Mourning America
In the fall of 2023, I went to a conference in Washington D.C. While I was there, I visited Congress, the Supreme Court, and (at a distance) the White House. I told my long-suffering spouse we were doing this so I would have pictures for the slides when I taught my Intro students about the separation of powers and political institutions. But really, I think I was there to say goodbye.
American democracy is like an old friend. Imperfect. Deeply flawed, even. But with noble intentions and a history of self-correction when it strayed too far from its ambitious origins.
This old friend has been fighting off a terrible disease for years now. It went into remission for four years. But today feels like the day we acknowledge its demise. The Trump administration has defied the courts. Trump took to social media in the middle of the night to claim that Biden’s pardons were invalid, opening the door to prosecuting his political enemies. Symbolically, the Voice of America has fallen silent.
On the slides where I use those pictures, I quote from Federalist 51: “If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.” For over 200 years, the design worked. Now, the self-control has been lost. Congress has decided to hand over its authority to the executive branch.
Perhaps the patient can rally. Perhaps the 2026 midterm elections will still be free and fair enough to check Trump. But what would make us believe he would accept these constraints on his kingly authority?
As Canadians contemplate how to navigate our new circumstances, we must start by understanding that America is no longer a functioning democracy. The rule of law can no longer be taken for granted. We are not riding out four difficult years. Our old friend is, in all likelihood, gone.
It’s difficult to internalize this idea. Our assumptions about how Americans will respond to Trump’s actions assume a functioning democracy. They assume the President is constrained by public opinion, or by the stock market, or by elected officials from his own party. It appears that those assumptions no longer hold.
For the foreseeable future, Canada’s politics will be focused on the urgent question of how we should respond to the challenge this poses for us. But for today, I’m simply leaning into sadness for a lost friend and the many people whose lives have already been disrupted by America’s new authoritarianism.
Postscript: On a happier note, this story about the Marine Corps Band alumni reminded me of the fundamental decency of so many Americans.
I studied in Massachusetts as a girl...and have to say. There have always been two Americas.
The first is the America of the people......where politics are not concerned they are hospitable, friendly and sometimes even informed.
But when it comes to American government, many pundits, Noam Chomsky among them, would likely argue that corporate capitalism has been in the saddle forever. Witness the difficulty they have even imagining single payer health care. Understand why the shooting of that Health insurance CEO generated so much sympathy........for the gunman.
And when it comes to foreign policy, anyone arguing that the support Regan or democrats before him gave the contras in Nicaragua, or the death squads in El Salvador was democratic.......let alone a humanitarian foreign policy......would have to be ignorant of the real reasons so many poor people attempt to cross into America from Latin America tofday.
Domestically America has been mostly a good place to live....though poverty is deeper than most Canadians realize. But as a global force on the planet, Americans haven't stood for self determination or social justice for at least 50 years.
I studied in the states during the Vietnam years. I know the price both countries paid for what Americans are pleased to call democracy. Imperial empires seldom practice that form of government. They do work hard to keep that truth from the electorate.
It seems that you and Timothy Snyder have sounded the death knell for American democracy here on Substack today. That the President has defied the last branch of the executive that is tasked with holding him in check is chilling but it is no longer surprising as he’s proved without doubt that he has no respect for rules based order, for laws not of his own making, for the sovereignty or integrity of other nations or cultures. Feels more like the final crash of a slow train wreck - you see it coming and try to look away but when you the hear the crash you wince and come to the awful realization that the worst has happened. This is the worst that was predicted for America since his first term, and certainly since the Jan 6th attack on the White House. There were so many signs and so many paths were cleared thanks to social media algorithms that favour hate and made it possible for bad actors to exploit the ignorance of populations that favoured entertainment over information. So to quote your very timely title ….what now? For Canada? For the EU? What is the rest of the world going to do in response to this latest act that has mortally wounded if not ended the world’s largest liberal democracy? Sanctions? What can the rest of the free world do to hold this regime to account? And what happens when the US realizes they really do need our resources, our energy and our water?