“The truth is still the truth, even if no one believes it.

A lie is still a lie, even if everyone believes it.”

– Unknown –

 

Truth has taken a serious beating over the past few years, so much so that it sometimes feels like we were living in an episode of The Twilight Zone, where up is down, down is up, the sky is yellow, fire is blue – and it seems like some people have lost the ability to even know the difference.

            Although there has always been an element of dishonesty in politics, many politicians have started to go way beyond little white lies told on the campaign trail. Many of the lies some have started to tell don’t just target their opponents track record or enhance their own, they target reality itself. 

To make matters far worse, there seem to be more people willing to relinquish the power of their paint-by-number belief systems to master manipulators who happily color in the blanks for them. As a result, truth has started to become whatever each person or group of people want it to be. In other words, truth is becoming a personal choice instead of a touchstone.

Whereas, in the good ‘ol days when most of us let facts and reality determine our truth, there are now those who work it exactly backward – deciding first what they want the truth to be, then seeking out whatever post, tweet, conspiracy theory, or cable news host confirms it. This confirmation bias isn’t hard to find if you’re looking for it – regardless of how outlandish it may be – because in our daily lives, we absorb a dizzying kaleidoscope of data that bombards us from all directions.

Overwhelmed by this information onslaught, it’s no wonder most people gravitate toward the sources they are most comfortable with on social media, newspapers, radio and television – which, through repetition and a total lack of dissent, ultimately combine to create an echo chamber that only amplifies and reenforces the original belief.

Operating in this manner may take less mental energy and its familiarity and consistency may provide temporary comfort, but it only serves to perpetuate our distrust of one another and deepen our political divide.

As a civil society, we must get back to a place where we can, at a minimum, agree on a basic set of facts. Whatever we decide to do about that set of facts is an entirely different issue, but we must start from a place of truth. And make no mistake, there actually is still such a thing!

This was way easier back in the day, when families would sit together each night and watch Walter Cronkite, David Brinkley and Edward R. Murrow speak the truth, not as they individually viewed it, but as the way it actually was. People across the United States all heard the same facts. I’m not naïve enough to believe we will ever get back to that exact place, but there are many ways we can recapture its essence.

Here’s a good place for us to start: To successfully construct a new paradigm, we need to first deconstruct the old one and learn from the lessons it teaches.

Visualize America as a house. The construction of our house, like all houses, started with the foundation. Our foundation was designed to be eternally rock-solid by brilliant but flawed men in 1787… which is lucky for us because without a strong foundation the stability of our entire house would have been vulnerable from the very beginning.

The walls of our house were constructed with the durable planks of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Both our foundation and walls were built from a blueprint that envisioned the strongest, most resilient republic ever conceived.

By the beginning of the 20th-century our house was looking awesome! It was bright and shiny, much stronger and more expensive than all the other houses around the world, and, thanks to the wealth brought by oil, steel and industrial development, our house was carefully maintained. Electrical power provided light for our house; steam engines and railroads became its roadway; and farming, ranching and mining found fertile ground in its backyard.

Despite the economic shock of the Great Depression, after World War II our home’s occupants became better educated, gainfully employed and more mobile. Unemployment plummeted, consumer demand exploded, and suburbs flourished. In fact, our house looked so perfect from the outside that very few guessed it was in danger of slowly rotting from within.

But unfortunately, that is what gradually started to happen. Political scandals like Watergate and the Iran-Contra Affair – along with the corruption introduced by powerful lobbyists and well-financed special interests – began to erode the public’s trust in its leaders and planted seeds of disappointment and disrespect toward the White House, Congress, and other government institutions.

At the same time, the energy crisis in the 1970s, the savings and loans fiasco, and massive accounting scandals planted seeds of anger and animosity toward private enterprise, well before the 2007-2009 Financial Crisis solidified the outrage. The subprime bank bailout was particularly hard to swallow because the United States has consistently had the largest wealth divide between the rich and the poor for decades.

Meanwhile, moral catastrophes like Vietnam, Guantánamo, the invasion of Iraq, Abu Ghraib, and Hurricane Katrina called into question our national core values and threatened our global image.

Overlaying all of this, the ghosts of our past remained active and destructive, especially for American Indians and black Americans. In truth, our house has been haunted for centuries. The scars branded as far back as Point Comfort, Virginia in 1619 and the massacres at the Battle of Tippecanoe in 1811 remain painfully evident for many of these Americans. Generations of pervasive and persistent disparity and discrimination have taken an egregious toll on members of these communities, populations uniquely susceptible to the inequitable cycles of preceding generations.

