a “women’s day”.

As part of the emigration of 2 million Jews from the increasingly antisemitic Russian Empire between 1881 and the beginning of World War I, the Serber family moved from Ukraine to New York in 1891. Theresa went to work in a garment factory. At age 18, she organized the Woman’s Infant Cloak Maker’s Union of New York, mostly Jewish women workers, and became its president. Like many trade unionists, she gradually came to believe that socialism was the only path to liberation for workers and for women. She led her union into the Socialist Labor Party, the first socialist party in the US, the next year. Angered at the authoritarian tendencies of the SLP leader, Daniel De Leon, she and others joined with Midwestern socialists Eugene Debs and Victor Berger to form the Socialist Party of America in 1901.

At that time, both in the US and in Europe, socialists were the only political group to openly advocate women’s equality. In contrast to suffragists, socialists argued that gaining the vote was only the first step in creating an egalitarian society. But Theresa Serber almost immediately attacked the tendency of socialist men to say they favored gender equality, but to do nothing to bring it about, even within their own ranks. She formed separate women’s organizations to reach out to women workers and discuss their particular issues. She denounced the relegation of women in the Party to traditional women’s roles: women were “tired of their positions as official cake-bakers and money-collectors.” In 1909 she published an essay, “Where Do We Stand on the Woman Question?” criticizing her socialist “brothers” for their attitude toward female colleagues: “they discourage her activity and are utterly listless towards the outcome of her struggle.”

That year, Serber was elected to the new Women’s National Committee of the Socialist Party, and she promoted the idea of a “National Women’s Day” on February 28. In 1910, she published “The Diary of a Shirtwaist Worker”, a novel about the 3-month strike by about 20,000 mostly Jewish women factory workers in New York, the largest strike by women to that point in American history, which won better pay and shorter hours.

In 1910, German socialist women at the International Socialist Women's Conference in Copenhagen proposed creating an annual Women’s Day to promote equal rights. By 1914, March 8 was established as the day for demonstrations across Europe and America. The importance of this event grew when a women’s strike on March 8, 1917, in St. Petersburg began the Russian Revolution.

Women won the vote across Europe and America over the next few years: Russia 1917, Germany 1918, United States 1920, England 1928, although many individual American states had already given women the vote. Some nations moved slowly toward women’s suffrage: France and Italy only granted women voting rights in 1945.

But as socialist women had argued for decades, neither one celebratory day a year nor the right to vote brought equal rights. March 8 was declared a national holiday in many communist countries, but women continued to occupy secondary social, economic and political roles. Even after feminists in the US began in the 1960s to use the day to protest their continued subordinate status and the United Nations declared International Women’s Day in 1975, equality was still far away.

The socialist origins of a day devoted to women’s rights exemplifies the long-lasting political controversy over gender equality. The idea of equal rights was heretical for conservatives: a German poster calling for the vote for women on March 8, 1914, was banned by the Emperor’s government. Issues of equal rights continue to be marked by partisan political division in the US. The Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act was passed in 2009, supported by Democrats in the House 247-5 and in the Senate 56-0, and opposed by Republicans 172-3 in the House and 36-5 in the Senate. Democrats support the #MeToo movement and Republicans mock it. The Republican Party itself, as represented in Congress, is overwhelmingly male: 93% in the House and 85% in the Senate. Democrats are represented by a more equal, but not yet equal gender division: about 62-38 male in both chambers.

The same differences exist in Germany, but with more women overall. From left to right, the percentages of women delegates in the Bundestag, the federal legislature, are: Left 54%, Greens 58%, Social Democrats 43%, Free Democrats 24%, Christian Democrats 21%, and right-wing Alternative for Germany 11%.

A major point of discussion in German politics is the introduction of a gender quota system to insure equal representation in legislative assemblies. The Left Party proposed in November a law that would raise the proportion of women in the Bundestag, but it was voted down by a majority led by the Christian Democrats and Free Democrats. The far right Alternative for Germany was most vehemently against any effort to raise the proportion of women.

In the state of Brandenburg, ruled by a leftist coalition of Social Democrats, Greens and Left Party, the first German law requiring all parties to put forward equal numbers of men and women in their lists of candidates starting in 2020, the Parity Law, was passed this January.

The Social Democrats in Berlin proposed at the end of 2018 that March 8 should be a new holiday, and this was passed in January with the support of the Left and Greens. A coalition of activists used the March 8 holiday as a Kampftag, day of struggle, including a demonstration of about 10,000 people. Their demands included that abortion be fully legalized, pay be equalized, and more action be taken against sexism in daily life, especially violence against women.

International Women’s Day serves to highlight the remaining gender inequality in our society. The #MeToo movement exemplifies the much more vigorous public discussion of how to keep moving toward equality and the need for significant behavioral changes for both men and women to make that possible.

The goal is to make International Women’s Day superfluous.

Steve Hochstadt

Berlin

March 12, 2019