What is to be done?
In thirty nine days, the fate of democracy in America will be decided. I hope with positive and decisive outcome. But who knows? Our great leader repeatedly has declared that he may not accept the election results. He even resists making a simple symbolic commitment to the peaceful transfer of power. The stakes are high in the U.S. and far beyond. The global decline and potential fall of democracy, most obviously, includes the U.S.A.. Trump, and his supporters and facilitators daily demonstrate this, posing to democrats the question: “What is to be done?” The correspondents at the Democracy Seminar, our world wide effort to promote a broad dialogue among those, left, right, and center, who believe that the defense of democracy is an urgent task, have been considering this classic question, and we will continue to do so in the coming days, weeks and months (see below for some details).
Jeffrey C. Isaac argued in a recent contribution that “Now Is Not the Time to Polemicize Against A Broad Anti-Trump Coalition.” The immediate stimulus for his argument was Samuel Moyn’s New Republic article “The Never Trumpers Have Already Won: They’re not trying to save the GOP from a demagogue. They’re infiltrating the Democratic Party.” Moyn has long questioned the notion that Trump represents a unique challenge to democracy in America, insisting that the real danger is “hysteria about looming tyranny and fascism. ” He believes Trump is a normal politician, and that those who assert otherwise are either dupes or reactionary agents (such as the “never Trumpers” of the Lincoln Project and The Bulwark) working to block a significant progressive future. Isaac, not seeing himself as either a dupe or a devious neo-liberal, concludes his piece with a bold assertion:
“Democracy is on the ballot in November. And polemicizing now against Biden, liberals, or the Democratic party and its supporters, might be an effective form of sectarian virtue signaling, but it does not serve the cause of democracy.”
The debate between Moyn and Isaac has profound and immediate significance for the future of democracy in America, and it repeats itself worldwide. This is revealed in our work in the recent past and is shaping some future plans.
Among our correspondents there is a broad consensus that a new sort of authoritarianism is a global threat, with specific proximate causes to be sure, but global ones as well. Thus while Elżbieta Korolczuk doesn’t deny that there are specific post-communist roots for the ascendance of right wing populism in Central and Eastern Europe, she sees it as a significant manifestation of global neoliberalism and culture wars.
That this threat is exacerbated by the pandemic brings Hungary to the edge of dictatorship, Kim Lane Scheppele warns. This warning is confirmed by Sabine Leutheusser- Schnarrenberger, who sees a regime emerging “with unlimited power for an indefinite period”: “Orbanistan,” as described by Kriszta Kovacs. The accounts our correspondents give are compelling, with implications beyond Hungary: as Slawomir Sierakowski demonstrates: “populists love the pandemic” and are exploiting the crisis to its fullest from Hungary to Poland to the United States and far beyond.
Thus in discussions Elzbieta Matynia and I conducted with Jacek Kucharczyk both before and after Polish Presidential elections, he made essentially the same argument that Isaac made in the American case: all Poles committed to the ideals of a democratic Poland, with friendly relations with a democratic Europe, need to create a united democratic front against the creeping authoritarianism of Poland’s ruling party, PiS, and its autocratic leader, Jarosław Kaczyński. And in a discussion I had with the Warsaw branch of our seminar, chaired by Kucharczyk, I explored with colleagues how the challenges in Poland and the United States were quite similar: in both cases we face a choice between ideological purity and the defense of democracy. They agreed with me that we are “all in the same boat.”
This has clear implications for party politic. It also suggests the need for innovative social movement strategy and what I call “the politics of small things.” In deeply polarized societies, with the polarization constituted and enforced by the prevailing media regime, gestures and strategies that encourage opponents of authoritarians to work together despite their differences and that turn supporters of authoritarians against them, is desperately needed. There is a need for an innovative expressive politics, with reference to the U.S., an expressive antidote to the Trumpist virus, as I have put it. (Robert Ivie has similarly written of “Joe Bidden’s message of healing.”) And with great subtlety Pawel Knut shows a remarkable development in Poland, where LGBTQ activists are engaging with residents of the infamous ‘LGBT-free’ zones of Poland, helping them to deal with the local issues connected to the crisis of Covid -19 and using “the pandemic as an opportunity.”
We will explore this more fully in coming months. We are developing a forum on implications of Isaac’s piece, including correspondents in Latin America, Europe and the United States, and another forum on a remarkable book on the fate of liberal democracy in Poland in a new book edited by Karolina Wigura and Jarosław Kuisz, The End of the Liberal Mind: Poland’s New Politics. This book is notable because its contributors are Polish democrats of the left, right and center, offering alternative but complementary perspectives and insights. The participants in our forum will respond to the text as it applies to the political struggles in Latin America, North America and also around Europe.
More immediately, we have organized two upcoming webinars. Narrating Conflicts in Post-Truth Era: Facing Revisionist Russia - Ukraine and Georgia in comparative perspective,” will be held on Wednesday, October 7th, 2020; 11:00 am – 1:00 pm (EST). And “Populism and democracy,” focused on Nadia Urbinati’s book Me, the People: How Populism Transforms Democracy, will feature Urbinati, Daniel Peres, and others on Friday, October 16th, 2020; 11:00 am – 1:00 pm (EST).
I find it heartening that we are sustaining our world wide committee of democratic correspondence in ways that directly address the major political problems of our times, from multiple perspectives and positions. Really, all democratic positions are more than welcome. And even though I find Isaac’s stance most cogent, I do hope those who find Moyn’s position more compelling join us by responding to the pieces summarized here, taking part in our upcoming events or contributing pieces to the seminar. To do so, please contact us at democracyseminar@newschool.edu.
In solidarity,
Jeff
Jeffrey C. Goldfarb
Michael E. Gellert Professor of Sociology
New School for Social Research
Publisher, www.publicseminar.org,
Chair, Democracy Seminar