It’s in this weakened condition that our house stood. With a damaged foundation and unstable walls, our haunted house was already under threat of being reduced to kindling – just barely able to hold its own weight. But then…

 

Into this perfect storm walked Donald Trump…holding a match.

 

In Chapter Two, I walk through five examples of times Donald Trump has tried to gaslight this country: The Election Fraud Lie; The Perfect Boogeyman: Antifa; Tinfoil Hats to Red Hats: The Conspiracy Theory Trap; The Russian “Hoax”; and Total Distortion of Economic Accomplishments.

I wrote most of these before the January 20th inauguration and, in my heart, really hoped this time might be different. In fact, I clung to that hope as long as I could. But it’s not different. It’s way worse.

As I try to finish this book, government data is disappearing before my eyes. Information I was using from the Bureau of Labor Statistics one day was literally gone the next. Current and historical information about crime, economy, climate, health… just gone.

If they can’t delete evidence they find inconvenient, they just lie. Like the time Elon Musk stood in the Oval Office and told reporters that after a “cursory examination of Social Security, we’ve got people in there that are 150 years old. Now, do you know anyone who is 150?” – insinuating that 150-year-olds are claiming Social Security benefits. … a claim that actual tech geniuses quickly dismissed as probably a data error in the agency’s ancient COBOL coding language.

Of course, Elon could have put his mind at ease much earlier if he had calmed down long enough to read a July 2023 report from the Social Security Inspector General that found 98 percent of people in the database who are 100 years old or older are not receiving benefits and “have not had earnings reported to SSA in the past 50 years.”

Or the time the White House press secretary announced, from the podium, that the administration had uncovered a USAID plan to spend $50 million to give condoms to Hamas (the money was actually for operating two field hospitals in Gaza that provided surgical care and emergency maternal and newborn care), or the time they said USAID had given the media company Politico $8 million (the number was actually $44,000, which was paid for subscriptions).

Or the time Elon posted on X that “Reuters was paid millions of dollars by the US government for ‘large scale social deception. They’re a total scam. Just wow.” Never mind that the contract in question was between the Defense Department and Thomson Reuters Special Services, not the news division; was a contract to defend against cyberattacks; and was signed during Donald Trump’s first term. I guess Donald didn’t know this when he used the contract as evidence of corrupt relationships between the “radical left” media and the “deep state,” posting “GIVE BACK THE MONEY, NOW!”

In President Trump’s 100-minute-long address to Congress on March 4th, he misled, lied about, or flat made-up things about the size of his popular vote; the number of people who illegally cross the border and that “virtually all of them” are “murderers, drug dealers, gang members, and people from mental institutions and insane asylums;” that the Paris Climate Accord was costing us “trillions” of dollars;” that we spent $45 million for diversity, equity and inclusion scholarships in Burma; that we spent $20 million for the Arab Sesame Street in the Middle East; that hundreds of thousands of federal workers weren’t showing up to work; the number of people who died building the Panama Canal; his tax cuts resulting in the “most successful economy in the history of our country, a lie that’s a lie two ways; and the amount of money we have given Ukraine. Plus, many more things.

This all perfectly fits the pattern. The truth doesn’t fit your agenda, change it. The election doesn’t go your way, it’s rigged. The FBI comes looking for documents you have unlawfully taken, it’s corrupt. The Justice Department dares to hold a leader accountable, it’s weaponized. Basically, democracy is awesome until it no longer serves you.

Then when it doesn’t, you do all you can to destroy it…. like when Donald Trump called for the “termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution.” Everything is about him, and nothing is off the table, Constitution be damned.

It was Machiavelli who said that “one who deceives will always find those who allow themselves to be deceived.” But it was Voltaire who made the terrifying but brilliant observation: “Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.”

A masterful liar starts early, sometimes years before big lies are even told. Donald did this when, even before his 2016 presidential campaign began, he railed against the “Deep State” and started calling the MSM (a.k.a. “mainstream media”) “fake news” and “enemy of the people.” He repeated this over and over and over and over – incessantly – which is another mind trick used by skillful liars.

As a result, if I happen to mention to hardcore Trump supporters that The Washington Post reported their hero made 30,573 false or misleading claims during his first term as president – which they do, often accompanied by video evidence of him telling said falsehood – they will likely dismiss it out of hand because The Washington Post is obviously The Devil. It’s absolute genius.

