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American democracy has never really been the brilliant idyll of justice and equality that the country’s presidents have been delighted to try to present.
The founding fathers made sure that only landed white men had the right to vote. Thomas Jefferson formulated the beautiful ideals of the Declaration of Independence while at home on the Monticello slave estate, making sure to personally spank particularly disobedient underage child slaves.
Women have only had the right to vote for 100 years. Blacks in the American South only since 1965, when the Voting Rights Act formally banned the reign of terror that had until now deterred blacks from voting in the southern states.
Many of the controversial methods that the Donald Trump administration and state-level Republicans are now using to make it harder to vote in presidential elections are old.
Yet for the past half century, the American project has been carried out with the common hope that the country, despite a bloody history, can and will improve its democracy. That the United States of America is trying, slowly but surely, to become “a more perfect union,” as Abraham Lincoln and later Barack Obama put it. But in recent years, democracy has not been on the rise in the United States, rather it has regressed radically.
Shortly after the 2016 presidential election, the United States lost its position as a full-fledged democracy, according to Freedom House, which maps democracy globally. In the three years since then, the United States has furiously fallen for most of the criteria used to assess the stability of democracy: independent courts, fair electoral systems, respect for freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, and human rights.
Many of the controversial methods that the Donald Trump administration and statewide Republicans are now using to make it difficult to vote in presidential elections are old. But never before has the United States faced an election in which the incumbent president himself waged an open war against the right to vote and the legitimacy of the election.
On at least 12 occasions, Trump himself has said that he will not accept defeat in the election.
On more than 20 occasions he has threatened or called for violence against dissidents and the media. In the months leading up to the election, he has also urged his voters to vote twice, partly by mail and partly at the polls, which is a federal crime. Trump has also asked his supporters to join local polling stations in simply refusing to count the votes for Joe Biden and the Democrats.
A sign in Pennsylvania urges voters to go vote.
Photo: Mark Makela / AP
Trump’s rhetorical scheme Yet it fades in comparison to the administrative and legal measures that his campaign, in collaboration with GOP colleagues in crucial states, has now taken to reduce turnout in areas where many Democrats live.
Trump and Republicans have already made at least 14 attempts to sue states that have introduced new rules to ease the voting process during the pandemic.
In Florida, Republicans have introduced a controversial obstacle for former prisoners, who now have to pay off all debts in order to vote. In Texas, Republicans have enacted a law that means there is only one ballot box per district. It benefits the countryside, where support for Republicans is strong, but it hurts the big cities, where Democrats are concentrated. State Republicans have also introduced photo identification to vote. They approve a gun license, but not a student ID, which is expected to benefit Trump. They have also introduced a requirement that those wishing to vote by mail must state a good reason for doing so. Being over 65 and citing pandemic concerns as a reason is not approved.
Texas Republicans are now also trying to get Harris County in Houston, the state’s largest Democratic stronghold, to cast 100,000 mail-in ballots due to a legal technicality.
Voters in Georgia are lining up to vote.
Photo: Justin Sullivan / Getty / AFP
In Georgia, polling stations have been systematically closed in big cities and black areas, where Democrats have strong support. As a result, many have had to queue for ten to twelve hours to vote in recent weeks.
Research from the University of Pennsylvania shows that black voters are seven times more likely than whites to queue for more than an hour to vote.
In Nevada, Republicans are trying stopping hundreds of thousands of postal and remote ballots in Las Vegas, where Democrats are strong, on the pretext that they want to check ballot signatures.
In Wisconsin, Republicans have closed most polling places in black metropolitan areas. They have also managed to prevent mail-in votes from being counted after Election Day. Even in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Minnesota, and Michigan, Republicans and the Trump campaign are working together to the end to stop similar rules.
Conservative courts, often with directly appointed judges by Trump, he has generally passed controversial Republican election laws, though civil rights groups believe they are open attempts to prevent voter participation.
According to voting rights expert Ari Berman, Trump-appointed judges have voted with Republicans in 21 of the 25 ballot law cases that have hit the courts so far this fall.
“Vote” is written on a painting in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where there are many signs that the legal battle for votes will be fiercer.
Photo: Amy Harris / TT
There are many signs that the legal battle will be fiercer in Pennsylvania. Trump knows that he must win in state to have a reasonable chance of remaining in office and thus a frantic fight to prevent mail-in votes, where Democrats are expected to be overrepresented, from being counted after the day of the elections. If Trump is successful, the state may well decide in his favor.
“Donald Trump is not campaigning against Joe Biden, but against the presidential election itself,” writes Simon Schama in the Financial Times.
Finally, the risk of violence is high and far-right terrorism on election day and during the legal battles that may await afterward. Although US intelligence has for many years warned that right-wing extremism is the biggest internal threat in the United States, Trump has encouraged and defended right-wing extremists ahead of elections, often with clear signals for specific militia groups.
Read more: Well-organized right-wing extremist groups want to create chaos during elections
Support for violence against Democrats has risen among Trump supporters as their opinion polls have fallen, according to political scientist Larry Bartels of Vanderbilt University. It recently showed that 74 percent of Republicans say they no longer trust the legitimacy of elections, while 51 percent say it is reasonable to “use force” to protect political values.
Read More: Lead Trump’s Far-Right Supporters in the Proud Boys
This weekend, Joe Biden’s campaign was forced to cancel two events in Texas after the campaign bus was chased by a caravan of armed Trump supporters attempting to drag them off the road.
Read more: Trump supporters surrounded Bidenbuss: election rallies canceled
In North Carolina, a peaceful gathering was attacked voters who marched together to a polling station this weekend with tear gas from the police. The district sheriff is a known Trump supporter. According to the local Raleigh News & Observer newspaper, many families with children were affected and a five-year-old boy and an eleven-year-old boy were seen vomiting after the police tear gas attack.
If there is a ray of light before the elections, it is that the United States is better prepared for unrest than in previous elections.
Historian Timothy Snyder, who spent four years warning about the authoritarian direction of the United States, says in a recent interview with Die Zeit that he no longer feels alone when expressing his concern about threats to democracy in the United States.
– It will be chaotic for a while, but in the end it will not be possible to stop the will of the people, says Snyder.
