250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence: U.S. democracy under pressure

00:00:02: America's semi-quincentennial, marking two hundred and fifty years since the Declaration of Independence gives pause to reflect on The State Of A Nation that appears to be anything but united by an increasingly unpopular and erratic president who appears intent on hijacking the anniversary to promote MAGA, Christian nationalism...and well himself.

00:00:24: You're listening to the latest podcast from the German Institute for International Security Affairs or SWP For Short here in Berlin.

00:00:31: In today's episode, we'll ask why America's system of checks and balances is malfunctioning.

00:00:37: And what MAGAs foreign-and domestic policies mean for the rest of world – not least Europe?

00:00:45: I'm your host Esmeen Akhalsan to discuss The State Of The Republic.

00:00:49: I am joined by SWP's very own Johannes Tim and Zasha Lawman.

00:00:54: Zasha lawman research focuses on the domestic conditions foreign policy and on international sanctions.

00:01:02: Sasha, welcome to the SWP studio.

00:01:04: Thanks for having me.

00:01:05: Good to see you here.

00:01:05: And Johannes Tim's research also looks at how domestic politics impact US foreign policy How it interplays with international organizations and America's relationship With International Law.

00:01:17: Johannes Thank You For Being Here Today.

00:01:21: So for The President anniversary appears to be more about garish ballrooms and commercial cage fights than about the state of the nation.

00:01:31: What are we to make this?

00:01:32: And is any of it actually strategy,

00:01:35: Sasha?"?

00:01:36: Well if there were any strategies in ongoing celebrations I would describe as revisionism.

00:01:43: So what do i mean by revisionism ?

00:01:45: I think its a redefinition For example, the discovery—the so-called Discovery of the Americas by Christopher Columbus but also The Civil War and The Civil Rights Era.

00:01:56: But it's also a rehabilitation of key figures such as Confederate military generals President Andrew Jackson And also neglecting certain leaders for example after civil rights movement.

00:02:09: It also consists of a recasting of central concepts, such as freedom of speech or separation of church and state.

00:02:17: And I think it's also rewriting foundational narratives on U.S.

00:02:21: national identity.

00:02:23: Here the privileging of certain attributes – being white, Christian, male or socially conservative which is key markers for the Marga movement.

00:02:35: So quite a lot more strategy than first meets the eye.

00:02:37: Johannes, what's your take?

00:02:39: Well I see the festivities in the context of Trump trying to build his own legacy.

00:02:46: we saw that he wants to erect a lot of monuments to himself and Washington DC.

00:02:52: for me The UFC championship on the White House lawn ties right into this And it's really remarkable That Donald trump doesn't seem to care about Policy very much anymore even in the domestic context, but he spends a lot of time talking about these what I would call vanity projects or ego project to cement his own legacy.

00:03:15: To satisfy his own itch off making a legacy for himself and is really neglecting even domestic politics which isn't playing very well with public.

00:03:28: How would you say that there's at least a parent lack of strategy actually impact policy and certainly all this legacy making, vanity projects?

00:03:38: Sasha perhaps you could start with how it impacts US foreign policy.

00:03:42: It is the thing some have hoped Trump second term would be transformative also shape many conflicts around world in more positive fashion.

00:03:54: But as it turned out, I think a shape much of those conflicts in more negative fashion.

00:03:59: And I think Iran is the latest example of that.

00:04:04: we saw the MOU The Memorandum Of Understanding.

00:04:07: It's a fourteen paragraph framework agreement based on certain points That US and Iranian side agreed to negotiate In the next sixty days.

00:04:17: but if you look at how this Agreement came into place You saw lot key characteristics of how Trump's personality impacted U.S.

00:04:25: foreign policy, and overall I think it is a heavy reliance on coercive tactics including the use of military force.

00:04:31: It also a blatant disregard for international law Including the user-force, prohibition on the user force Including freedom navigation and innocent passage And i think this an example peculiar erratic style of foreign policymaking has actually made the world less secure because US foreign policy has become much more unpredictable and erratic as a result.

00:04:58: Johannes, what about strategy on a domestic front?

00:05:02: or you know if they apparent lack of it?

00:05:05: How is that impacting domestic policy?

00:05:08: Well, the puzzling observation Trump is behaving at the moment in a way that really doesn't help the Republicans, it really does not help his own party.

00:05:19: When President Trump started to second term he was quite well prepared and comparison with this first term behaved quite purposefully.

00:05:30: We might not have agreed with the direction of policy, but they were actually very strategic about implementing certain parts.

00:05:39: He can implement his will, so to speak.

00:05:46: And now he's doing a lot of things which really hurt the Republicans' chances in the midterm elections—he is supporting extreme candidates and the primaries.

00:05:57: some of the incumbents who would have better chance at winning than general election after primaries are getting kicked out.

00:06:04: He's forcing this party to vote on very unpopular votes.

00:06:09: So one example eight billion dollar slash fund that Trump wanted Congress to pass, be able pay out his allies for what he called the weaponization of justice department against them which is really unpopular.

00:06:24: Other examples are of course ballroom and even legislation like expansion or authorization to conduct surveillance for intelligence agencies as being hampered

00:06:37: by

00:06:38: certain poison pills that Trump wants to put into that legislation.

00:06:42: So he cares more about his own vanity projects than he cares about good policy, and he cares much about its own legacy.

00:06:51: then he cares the chances of his party in next election.

00:06:55: Well, it's not just Trump making the semi-quincentennial all about himself.