So, by the time he needed to tell a really big lie – like when he wanted to save face after he lawfully lost the 2020 presidential election – many of his supporters had lost all trust in the media, as well as the people who work in every level of government and the agencies and institutions they work for. Again, genius.

Hopefully, you will stick with this book long enough to read the examples of gaslighting but, if not, I want to at least remind you of where this all leads…

            Angry, disillusioned Americans crash through security barricades, climb scaffolding, and scale walls to breach the United States Capitol. A furious and frantic mob shatter windows, splinter doors, and carry Tasers, guns, baseball bats, tear gas, truncheons, zip-tie handcuffs, and American flags with sharpened poles.

Members of the United States Congress, elected by We the People, crouch behind benches and lock themselves in bathrooms, terrified for their lives. The Vice President of the United States and his family hide in a closet while trying to coordinate some sort of rescue. Enraged men pull a journalist down a flight of stairs, past graffiti that says, “Murder the Media,” then throws him over a ledge, screaming “We’ll f---ing kill you.”

Flags portray Donald Trump as Rambo and others have him astride a Tyrannosaurus rex, carrying a rocket-propelled grenade launcher. Flags honor QAnon, with the favored abbreviation “WWG1WGA” (Where We Go One, We Go All).

Inflammatory flags reach as far as the eye can see. Confederate battle flags and American flags with stars replaced by the Roman numeral III, a symbol of the Three Percenters. Green-and-white flags of Kekistan, an alt-right fictional god of chaos and darkness. Flags with Nazi imagery and flags with the skull-like symbol of the Punisher.

            Nooses, crusader crosses, fur and horns, and Pepe the Frog masks illuminate the scene. Chants of Stop the Steal and Trust the Plan; patches that read Oath Keepers and Zombie Outbreak Response Team; Camp Auschwitz sweatshirts; and t-shirts that say MAGA Civil War, Jan. 6, 2021, RWDS (Right-Wing Death Squad), and 6MWE (Six Million Wasn’t Enough), referring to the number of Jews murdered in the Holocaust, pretty much tell the story.

One protester died from a gunshot and over 140 law enforcement officers were injured. Over half of the nearly 1,600 defendants pled guilty and 200 more were outright convicted. Sentences ranged from days in jail for misdemeanors to twenty-two years for seditious conspiracy. The total cost of that day and its repercussions estimated to be over $2.7 billion.

            These are words that, if I lived a million years, I never thought I’d write, but there is no other way to say it: A United States president tried to overthrow a democratically held, perfectly legal election.

He tried to overthrow it in the courts. He tried to overthrow it by sweet talking, shaming and threatening members of the Electoral College. He tried to overthrow it by submitting fake electors. He tried to overthrow it by harassing and bullying election officials, Department of Justice employees, members of Congress, state legislators and governors. And, in the big finale, he tried to overthrow it by inciting his devoted followers to stop the constitutionally mandated congressional electoral vote count.

One might even call Donald Trump and his supporters’ actions a failed coup d’état (i.e., defined as a sudden, violent, and illegal seizure of power from a government).

            Republicans may think my likening the events surrounding January 6th to a coup is hyperbolic – and that I’m being overly dramatic – but am I? Seriously, just stop and really think about this for a second.

“Seditious conspiracy,” as defined by the U.S. criminal code is an effort by two or more people to “conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof.”

That was exactly what many of those people at the U.S. Capitol were trying to do that day. It’s critically important we do not reduce what went down on January 6th to nothing more than “free speech.” Many people that showed up that day were actively trying to prevent our government from functioning, by preventing, hindering, and delaying the execution of a law of the United States.

As United States District Judge Timothy Kelly, who was appointed by President Trump, said of the Proud Boys: “No matter defendants’ political motivations or any political message they wished to express, this alleged conduct is simply not protected by the First Amendment. Defendants are not, as they argue, charged with anything like burning flags, wearing black armbands, or participating in mere sit-ins or protests.”

We cannot allow people to rewrite history, and they are trying hard to. In the years after the insurrection, Donald Trump and his sycophants went into overdrive trying to flip the script of that day. Convicted rioters suddenly became patriotic martyrs, political prisoners, and even hostages. One of the darkest days in American history suddenly became, in Donald Trump’s words, “a day of love.” The song Justice for All, performed by the newly formed J6 Prison Choir, featured Donald Trump reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.

