OPINION - American democracy’s Achilles' heel

By Dr. Adam McConnel

- The writer teaches Turkish history at Sabanci University in Istanbul. He holds an MA and PhD in History from the same university. His research and writing interests focus on 20th century Turkish history, Turkish-American relations and 19th-20th century world history. He has lived in Istanbul since 1999.

ISTANBUL (AA) – On Jan. 20, Donald Trump will take the oath of office and become the United States’ new president.

Because Trump has never held elected office before, and is a man of questionable ethics, bigoted beliefs, failed businesses and enormous ego, both U.S. society and the world await his term in office with trepidation.

Some voice the belief that Trump will bring to a close the American experiment with democracy.

Noted British historian Eric Hobsbawm, in 2002, concluded his personal reflections on the 20th century with some of the most perceptive comments on the United States that I’ve ever encountered. The last chapter of Interesting Times summarizes the U.S. political system as follows:

“The U.S., at least in its public life, is a country that is geared to operate with mediocrities, because it has to, and it has been rich and powerful enough in the twentieth century to do so. It is the only country in my political lifetime where three able Presidents (FDR, Kennedy, Nixon) have been replaced, at a moment’s notice, by men neither qualified nor expected to do the job, without making any noticeable difference to the course of U.S. and world history. Historians who believe in the supremacy of high politics and great individuals have a hard case in America.” (p.409)

Hobsbawm, in other words, had clearly identified what made the U.S. so successful in the past 200 years: its political system.

Even though Hobsbawm refers specifically to politics in the above quote, his point can also be extended to the U.S.’ economic system, where the ability to maintain mass production of goods over a long period of time, and to innovate, made the U.S. the richest and most prosperous society in human history.

The combination of an extremely stable political system with massive wealth production provided the foundations which made the 20th century the “American Century.”

But as the days elapse before Donald Trump becomes the U.S.’ 45th president, fears are being raised about the American system’s health. As Hobsbawm rightly pointed out, the system and its institutions, not the person occupying the presidency, make American power and success possible.

So some commentators openly doubt whether the U.S.’ system can survive a Trump presidency, and they point to Trump’s unwillingness to abide by transparency standards, his conflicts of interest as a wealthy real estate mogul with investments around the world, preference for “plutocrats” as political appointees, and the general disdain that he shows for established U.S. political precedents as signs of the coming disintegration of the country’s political edifice. [1]

At this point, the only thing that we can state with confidence is that Trump’s behavior does provide great cause for concern, even alarm, but the American political system has weathered great crises before.

The U.S. has also, as mentioned by Hobsbawm, rarely had men who can be considered “great” by world standards as presidents. The long list would probably consist only of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

In fact, the U.S. system itself discourages the advancement of people with strong leadership qualities to positions of great authority, and the authority that any U.S. politician has, even the president, is strongly circumscribed by laws that are respected and enforced. This is one of the main reasons for the U.S.’ stability as a democratic republic.

In other words, it is extremely unlikely that, by himself and in a span of four years, President Trump will cause the complete breakdown of the American political and/or economic system. After all, as I’ve pointed out to acquaintances, the U.S. and the world did survive the eight years of the George W. Bush presidency.

To be sure, G. W. Bush caused many disasters, is the ultimate direct cause for much of the violence now convulsing Turkey’s region, and was probably one of the least-able individuals to ever hold the office of the U.S. presidency, but the U.S. is still the world’s preeminent military and economic power. Only time will tell whether Donald Trump will prove to be a more or less capable president than G. W. Bush.

Instead, what everyone should be worried about far more are the long-term trends in the U.S. political system. Although it is unlikely that Donald Trump’s presidency will lead to some sort of immediate political breakdown, increased corruption and increased tolerance for conflicts of interest among U.S. politicians may have an enduring effect that would weaken the country’s political system.

That, in fact, is the real source of concern in regard to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s efforts to influence the outcome of the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

The U.S. had, since the 1950s, involved itself in elections held in other countries. Most recently, during the G. W. Bush administration, efforts to sway the outcomes of elections in Georgia, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan and Belarus -- the so-called “Color Revolutions” in former Soviet states, all seen by Putin as a part of Moscow’s security cordon and of vital Russian national interest -- had clearly received support from U.S.-backed organizations.

Putin’s imprint on the 2016 election simply showed that, as the saying goes, “two can play at that game”.

In other words, the mistaken decision to use U.S. strength and resources to manipulate elections in other countries has come back to haunt America. Even if Donald Trump’s term as president doesn’t lead to immediate socio-political disaster, over the long term, increased cronyism and nepotism, and four years of poorly-informed domestic and foreign policy may exacerbate trends already in motion.

The refusal of Congressional Republicans to confirm a new Supreme Court member during President Obama’s last half year as president created more precedent for the lowest sort of political behavior, and for a willingness to resort to any means necessary for spitefully partisan goals.

Or we can look at an even deeper issue in U.S. society: race.

The Electoral College that just gave the presidency to a candidate who lost the popular ballot by nearly three million votes was instituted as a concession to the slave-owning Southern states more than 200 years ago. And that president-elect openly espouses racist and xenophobic beliefs. Might the Electoral College be the U.S. system’s Achilles' Heel, based in the country’s original (and still unatoned for) sin, slavery?

Candidates that did not win the popular vote won the Electoral College several times in the 1800s, but the U.S. was not a world power at that point, and the consequences were slight.

Today, the U.S. is the world’s predominant power and twice in 16 years the presidency has gone to the runner-up; the first time around saw Afghanistan and Iraq invaded with awful consequences for the world. What will the results on this occasion be?

Frankly, the atrocious behavior in Congress and the benighted political atmosphere across the country worry me more than the Trump presidency itself, but Trump is likely to augment these trends and flaws mentioned above rather than to curb them.

In that case, the question then becomes how long it will take these currents to run their course, and what the effects will be for the U.S. and for the world.

* Opinions expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Anadolu Agency's editorial policy

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/19/opinion/how-republics-end.html?rref=collection%2Fcolumn%2Fpaul-krugman