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[Christian Davenport]

Trump, The Times and the Missing Scholars of American Contention/Democratic Subversion

10/23/2016

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It continues.  The same New York Times author (Max Fisher) that gave us "Trump's Threat to Jail Clinton Also Targets Democracy's Institutions" (with Amanda Taub) tries again to understand/shed light on the Trump candidacy and its impact on American Democracy.  Toward this end, they consult some high-quality political scientists (e.g., Steven Levitsky, Sheri Berman and Brendan Nyhan).  This is the good part. 

The spin (now meme) is an interesting continuation of the one discussed last week.  This is the bad part.  The author continues to try to make the case that Trump's candidacy evokes images of authoritarian and weak democracies in other countries.  For example, Fisher makes the point that Trump is using a page from the "dictator's playbook" blaming a potential loss on fraud which not only identifies democracy as being flawed but also that there are "shadowy forces" out there that are running the show.  

I argue that this framing (while entertaining and should be pursued to better contextualize American politics) ignores problems of American democracy and authoritarianism.  Yes, I mention American authoritarianism because one of the most problematic assumptions being made in not only the Fisher article but many articles coming out now is the unchallenged point the America is and has been a democracy.  This is actually a contested point, something that Ralph Bunche's The Political Status of the Negro in the Age of FDR, Kim Hill's Democracy in the Fifty States and (my colleague) Robert Mickey's book Paths Out of Dixie: The Democratization of Authoritarian Enclaves in America's Deep South, 1944-1972 reveal quite clearly.  Actually, if you consider the various definitions of democracy with something that could serve as a good start to the conversation - the Varieties of Democracy project you see that the democraticness of US is highly variable.  No need to look abroad (at least not exclusively), we have had plenty of authoritarianism right here.  

​I was thus taken aback when Fisher and the Times make the claim that "Mr. Trump, whether he knows it or not, is following a playbook - one that scholars could not recall being used before in modern American politics".  "Well, yes", I thought.  "That would be the case if you ask some comparativists and IR scholars."  One could consult scholars of C. Wright Mills and the early Robert Dahl to ask if there was a belief that some "shadowy force" ruled American politics.  The elite power debate actually dominated much of American political science for a while.  Again, no need to look elsewhere.  Ask Noam Chomsky (him you have heard of) or Bob Avakian (him you might not have heard of).  They would tell you: we got your authoritarianism right here. These two authors/thinkers should be added to the usual suspects being called on by Fisher and the Times.  Or expand to the list of repression and America authors I mentioned in my last blog or found on repression.com.  

The pitfalls of the current spin/meme ignores other work/history as well.  It has been argued that in certain respects American faith in their political system has not really recovered from the subversion of democracy offered by Richard Nixon with Watergate as well as the broader campaign of surveillance/theft/intimidation.  Factor in J. Edgar Hoover and Cointelpro, Oliver North and Irangate, Johnson's solidification of the "War on Crime" along with the mass incarceration/punitiveness that accompanied it and Bush's misleading of the American people in attacking individuals/invading countries that had nothing to do with the 911 terrorist attacks and you begin to wonder about the optimism of Fisher when he notes that "American Democratic norms and institutions are too strong for any one politician to destabilize."  Factor in African American distrust of law enforcement compared to whites and you see that one of the more important foundations upon which the idea of political democracy is built has been significantly weakened.  

Accordingly, I would suggest that we need to have a conversation about how American democracy and Trump-like characters compare to what is taking place abroad.  At the same time, however, we also need a deeper exploration of American democracy and authoritarianism as well as the activities undertaken within it in order to understand where we are as well as where we are going.  

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Trump, Arresting Democracy as well as Scholarship

10/12/2016

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The recent Presidential debate prompted an interesting as well as puzzling article about Trump, repression and democracy.  The piece is interesting because it raises some questions about what is generally believed to happen in a democracy regarding state repression (i.e., it is believed that these government would not resort to the jailing and persecution of political opponents).  In this context, Trumps remarks about imprisoning Clinton seemed a bit out of place.  