Just weeks before his second inauguration, President-elect Trump’s spokeswomen Karoline Leavitt issued a statement to all the “political losers” that said, “the mainstream media still refuses to report the truth about what happened that day. The American people did not fall for the Left’s fear mongering over January 6th.”

In the final act of his made-for-television re-write, Donald Trump issued formal pardons to over 1,550 January 6th rioters just hours after being sworn in a second time. John Kinsman, a Proud Boy who served four years in prison, seemed to speak for all of them when he said, “This is leaps and bounds better than I could have hoped.”

This is absurd. The attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6th – and the events leading up to it – were seditious (i.e., conduct or speech inciting people to rebel against the authority of a state). As Americans, it’s super hard for us to wrap our minds around this, but the assault on the Capitol was an insurrection (i.e., a violent uprising against an authority or government). When you look at the evidence, listen to their words, and see the images, there is really no doubt about it.

            The 1,550+ people charged with various crimes from that fateful day must take personal responsibility for their own actions. But many people present that day were nothing more than chess pieces in a game they didn’t know they were playing. As U.S. District Judge Amit B. Mehta said to a man named John Lolos as he was sentencing him to jail for entering the Capitol that day, “I think you are a pawn. You are a pawn in a game that’s played and directed by people who should know better.”

As Judge Mehta so perfectly put it, “People like Mr. Lolos were told lies, falsehoods, told the election was stolen when it really wasn’t.”

Although the attack on the Capitol was obviously planned and groups like the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys coordinated in the weeks before the attack, there is no denying that President Donald Trump played a major role, both before and on January 6th. The causation is clear: But for Donald Trump, the revolt on January 6th would not have happened.

            If you really think about it, he had been grooming his army of insurrectionists for years. It started in earnest the minute he descended that escalator: The incendiary language, the constant undermining of the media and government institutions, the subtle racist undertones and the not-so-subtle nod to white supremacists – to the point where, after the domestic terrorist event in Charlottesville, former KKK leader David Duke gushed on Twitter: “Thank you President Trump for your honesty & courage to tell the truth about #Charlottesville & condemn the leftist terrorists in BLM/Antifa.”

As a result, the treasonous events on January 6th couldn’t come fast enough for the Proud Boys, Three Percenters, Oath Keepers, and other anti-government militias and far-right extremists, plus QAnon whackos and other violent conspiracy theorists who had been waiting for this “storm” for years. None of them could believe their luck!  Finally, there was someone in power who validated their delusions.

Once forced to hide in the darkest corners of the Internet, Donald Trump gave these people permission. He gave them legitimacy. He gave them cover. He gave them orders: Stand back and stand by you very fine, very special people…we love you… “Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!”

The morning of January 6th, Donald was on a roll: Remember, Joe Biden is being controlled by “people in dark shadows” so “we’re going to have to fight much harder…You have to show strength, and you have to be strong…When you catch somebody in a fraud, you are allowed to go by very different rules…We will never give up. We will never concede. It doesn’t happen. You don’t concede when there’s theft involved…Our country has had enough…We will not take it anymore, and that is what this is all about.”

If we don’t fight “you will have an illegitimate president. That is what you will have, and we can’t let that happen. These are the facts that you won’t hear from the fake news media. It’s all part of the suppression effort. They don’t want to talk about it; We fight like hell, and if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.” “It’s just bullshit.” “Bullshit!  Bullshit!” repeated his adoring crowd. Then the chants turned to “Invade the Capitol.”

That morning, the defeated president’s incendiary, inflammatory language reflected the exact same themes his little army had been hearing from him for years… and they answered the call, some well before that fateful day. 

In May 2020, Couy Griffin, a New Mexico county commissioner who also led the group Cowboys for Trump, said on a video, “The only good Democrat is a dead Democrat.” Naturally, Donald Trump wasted no time promoting the video adding, “Thank you Cowboys. See you in New Mexico!”

Later that month, Mr. Griffin told The Daily Beast that Democratic governors who shut down their states because of the coronavirus could be guilty of treason and could get the death penalty: “You get to pick your poison: You either go before a firing squad, or you get the end of the rope.” When the reporter asked Mr. Griffin if violence may be necessary, he said, “I’ll tell you what, partner, as far as I’m concerned, there’s not an option that’s not on the table.”

