Democracy wanes—and waxes—in the West

Democracy crumbles in the U.S., but rises in Brazil, with global implications. Meanwhile, writers across the political spectrum—not only those on the right—deserve blame for political violence.

This weekend, Brazilians appear to have embraced an opportunity that could prove to be historic—not only for Brazil, but also the rest of the world. Meanwhile, our vestiges of democracy here in America continue to crumble, with political violence predictably rising in response to failures across all of our democratic institutions.

Writers who abandoned democracy in a time of relative peace now wring their hands at the political violence invited by their failures, punching down at voices who observe what they lack the independence to acknowledge.

“Democracy” in America

The “Soft despotism” foreseen by de Tocqueville

Two centuries ago, Alexis de Tocqueville traveled the nascent United States and wrote a two-volume analysis of “Democracy in America.” Many of his observations proved to be phenomenally prescient, including his anticipation of the “soft despotism” that has come to unfortunately characterize our Republic.

Most Americans have long maintained a mistaken faith in our system, both in the sense that they presumed its integrity for no good reason, as well as its longevity despite our government’s recurring habit of shooting our country in the feet. For better or worse, that faith has been widely shaken by recent events.

None of America’s democratic institutions are functioning today.

Our elections have been reduced, at best, to contests among corporate fundraisers. At worst, they are case studies in racist intimidation of voters by right-wing vigilantes, alongside racist & homophobic ad hominem character assassination by Democrats punching left to defend their corporate leaders. All of this distracts the public from crucial questions of policy, justice, and accountability—while precluding opportunities for institutional change by entrenching career, corporate, and dynasty politicians.

Meanwhile, our courts have been effectively taken over by the right wing, which has all but closed the doors to justice. This might seem new to some people, but sadly it’s not news to me.

The Bush v Gore decision in 2000 was among the first Supreme Court cases handed down after I had recently started law school. It indirectly enabled everything from the Court packing itself to multiple fraudulent wars of aggression around the world, each of which accelerated the global climate catastrophe, left millions dead, and created further geopolitical instability and conflict.

The Dobbs decision this spring forced millions of complacent liberals into the streets, seemingly oblivious of the Carhart decision that actually overturned Roe v Wade 15 years ago.

Nothing about the right wing weaponization of the Supreme Court is new. It has simply grown so extreme now that even institutional apologists (like the journalists who have long reported on the Court without observing its arbitrary politicization) have been shocked into finally recognizing trends that have shifted the ground beneath their feet.

Both the majoritarian aspect of democracy (elections), and the mechanisms for counter-majoritarian checks on the tyranny of the majority (embodied in our courts) have more or less collapsed.

What remains?

The press is often described as a Fourth Branch of government, which is apt given its theoretical role in enabling transparency. But journalism in the U.S. has descended into a twisted joke.

I’ve written recently about how the New York Times kept George W. Bush in the White House in 2004 by keeping the public in the dark about his secret, unconstitutional, and illegal authorization of mass wiretapping.

Others among my posts have explored the absurd tendency of journalists to publish clickbait even at the cost of accuracy, ethics, and the accountability goals to which their profession is supposedly committed.

Many have observed how the implosion of the classified advertising industry (driven by the rise of the Internet) has decimated news bureaus, reducing the institutional capacity of the press to perform its constitutional function.

And I’ve repeatedly observed how American journalists have lost their crucial independence, foolishly accepting government narratives about everything from the case for yet another proxy war (Ukraine? China? Iran? Haiti? Take your pick!) to crackdowns on their fellow journalists like Julian Assange. When a publisher faces bipartisan prosecution for exposing government crimes, and other publishers can’t be bothered to even write about it, or let people know it’s happening, their silence is the sound of a canary singing in a collapsing mine.

Can you hear me now?

Millions have shared appropriate alarm at the violent attack endured last Friday by Paul Pelosi, the husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Most, however, misunderstand both the context and implications of this tragic event.

First, violent assault is a crime. Full stop. I made that point explicitly over the weekend, explaining that while “Outrage towards Nancy Pelosi remains thoroughly appropriate….Assaulting policymakers—or their families is not. It’s a criminal act.”

Shahid Buttar for Change @ShahidForChange

Political violence is a terrible shame, yet also predictable when systems refuse to allow accountability for corruption through peaceful means. Outrage towards Nancy Pelosi remains thoroughly appropriate. Assaulting policymakers—or their families—is not. It’s a criminal act.