Who is consulted on the topic to shed some light (serving as the support for the point of the article)?  This is where things get puzzling.  Evidently unable to fathom that the arrest of political opponents is not likely or possible in a democracy or more specifically in American democracy, the authors of the article (Max Fisher and Amanda Taub) do something curious.  Rather than consult scholars who have investigated when and how democracies engage in state repression (e.g., 
Robert J. Goldstein; Jules Bookoff; Neil Mitchell; myself; Sabine Carey; Will Moore and Courtney Conrad; myself, Will Moore and David Armstrong; Linda Camp Keith and, David Richards), the authors raise the question with scholars more known for authoritarianism and repression (e.g., Adrienne LeBas and Sheri Berman) as well as civil war (e.g., Paul Staniland). Now, I know all of these people and respect them, so that is not the issue.  I suppose that Fisher and Taub had the spin that they wanted to pursue and that is part of the problem - how the media cover political conflict, violence and peace.  

​By making repression seem as if it is not possible or likely within a democracy, the readers of the article are left without the facts of the matter.  For example, Berman maintains that "Our (United States) institutions are strong enough to prevent him (Trump) from doing anything truly horrific."  Well, existing research shows us that political democracy reduces the magnitude of state repression UNLESS a political threat is being confronted (i.e., some behavioral challenge within the territorial jurisdiction under consideration, some challenging/disliked group or some external threat exists ala 911).  The institutions of democracy are not only are weak(er) when threats exist but they can/have been/will be turned against citizens under specific circumstances.  Under the threat of Native American resistance, the US government engaged in genocide at the founding of the nation; under the threat of the Anarchists, the US government engaged in large-scale persecution of various immigrants including beatings, mass arrests, deportation and selective assassination; under the threat of war, the US government engaged in large-scale persecution of individuals of Japanese and German descent through mass arrest and detention; under the threat of Communism, the US government engaged in large-scale persecution of individuals and institutions that purged a whole way of thinking through physical intimidation, political bans, mass arrests and illegal investigations; under the threat of black criminality, the US government engaged in large-scale persecution of individuals and institutions through physical intimidation, harassment, beatings, torture, mass arrests (albeit undertaken in a seemingly uncoordinated manner across time/space), selective assassination and political bans; and, under the threat of terrorism, the US government has engaged in torture, more aggressive protest policing, investigations of questionable legality, restrictions on speech and association, the militarization of law enforcement as well as selective assassination via drones and military invasion abroad.  In addition to this, the American public has little understanding or interest in what takes place within prisons nor with their tax dollars as it relates to policing/intelligence/war.  This is not a context within which democratic institutions are likely to work well.  

What all this suggests is that we do not need to have a discussion about authoritarianism and repression but rather we need to have a discussion about democracy and repression.  Fisher and Taub undermine that effort with their spin.  Indeed, we need to be having more frequent and deeper discussions about perceived threats in the US and hate mongering; we need to have more frequent and deeper discussions about what threats are (e.g., many Americans are afraid of crime even when it is extremely low); and, we need to be having more frequent and deeper discussions about how not only fear is spread through a population but how perceptions of safety, openness and (dare I say) love are diffused.  

Finally, in an effort to assist those in the media that are trying to find people who are relevant to their stories, I wish to again try to get researchers to enter information about what they do on the Conflict Consortium's webpage: http://www.conflictconsortium.com.  go to the first link!
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    Analog - The Anti-Blog

    By "Analog" I am referring to the adjective (i.e., relating to or using signals or information represented by a continuously variable physical quantity such as spatial position or voltage) and not the noun (i.e., a person or thing seen as comparable to another) for I wished to give voice to my thoughts which have come to me in a more or less continuous manner but which do so in a way that is not consistent in content or form. Thus you will see short stories, brief thoughts, haikus, low-kus and even a political cartoon or two. 

    Winner of Best Blog Post for 2014 by International Studies Association

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