A bodybuilder and self-proclaimed “dating coach” named Samuel Fisher, who went by the name Brad Holiday online, posted that “at 1 when congress certifies the election …Trump just needs to fire the bat signal…deputize patriots…and then the pain comes.” 

Samuel/Brad was arrested with over 1,000 rounds of ammunition, a tactical vest plus another vest with ballistic plates and a knife, two machetes, a shotgun, and, of course, a copy of the Daily News with Donald Trump’s face on the cover and an American flag. He was sentenced to three and a half years in prison (but, of course, was then pardoned). At his sentencing, Mr. Fisher told the court, “I know what I did was wrong and I accept that my actions have consequences.”

In the days after Donald lost the election, one of the leaders of the Oath Keepers, the convicted Stewart Rhodes (whose sentence was commuted by Donald Trump), said the group was ready for a “bloody fight.” Another one of their leaders, Thomas Edward Caldwell, said, “This kettle is set to boil. It begins for real Jan 5 and 6 on Washington D.C. when we mobilize in the streets. Let them try to certify some crud on capitol hill with a million or more patriots in the streets.”

At one point, a QAnon supporter tweeted: “It was a rigged election but they were busted. Sting of the Century! Justice is coming!” Naturally, Donald Trump quickly retweeted the message.

An FBI situation report, released on January 5th, warned that: “An online thread discussed specific calls for violence to include stating ‘Be ready to fight. Congress needs to hear glass breaking, doors being kicked in, and blood from their BLM and Antifa slave soldiers being spilled. Get violent. Stop calling this a march, or rally, or a protest. Go there ready for war. We get our President or we die. NOTHING else will achieve this goal.’”

The FBI also found social media posts directing people to the multiple rally points across the country: “MAGA Cavalry to Connect Patriot Caravans to Stop the Steal in D.C.” There were maps of the U.S. Capitol building showing how the various tunnels were connected. The maps had the heading: “CREATE PERIMETER.”

On the day of the assault, inside the Senate chamber, one devout Trump follower said, “While we’re here, we might as well set up a government.” Another one reminded his fellow insurgents, “You are executing citizen’s arrest. Arrest this assembly; we have probable cause for acts of treason, election fraud.”

Two ladies in red MAGA hats, Dawn Bancroft and Diana Santos-Smith, recorded a video for Bancroft’s children documenting their big day which was later confiscated by the FBI: “We broke into the Capitol …We got inside, we did our part.”

            But Ms. Bancroft wasn’t finished. “We were looking for Nancy to shoot her in the friggin’ brain, but we didn’t find her.” …thereby threatening to kill the fourth highest ranking person in the United States government. On tape.

            On January 7th, the day after the Capitol riot, Couy Griffin of New Mexico reappeared on video, saying of Joe Biden’s inauguration: “We could have a Second Amendment rally on those same steps that we had that rally yesterday. You know, and if we do, then it’s going to be a sad day, because there’s going to be blood running out of that building.”

If you are not convinced that Donald Trump’s words incited the riot at the U.S. Capitol – both before and on January 6th – just ask the very people whom he incited.

            The leader of the Florida Oath Keepers Kelly Meggs made it clear he was answering his hero’s call when he posted on Facebook, “He called us all to Capitol and wants us to make it wild!!! Sir yes Sir!!! Gentlemen we are heading to DC.”

            Oath Keeper Jessica Watkins sent messages in advance of the 6th that said, “Trump wants all able bodied patriots to come” and “if Trump activates the Insurrection Act, I’d hate to miss it.” The day of the assault, Jessica – dressed, as the rest of her group was, in tactical gear including bulletproof vests and helmets – posted a message that said, “Trump’s been trying to drain the swamp with a straw. We just brought a shop vac.”

            Incidentally, this is also the gal that said, “If (Biden) is (sworn in), our way of life as we know it is over. Our Republic would be over.  Then it is our duty as Americans to fight, kill and die for our rights…If Biden get the steal, none of us have a chance in my mind.  We already have our neck in the noose. They just haven’t kicked the chair yet.”

QAnon loyalist Kenneth Grayson said, “I’m there for the greatest celebration of all time after Pence leads the Senate flip!! OR IM THERE IF TRUMP TELLS US TO STORM THE FUKIN CAPITAL IMA DO THAT THEN!”

