So you tear a democracy in 100 days
Since the 1930s, the first hundred days have been seen as a measure of an American president’s power of action. In 1933, Franklin D Roosevelt managed to get through a record number of laws during his first just over three months to lift the United States from the depression. All presidents have been measured against it ever since.
And Donald Trump Has undoubtedly done its best to redo the United States as a country at a furious pace. The difference lies in what he wants, and to some extent already succeeded, achieving.
In « How democracies die », two professors in political science at Harvard, Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt wrote, that democracy is rarely threatened by armed men who take over parliament. Instead, it is the elected leaders who dismantle democratic rights, rage the institutions of civil society and concentrate more and more power on themselves.
Both Trump and Vice President JD Vance have said that courts have no right to control what the president is doing
Exactly that we now see happen in the United States.
That Trump on the first day of President pardoned all those involved in the attack on Capitol on January 6, 2021, including leaders of terrorist groups and people convicted of serious abuse by police, set the tone.
Since then the attacks have Against the rule of law, a blow has come to a blow. Both Trump and Vice President JD Vance have said that courts have no right to check what the president does, and the administration has refused to follow decisions from both the Supreme Court and the judge in lower instances.
Ministry of Justice Have made it clear That one does not believe that the Migration Police, ICE, needs to comply with common laws on permits claims when they penetrate someone’s home in search of suspected illegal immigrants. As can be seen from the deportations to El Salvador, the administration does not consider that the basic democratic right to have its case tried in court is particularly important. That right also tries to access from another direction, through attacks on law firms that have represented as he dislikes.
Research money is withdrawn from studies on everything from climate to maternal mortality, and public museums are ordered to remove exhibition objects that depict American history based on an « wrong ideology ».
It is both an attack on the rule of law and part of a broader onslaught against the entire civil society. The latter is best illustrated by the administration’s war against the university of the United States. Under threat of withdrawn research grants, Trump tries to take power over what is taught in higher education and which researchers and students are adopted. Research money is withdrawn from studies on everything from climate to maternal mortality, and public museums ordered removed Exhibition objects that depict American history based on an « wrong ideology ».
Free media has been attacked through economic threats, politically motivated legal processes and personal attacks. The president also tries to access the democrats’ financing through targeted reviews of alleged foreign grants.
Not because they appear to constitute Some direct threat to Trump’s mechanics. With some exceptions, the party has been the case for the rampant anti -democratic train. It is in other parts of the community that the resistance finds. More than 500 universities Has now signed a joint protest against the administration’s attempt to take power over higher education. Millions Individuals across the country have also repeatedly taken to the streets to protest.
In his book Levitsky and Ziblatt wrote about how democracies are now dismantled so gradually that they still protest is wiped away as exaggerated. Perhaps it is therefore an advantage that Trump has invested so hard on his first hundred days. Everyone can see what happens.
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