Straight Talk | Of Trump, Guns and Democracy: The US Has No Right to Preach to the World

Why the US is in No Position to Lecture the World on Democracy

Who is safe in the United States of America? Certainly not school children. People going about their day-to-day lives are not safe either. They can find themselves at the receiving end of a gun, whether they are in shopping malls, public gatherings and celebrations, or even places of worship. The shocking assassination attempt on Donald Trump has once again brought to the fore the crisis staring the

United States in the eye. With guns and ammunition available as easily as candy, going on a killing spree in America is, frankly, a child’s play.

That is what the world witnessed with 20-year-old Thomas Mathew Crooks climbing up a roof near Donald Trump’s rally venue in Pennsylvania and subsequently taking his shot at the former president with relative ease. What does that prove? That even presidents are not safe in the United States. To date, seven American presidents have either been assassinated or survived an attempt on their life. Interestingly, six of these presidents were Republicans.

That brings me to a larger point. Should a country which can keep neither its children nor presidents safe have the moral authority to preach democracy to the world? The answer is as clear as day. The US has lost all rights to go about lecturing the developing world about how their democracies should function. This is not a right the US has lost recently, in fact, it never really had the right to begin with. It was simply a luxury that Washington accorded itself, on the back of its economic and military might as well as its control over global institutions. Now that its own society is being torn at the seams, the need for America to embark on inward soul-searching has never been greater.

Perhaps if the US spent less time focusing on the state of democracy around the world and acted diligently to fix its own system, it would not have become a butt of jokes globally. There is no denying that the US has become a shadow of its former self in recent years – a trend which has only been catalysed by a president who the world knows is in rapid cognitive decline.

The political atmosphere of the United States has been vitiated beyond measure. There are no longer rivals in American politics. Instead, there are only enemies. This is why when news of Trump being shot at first emerged, a sea of Democrat supporters and liberals were quick to label the incident as “staged”. Many even joked about how it was unfortunate that the shooter missed, or that Trump slightly tilted his head, thereby saving his own life. This is the same crowd that has for years likened Trump to Hitler and other dictators, while accusing his supporters of taking America down the path of fascism. The worst part is that the top leaders of the Democratic party are guilty of engaging in such reckless and alarmist rhetoric.

When influential leaders begin actively fanning such alarmist rhetoric, it hardly comes as a surprise that a hot-blooded man takes matters into his own hands, as Thomas Mathew Crooks did by attempting to kill Donald Trump in broad daylight. While his motive may never be known, it is likely he thought he was shooting Trump to save American democracy. This is among the many perils of political parties and leaders abdicating their responsibility of engaging in civil, issue-based rhetoric and instead labelling their rivals as enemies of democracy and the Constitution.

Such reckless talk goes a long way in inciting violence and bringing nations very close to a civil war. After all, if the bullet had indeed taken Trump’s life, the United States would likely find itself engulfed in a kind of violence not seen since the 1860s.

Wither American Democracy?

For all of the United States’ moral grandstanding on the topic of democracy, its own record of late has been highly blemished. Not only has there been an open and rather brazen attempt to prevent Donald Trump from contesting the presidential election, but some Democrat-ruled states even went to the extent of removing Trump from the primary ballot. This push was rightfully nipped in the bud by the US Supreme Court, but it did lay bare how a country which champions the cause of democracy globally has been betraying democratic values rather comfortably back home. Joe Biden’s comment about putting Donald Trump in the “bullseye” is just one example of this mindset.

Besides, a salvo of legal cases has been fired at Trump by the Department of Justice (DOJ) over the past one year. Does the timing of it all seem suspect? Of course, it does, because it is aimed at convincing Americans that Trump remains a man on trial, accused of various criminalities. From the FBI’s raid of his Mar-a-Lago residence to a judge on Monday dismissing the classified documents case in toto, the effort to paint Trump as a man who steals state secrets has suffered a devastating blow. Perhaps this blow has come due to the fact that the DOJ’s case was always standing on shaky ground.

Without the Supreme Court’s intervention, in which it said that Trump was immune to prosecution for acts committed while he was president, the Biden-run DOJ would have probably found a way to nail the Republican nominee before the November polls.

Read More: Why Donald Trump Remains the Strongest Republican in America

Then there is the question of the assassination attempt itself. Obviously, there were lapses on the part of the Secret Service and local law enforcement, with reports now even suggesting that the shooter was first seen in the vicinity a grand 30 minutes before he pulled the trigger from the rooftop. Was this a lone-wolf attack, or is there a larger ploy to prevent Donald Trump from becoming president again? Given the state of American democracy, this question should hardly be taboo.

What about guns, then? Will the assassination attempt on Trump finally force the United States to behave as a democracy, where guns are not as easily available as toys? The chances of this happening are slim. Guns are deified in the US by a vast section of the populace. The National Rifle Association (NRA) would rather see innocents die and presidents shot at than take one step in the right direction and support gun control. In a country where gun culture is celebrated, one should hardly be surprised if violence becomes the order of the day.

Can such a country be a “model democracy” for the world? Obviously not. As such, it has no right to sermonise the world, especially countries in the Global South of their democratic responsibilities. Washington will be well advised to get its own house in order before it goes about telling the world how to live and govern.

Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.