            Throughout the Capitol that day, insurrectionists can be heard on camera yelling at law enforcement, things like: “Our president wants us here; Stand down. You’re outnumbered. There’s a f---ing million of us out there, and we are listening to Trump – your boss; We wait and take orders from our president; We were invited here by the President of the United States…”

            Interestingly enough, many of these Donald Trump loyalists were pretty quick to throw him right under the bus once they got arrested. For instance, Jessica Watkins’ attorney wasted no time in saying that Jessica was there that day “not to overthrow the government, but to support what she believed to be the lawful government. She fell prey to the false and inflammatory claims of the former president, his supporters, and the right-wing media.”

            Dominic Pezzola, a once proud Proud Boy, said that, despite all appearances, he had “honorable intentions” that day and was only “protecting his country.” However, he “now realizes he was duped into these mistaken beliefs” and “is consumed with guilt.”

            There are plenty of others who are complicit in this attempted hostile takeover, including the eight Republican senators and 139 Republican members of the House of Representatives who, on January 6th during the Electoral College vote count, introduced or voted for at least one of the objections that were based on false allegations of election fraud … as are Donald Trump’s laughable attorneys, members of his White House staff, and anyone else who amplified his election fraud lies – particularly conservative media outlets.

            < As I write this, it is still shocking to me that any American would jeopardize our country in this way. All of this feels almost like an out-of-body experience. It still makes me really, really, really sad. >

            The most important reason we cannot allow people to rewrite the events of January 6, 2021 is that it absolutely, positively cannot happen again. In Russia, Hungary, Poland, Turkey and the Philippines, populist leaders have made lying and corruption an artform. Because these countries don’t have strong, independent legal systems and autonomous news media outlets, the lies of these leaders know no bounds.

            Thank God we do have these guardrails, and more. The United States was protected from this assault on our democracy by honorable judges, heroic election officials, steadfast state legislatures, and the brave American citizens who remained faithful to the constitutionally mandated Electoral College process. God Bless Them All.

            But still, this feels way too close for comfort. In their outstanding book How Democracies Die, Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, both Harvard professors, warn:

“During the Cold War, coup d’état accounted for nearly three out of every four democratic breakdowns. Democracies in Argentina, Brazil, the Dominican Republic, Ghana, Greece, Guatemala, Nigeria, Pakistan, Peru, Thailand, Turkey, and Uruguay all died this way. More recently, military coups toppled Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi in 2013 and Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra in 2014. In all these cases, democracy dissolved in spectacular fashion, through military power and coercion.”

“But there is another way to break a democracy. It is less dramatic but equally destructive. Democracies may die at the hands not of generals but of elected leaders – presidents or prime ministers who subvert the very process that brought them to power. Some of these leaders dismantle democracy quickly, as Hitler did in the wake of the 1933 Reichstag fire in Germany. More often, though, democracies erode slowly, in barely visible steps.”

            On February 1, 2021, Myanmar’s military (a.k.a. the Tatmadaw) declared a state of emergency and took control of the country – in what amounted to a military coup. 

            The Myanmar (Burma) military detained the head of state Aung San Suu Kyi and other leaders of the National League for Democracy, who had been reelected by a landslide in November 2020, in only the second democratically held election since the country moved to a democracy from almost fifty years of military rule.

            The military announced that power would be transferred to the commander in chief, Min Aung Hlaing, then handed to Myint Swe, the military-backed vice president. The violence escalated. In late March 2021, security forces killed over 100, including seven children.
           What reason did the Myanmar military give for this coup d’état?  Well, election fraud, of course! The fact that the country’s election commission continued to insist there was no evidence to support this claim didn’t seem to matter one bit.

            Meanwhile, before the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan, there had been four democratically held presidential elections in the two decades since the United States arrived on the scene. Three of the four were disputed.

            On March 9, 2020, Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah both took the oath of office as the rightful president of Afghanistan – at the exact same time. The incumbent, Ghani, was declared the rightful winner of the election, but Abdullah insisted that the election was…wait for it…stolen! Incredibly, the media dutifully did the split screen thing as both men simultaneously gave their acceptance speeches.

As this was taking place, rockets rained down over the presidential palace in Kabul. I can practically hear Abdullah’s people shouting…

 أوقف السرقة

(this means “Stop the Steal” in Arabic)

 

            Really, America? We were, at least on this day, in the same place as Myanmar was? And Afghanistan?  …which, as a reminder, has now been taken over by terrorists. Really? This is what we’re gonna do now?

I’m not overreacting. Who among us cannot picture Donald Trump staging that split screen acceptance speech deal? And we may have seen just that if he had lost the 2024 election.