Dave Levinthal @davelevinthal

Paul Pelosi’s profile has been very high this year because of his DUI conviction and tens of millions of dollars in stock trades at a time when Congress is considering banning lawmakers/spouses from trading stocks. https://t.co/A3MHiW1f0I

That didn’t stop Islamophobes from publicly accusing me of justifying terrorism. They included the editor-in-chief of Mother Jones, an SEIU labor organizer, a Democratic Party operative who runs a PR firm, and a Vice President of a “grassroots” Democratic Club in southern California. Many others joined in on this latest smear, including a white supremacist who works in San Francisco City Hall on the staff of Supervisor Rafael Mandelman despite a documented history of threatening an Afro-Latina whistleblower with an elected position in the Democratic Party.

Clara Jeffrey, the editor-in-chief of Mother Jones, insinuated that I defended or justified the attack on Paul Pelosi, merely because I offered an explanation familiar to any observer with any awareness of democratic theory: corruption with impunity inevitably begets predictable political violence. SEIU organizer Doug Jones and PR flak Dante Atkins each made explicit that Islamophobic accusation.

It requires remarkable foolishness to accuse someone of justifying something they explicitly condemn.

It takes even more to shoot the messenger while ignoring one’s own culpability in escalating political violence.

The corruption of our system is painfully obvious to anyone with the independence to observe it. Congress is composed of insider trading mega-millionaires who continue to line their pockets, while denying Americans basic human rights enjoyed across the rest of the industrialized world, from healthcare to affordable housing and education.

The leader of House Democrats—who present themselves as the better alternative to the GOP—is the most prolific insider trader among them all, and also among the most wealthy as a direct result. I explained in Business Insider this weekend that “Political violence is never acceptable, but it is entirely predictable when institutions invite and insulate corruption,” before noting that Nancy Pelosi runs Congress like a hedge fund manager instead of a guardian of the public interest.

She has never debated a challenger in the 35 years she has been fleecing the public, relying on her sycophants in the press to construct a cult of personality while smearing the only viable opponent to emerge in a generation. And she relies on ducking debates to get away with enabling a conservative policy agenda on issues from subsidies for fossil fuel companies to bipartisan militarism and impunity for executive-level crimes ranging from human rights violations including torture and mass detention without trial to unconstitutional self-enrichment from public funds.

Many voices in the media establishment, from the New York Times to Mother Jones, have criticized right wing media for stoking outrage towards Nancy Pelosi. But they ignore their own failures to hold power accountable over the decades that bipartisan corruption has taken increasingly deep root across American institutions.

In other words, global grassroots outrage towards American institutions and figureheads is entirely appropriate—even though violence is not.

Given the appropriateness of this outrage, and the fact that the institutional corruption that fuels it is growing only worse, we must sadly anticipate more political violence in the weeks and years ahead. The attack in Pelosi’s home was not just a criminal incident, but rather than a dangerous signal of our political system fraying even further at the seams. There will likely be more incidents of preventable violence to come.

Yet critics—especially journalists like Ms. Jeffrey—would rather bury their heads in the sand, shoot the messengers, and ignore their own complicity in the corruption that inevitably invites escalation. Writers who abandoned democracy in a time of relative peace now wring their hands at the political violence invited by their failures, while punching down at immigrant voices who observe what they lack the independence to acknowledge.

As I explained in response to Jeffrey’s Islamophobic and self-serving criticism, “I discovered the hard way that change is not possible…through elections.”

Some people accurately observing the bipartisan entrenchment of unapologetic and longstanding corruption will unfortunately do stupid—even criminal—things.

Misdirected “solutions”

Already, voices have emerged claiming that the attack on the Pelosis’ home justifies rewarding the Capitol Police (despite their dramatic failure) with more resources, as well as broader so-called “security” measures like ubiquitous surveillance that ultimately make only powerful people safe. But hurling yet more money at the security state is an idiotic way to respond, akin to treating symptoms of a disease rather than the cause.

The only way to stop political violence is to end corruption in politics, and enable turnover blocked by the careerism of politicians like Pelosi. Only viable pathways for accountability can satisfy the frustration and seething resentment that drives unstable or despairing people to acts of targeted violence.

As long as our leaders continue to fleece the public unapologetically, there will be an endless supply of maniacs willing to do something stupid. Some will be motivated by left wing ideas, most by right wing ideas, and some (like Paul Pelosi’s assailant, David DePape) might ironically be motivated by both.

Political violence—or terrorism, as it’s more widely described—historically emerges wherever dissent fails to find non-violent mechanisms for expression. The intersecting corruptions of our electoral system, of our judicial and legal system, and of journalism effectively ensure that political violence will continue.

Don’t shoot the messenger. I never said it’s OK.

