Fighting for Democracy Abroad Requires Setting an Example at Home - Horowitz
Rob Horowitz, MINDSETTER™
Fighting for Democracy Abroad Requires Setting an Example at Home - Horowitz
This powerful response, deftly orchestrated by President Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, has been fueled by the courage and fierce fighting spirit of President Zelensky and the Ukrainian people who have dug in and held off the Russian invaders, despite being vastly overmatched in military power. Still, as the major cities are increasingly surrounded and being shelled mercilessly, this remains an uphill fight—one which is just beginning and whose outcome is uncertain.
Vladimir Putin’s indifference to the cost of innocent lives and destruction drives home the high stakes of a struggle that has been underway between a ruled-based world order with the United States and other democracies at its center and the rise of autocracies and autocratic leaders. No matter the ultimate resolution in Ukraine, we must gird ourselves for the long-term--- to what John F. Kennedy aptly referred to as the “long twilight struggle.”
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTThis broader fight will not be won with military and economic strength alone; it requires winning the battle of ideas. We must re-double our efforts to persuade people around the world that democracy-- where citizens pick their own leaders and play an active role in shaping their own and their nation’s future --is still the best form of government. This means we must strengthen our democracy here at home and regain the lost luster in the world’s eyes caused in large measure by the events leading up to and including January 6, when the central democratic concept of the peaceful transfer of power was threatened.
As the fight for civil rights during the Cold War was important to buttress our efforts to attract people and nations around the world to embrace democracy and freedom, fortifying our democracy at home, so it is once again an example of effective governance where principled compromises are routinely achieved, the rule of law is adhered to, and positive citizen participation is widespread is essential. This begins with ensuring no repetition of the attempted coup by the former president who used all and any means at his disposal to cling to power, despite losing the 2020 presidential election decisively and producing no evidence of anywhere near the level of voter fraud or mistakes in vote counting that would have been required to legally overturn the result. This threat remains very much front and center due to Donald Trump’s continuing false insistence that the 2020 election was stolen and his all-out campaign to put allies who would not hesitate to reject legitimate election results in positions of power to do so.
There is some good news on this front, Ukraine has put Mr. Trump and his allies on the often Putin sympathizing “America First’ right at least temporarily on the defensive and emboldened other voices in the Republican party. Former vice-president Mike Pence, for example, in remarks his advisors said were aimed at Trump, told a group of Republican donors over the weekend, “Ask yourself, where would our friends in Eastern Europe be today if they were not in NATO? Where would Russian tanks be today if NATO had not expanded the borders of freedom? “There is no room in this party for apologists for Putin.” In a reference to Mr. Trump’s refusal to stop harping on the 2020 election, Mr. Pence added, “We cannot win by fighting yesterday’s battles, or by re-litigating the past.”
The political room that is opening up in the Republican party to stand up to Trump and others who have flirted with and sometimes outright supported Putin, Prime Minister of Hungary Viktor Orban, and leaders of other hard-right European parties is further widening due to the continuing revelations, document releases and court filings from the House select committee investigating the January 6 insurrection. The work of the committee aided by the broad level of cooperation it is receiving from former Trump Administration officials is completing an unappetizing picture of a former president and a select group of allies refusing to stand up for democracy abroad and undermining it at home.
One of the officials cooperating with the committee, former attorney general William Barr told Lester Holt the anchor of the NBC Nightly News in an interview that aired this weekend that Trump was broadly responsible for January 6: "I do think he was responsible in the broad sense of that word, in that it appears that part of the plan was to send this group up to the Hill,” said Barr. “I think the whole idea was to intimidate Congress. And I think that that was wrong." The former attorney general reiterated that he told Trump that the Justice Department had investigated all his fraud complaints and that there was no merit to them.
As the far-reaching and lawless nature of Mr. Trump’s reckless coup attempt is communicated through televised hearings in late Spring and early Summer, it will likely generate the political momentum needed to win adoption of the reforms to the Electoral Count Act and other needed belt and suspenders to ensure that the peaceful transfer of power returns to being a routine feature of our democracy—something we can once again count on.
This is where we must start to fix the problem; it is only a start, however. The hard work of strengthening our democracy includes: approaching people with whom we may happen to disagree as fellow citizens rather than mortal enemies; seeking the principled compromises that enable progress in solving our problems and make democracies function; reminding ourselves of the values of equality of opportunity and freedom that the overwhelming majority of us support, and learning the skills needed to ferret out disinformation and outright falsehoods, so we can establish the common factual foundation needed to debate productively and reason together.
This is not up to our leaders alone. These are responsibilities we must all assume. If we do, we can realize John Winthrop and Ronald Reagan’s inspiring vision of our nation as a “Shining City on a Hill.” That is the example that will truly light a darkening world, putting autocracy back on its heels where it belongs.