            If you do happen to think I’m overreacting, just listen to leaders from around the world – many of whom know a thing or two about rebellions – who spoke out during that time. (shout out to Axios for compiling these):

 

†    European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell Fontelles: “In the eyes of the world, American democracy tonight appears under siege. This is an unseen assault on U.S. democracy, its institutions and the rule of law. This is not America. The election results of 3 November must be fully respected.”

†    German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas: [The enemies of democracy will find out about these incredible images #WashingtonDC looking forward. Insurgent words turn into violent acts – on the steps of the Reichstag, and now in the #Capitol. The disdain for democratic institutions is devastating. (translated)]

†    German Chancellor Angela Merkel: “These images made me furious and also sad, and I’m quite sure I feel like most friends of the United States, like millions of people who admire America’s democratic tradition. And I regret very much that President Trump since November has not conceded his defeat, and not yesterday either.”

†    French President Emmanuel Macron: “When, in one of the world’s oldest democracies, supporters of an outgoing president take up arms to challenge the legitimate results of an election, that one idea – that of ‘one person, one vote’ – is undermined.”

†    United Kingdom Prime Minister Boris Johnson: “Disgraceful scenes in U.S. Congress. The United States stands for democracy around the world and it is now vital that there should be a peaceful and orderly transfer of power.”

†   Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau: “Canadians are deeply disturbed and saddened by the attack on democracy in the United States, our closest ally and neighbor. Violence will never succeed in overruling the will of the people. Democracy in the U.S. must be upheld – and it will be.”

†    NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg: “Shocking scenes in Washington, D.C. The outcome of this democratic election must be respected.”

†    Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi: “Distressed to see news about rioting and violence in Washington DC. Orderly and peaceful transfer of power must continue. The democratic process cannot be allowed to be subverted through unlawful protests.”

†    Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba: “Concerning scenes in Washington, D.C. I’m confident American democracy will overcome this challenge. The rule of law & democratic procedures need to be restored as soon as possible.  This is important not only for the U.S., but for Ukraine and the entire democratic world as well.”

†    Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte: “Horrible images from Washington D.C. Dear [Donald Trump], recognize [Joe Biden] as the next president today.”

†    Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte: “I am following what is happening in #Washington with great concern. Violence is incompatible with the exercise of democratic rights and freedoms.  I am confident in the strength and robustness of the institutions of the United States.”

†    First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon: “The scenes from the Capitol are utterly horrifying. Solidarity with those in [the United States] on the side of democracy and the peaceful and constitutional transfer of power. Shame on those who have incited this attack on democracy.”

†    Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg: “Unbelievable scenes from Washington D.C. This is a totally unacceptable attack on democracy. A heavy responsibility now rests on President Trump to put a stop to this.”

 

            This is so embarrassing. But even worse were the delighted, almost gleeful, reactions from people who don’t want us to succeed in the first place. For example, Jürgen Elsässer, the editor of a German far-right magazine, gleefully said, “We were following it like a soccer match.”

            A Russian foreign ministry spokesman said, “The events in Washington show that the U.S. electoral process is archaic, does not meet modern standards, and is prone to violations,” while the president of Zimbabwe said the riot “showed that the U.S. has no moral right to punish another nation under the guise of upholding democracy.”

            … and it’s not like we weren’t warned, America. The annual report from Freedom House – a U.S. government-funded nonprofit non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on democracy, political freedom and human rights – called Freedom in the World evaluates the state of freedom in 210 countries/territories. Each country/territory is assigned between 0 and 4 points on a series of 25 indicators, for an aggregate score of up to 100.

            In 2018, the theme of the report was Democracy in Crisis, and it said, “Political rights and civil liberties around the world deteriorated to their lowest point in more than a decade in 2017, extending a period characterized by emboldened autocrats, beleaguered democracies, and the United States’ withdrawal from its leadership role in the global struggle for human freedom.” 

            The report continued, “A long list of troubling developments around the world contributed to the global decline in 2017, but perhaps most striking was the accelerating withdrawal of the United States from its historical commitment to promoting and supporting democracy.”

            That year, we received a score of 86 out of 100, which was well below France, Germany and the United Kingdom. This represented an 8-point drop since our score of 94 in 2009. In 2019, the theme of the report was Democracy in Retreat, and it said,

“The great challenges facing U.S. democracy did not commence with the inauguration of President Donald Trump. Intensifying political polarization, declining economic mobility, the outsized influence of special interests, and the diminished influence of fact-based reporting in favor of bellicose partisan media were all problems afflicting the health of American democracy well before 2017.”