Lost on editors like Mothers Jones’ Clara Jeffrey is the simple truth: we must expect more of this as long as our leadership class is insulated from any modicum of accountability.

To that extent, journalists who punch down at immigrants who simply explain democratic theory demonstrate not only xenophobic bias against the targets of their mischaracterizations, but also professional ignorance about their own work (or lack thereof) contributes to this race to the bottom.

More than one person has suggested to me that, by being forced out of politics, I might have been saved my own experience of violence. I’ve taken more than my share of blows from the establishment from which I drew blood, but I’m thankfully still on my feet. Blessings sometimes come in strange disguises.

Democracy in Brazil

While democracy in America crumbles with every passing day, Brazil appeared to take a sharp turn in the opposite direction this weekend.

A victory for climate justice and international peace

On Sunday, a runoff election pit the ecocidal fascist incumbent welcomed to speak at the CIA headquarters under Trump (Jair Bolsonaro) against a left wing populist hero and former Prime Minister (Lula Da Silva). While the two emerged at the top of a crowded field of candidates in an early round of voting, neither broke the 50% threshold necessary to win, prompting the runoff in which Lula appeared to win with a comfortable margin.

The impacts of Lula’s return to power cannot possibly be overstated.

First, he is poised to challenge the American hegemony that Bolsonaro not only accepted but also helped facilitate. Rather than emerge as a competing imperial pole, however, Brazil is poised to do what it did many years ago: lead a global non-aligned movement among states rejecting the “clash of civilizations” between competing superpowers.

At the same time, Brazil restoring a popular head of state deposed by a former military officer—at the same time that America descends into political demagoguery—suggests that democracy may survive the failures across Washington. While democracy wanes in the North, it waxes in the South.

Rather than fall within the umbrella of Pax Americana—the so-called “peace” enjoyed under an empire that steals indigenous land, murders people of color, and plunders irreplaceable natural resources—Brazil under Lula’s leadership could offer a beacon of hope to other countries looking for ways to establish diplomatic independence from the American axis.

More concretely, Lula is poised to help stop Bolsonaro’s acceleration of ecocide in the Amazon. Deforestation is not the only ingredient in the soup of climate chaos, but it’s a big one. And while it was a problem well before Bolsonaro took office, it accelerated under his regime at the same time as scientists around the world have issued increasingly dire warnings about the rates at which greenhouses gases are accumulating and global carbon sequestration capacity is diminishing.

As mass extinction continues, entire ecosystems are collapsing—almost as fast as antarctic ice shelves.

Climate nihilism, anxiety, and depression are a scourge impacting many generations of Americans, especially young people who feel betrayed by older generations and the institutions they have allowed to run all of humanity off a cliff. Those who struggle with any of those understandable feelings might find some hope in new stewardship for the Amazon.

Lula’s victory in Brazil is, for once, a global event worthy of celebration.

Not out of the woods yet

As Americans have come to discover all too clearly, aspiring despots defeated at the polls sometimes decline to respect the peaceful transition of power. While this weekend’s election bodes well for the future, Lula is not scheduled to be seated until January.

Given how many of Trump’s cues Bolsonaro has followed to this point, I would hardly be surprised by him attempting to subvert the certification of the Brazilian vote in one way or another. In fact, I wouldn’t be terribly surprised if the CIA were to play a role (again), given that the Agency welcomed him to speak at its headquarters not long after he came to power in the first place.

Connecting the dots between MLK’s “intersecting evils” and the “chickens coming home to roost” observed by Malcolm X

When democratic institutions fail (as they have across the U.S.) political violence becomes sadly predictable.

The voices of immigrants in diaspora are especially relevant here, because many of our native countries have gone through this pattern—but American journalists are so ignorant and co-opted that they conflate explanation with justification, reinforcing Islamophobia by tone policing and blaming activists who apparently understand democratic theory better than they do.

MLK bemoaned the complicity of “the white Moderate” in injustice. As Brother Malcolm X noted at a different time, “chickens…come home to roost.”

I find great solace in their voices today.

Few places in the world today demonstrate more clearly than Brazil how the “intersecting evils” that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. described work together to undermine human rights. Paid subscribers can access video of a short speech I delivered at the Youth Climate Strike in San Jose in 2019 describing how MLK’s analysis relates to the climate catastrophe.

If American journalists ever mustered the independence to report on this kind of independent analysis, we might have had a chance to hold establishment corruption accountable through peaceful means. Even those who hold MLK’s vision in disdain might have favored that outcome had they realized how their defense of corruption would eventually invite the collapse of democracy in America.