“Previous presidents have contributed to the pressure on our system by infringing on the rights of American citizens. Surveillance programs such as the bulk collection of communications metadata, initially undertaken by the George W. Bush administration, and the Obama administration’s overzealous crackdown on press leaks are two cases in point.”

“At the midpoint of his term, however, there remains little question that President Trump exerts an influence on American politics that is straining our core values and testing the stability of our constitutional system.  No president in living memory has shown less respect for its tenets, norms, and principles. Trump has assailed essential institutions and traditions including the separation of powers, a free press, an independent judiciary, the impartial delivery of justice, safeguards against corruption, and most disturbingly, the legitimacy of elections. Congress, a coequal branch of government, has too frequently failed to push back against these attacks with meaningful oversight and other defenses.”

            Yet again we received a score of 86. The 2020 report, called A Leaderless Struggle for Democracy, was perhaps the most depressing of all. We again received a score of 86, which was below Italy, Greece, Slovakia, Latvia and Mauritius (a country in East Africa). This one said:

“Democracy and pluralism are under assault. Dictators are toiling to stamp out the last vestiges of domestic dissent and spread their harmful influence to new corners of the world.  At the same time, many freely elected leaders are dramatically narrowing their concerns to a blinkered interpretation of the national interest. In fact, such leaders – including the chief executives of the United States and India, the world’s two largest democracies – are increasingly willing to break down institutional safeguards and disregard the rights of critics and minorities as they pursue their populist agendas.  As a result of these and other trends, Freedom House found that 2019 was the 14th consecutive year of decline in global freedom.”

“Those in the United States and elsewhere who doubt the value of a foreign policy designed to advance human freedom should realize that no one’s rights are safe when tyranny is allowed to go unchecked. History has shown that the chaotic effects of authoritarian misrule abroad are not confined by national borders, and that authoritarian powers will seek to expand their control by subverting the democratic sovereignty of other states.  The same is true in domestic affairs: attacks on the rights of specific groups or individuals in a given country ultimately imperil the liberty of the entire society.”

             In the 2021 report, Democracy Under Siege, we finally broke our three-year-in-a-row score of 86, but unfortunately not in the right direction. In 2021, we received a score of 83. I take back what I said a second ago. This was by far the most depressing assessment:

“The final weeks of the Trump presidency featured unprecedented attacks on one of the world’s most visible and influential democracies. After four years of condoning and indeed pardoning official malfeasance, ducking accountability for his own transgressions, and encouraging racist and right-wing extremists, the outgoing president openly strove to illegally overturn his loss at the polls, culminating in his incitement of an armed mob to disrupt Congress’s certification of the results. Trump’s actions went unchecked by most lawmakers from his own party, with a stunning silence that undermined basic democratic tenets.”

“Only a serious and sustained reform effort can repair the damage done during the Trump era to the perception and reality of basic rights and freedoms in the United States.  The year leading up to the assault on the Capitol was fraught with other episodes that threw the country into the global spotlight in a new way.  The politically distorted health recommendations, partisan infighting, shockingly high and racially disparate coronavirus death rates, and police violence against protesters advocating for racial justice over the summer all underscored the United States’ systemic dysfunctions and made American democracy appear fundamentally unstable.” 

“Even before 2020, Trump had presided over an accelerating decline in U.S. freedom scores, driven in part by corruption and conflicts of interest in the administration, resistance to transparency efforts, and harsh and haphazard policies on immigration and asylum that made the country an outlier among its Group of Seven peers.”

“But President Trump’s attempt to overturn the will of the American voters was arguably the most destructive act of his time in office.  His drumbeat of claims – without evidence – that the electoral system was ridden by fraud sowed doubt among a significant portion of the population, despite what election security officials eventually praised as the most secure vote in US history.  Nationally elected officials from his party backed these claims, striking at the foundations of democracy and threatening the orderly transfer of power.”

“The exposure of U.S. democracy’s vulnerabilities has grave implications for the cause of global freedom. Rulers and propagandists in authoritarian states have always pointed to America’s domestic flaws to deflect attention from their own abuses, but the events of the past year will give them ample new fodder for this tactic, and the evidence they cite will remain in the world’s collective memory for a long time to come.”