00:07:00: The media fixates on him – we're talking about him and he is afterall the president.

00:07:06: but in a context of two hundred fifty years of American independence are there signs that todays programs actually result from something which started prior to Trump?

00:07:17: To what extent?

00:07:17: this is also about MAGA ideology?

00:07:21: Well, I think he optimizes a trend that has started in the nineteen sixties with respect to the radicalization of The Republican Party but it's also a trend.

00:07:31: That has been there ever since the establishment Of the Republic and even the Declaration of Independence because i mean the promise In this declaration of independence of equality Has never been fully fulfilled?

00:07:44: And the struggle To make progress on that promise has been met repeatedly by really powerful backlash movements.

00:07:52: And I think the Maga movement is just a latest example of this backlash, and it also is separate and distinct from previous backlash movements in respect to its ability influence political events and its access to the levers of power.

00:08:12: So I think this nation, and Samuel Huntington wrote his book in two thousand four on who are we?

00:08:17: is an example off how does nations still struggles to define it's identity?

00:08:22: And what kind of political community It should be.

00:08:26: And Maga Is now taking advantage Of

00:08:28: that.

00:08:29: Its one side and it's One answer.

00:08:31: It's a white Christian male Christian religious movement but We don't really see The other America in these times.

00:08:40: and then the celebrations and festivities.

00:08:42: But it's still there, but not at power right

00:08:45: now.".

00:08:45: We'll come to other alternatives a little bit later.

00:08:48: Johannes, what institutional changes have enabled such concentration of chief executive power?

00:08:58: We have been talking a lot lately about the erosion of democracy, of democratic norms.

00:09:03: About Trump's authoritarian tendencies... ...about the concentration on power in the White House.

00:09:10: and all these developments didn't start with Trump.

00:09:14: basically throughout the twentieth century The balance off-power system has shifted towards the executive.

00:09:23: Some call this the imperial presidency.

00:09:26: This development was started mostly by external crises, mainly World War I and II necessitated the executive office becoming bigger.

00:09:36: Becoming more powerful.

00:09:38: this continued throughout the Cold War—the war on terror.

00:09:43: And under Trump we really have reached a new climax in a sense that he doesn't want to be restrained or restricted by other institutions in any way whenever he can.

00:10:00: And what he's implementing now has been a strain in the Conservative Party basically since the beginning of the nineteen eighties, in the nineteen-eighties conservative lawyers and theoreticians started arguing that we really need a unified executive that the executive is really more important than other two branches of government.

00:10:26: That's now being implemented, but as I said Trump has a new climax in this long development and it didn't begin with him?

00:10:34: Well...as you say..it doesn't end with Trump....I'm guessing not!

00:10:40: What

00:10:40: next?!

00:10:42: And are hard-liners simply waiting on the wings?

00:10:45: Trump just turned eighty.

00:10:47: And what chances do the Democrats have?

00:10:50: or even the Republicans have of changing this current course,

00:10:56: Sascha?

00:10:57: Yeah.

00:10:57: Maybe uh... The first part of your question.

00:10:59: first I think Trumpism will outlive Trump.

00:11:03: so also when he exits the political stage his ideas and the ideology we talked about-the backlash will stay.

00:11:10: His successor is almost already chosen, JD Vance.

00:11:15: It depends a little bit on how he performs now with the Iran deal negotiations I guess but still here's new leader of this populist ethno-nationalists white Christian movement so to speak and also i think that damage has been done.

00:11:29: Johannes talked about institutions also a certain amount of elite restraint that the Constitution actually enables to function.

00:11:42: That elites kind of not put too much pressure on these areas, the gray areas off the constitution where political agreement and political collaboration is much more important than just legal

00:11:54: clarification.".

00:11:57: In this respect I think The roots of partisan polarization are still there and whoever follows him will have the choice, but I am less optimistic that unity or bipartisanship would somehow return.

00:12:12: This is exacerbated by institutional dysfunction.

00:12:18: so it's going to be really hard to reverse this trend.

00:12:23: Johannes, I mean Zasha has just alluded to Vance of course.

00:12:27: Maybe you can also talk a little bit more about what one could expect in Vance advancing Trumpism as it were?

00:12:35: Well we don't know very much about JD Vance yet and how he would behave but i have a hunch that He Would Be More Strategic Than Donald Trump Is Now.

00:12:44: And As Zasha Alluded To...He Really is an ideological hardline!

00:12:50: He's More Ideological & More Consistent than Donald Trump is when it comes to that.

00:12:55: But I would reiterate what Sascha already alluded to, the fact that repairing democratic institutions, reconstituting democratic norms also the trust between political actors not seeing political competitors as enemies but as competitors in the game of democracy... That will be really hard And that will take a long time, even in the best case scenario.

00:13:22: So if the next president doesn't come from Trump's circle—if he or she is a Democrat or as Republican which follows different trajectory —which was very unlikely but….

00:13:37: Even then repairing American democracy isn't just question for the next President... But would be generational project!

00:13:45: And you talk about trust, and I think another aspect of this that we've not touched upon is actually communication.

00:13:52: And debate in your neighbors who are Democrats for instance?

00:13:56: Who know their next-door neighbor's voted for Trump maybe have just agreed to not talk politics.

00:14:03: To what extent Is That Actually Hindering the kind of institutional democratic repairs You're Talking About?

00:14:11: We Have to Keep a Mind.

00:14:14: the majority of Americans still don't really care too much about politics.

00:14:21: And in a sense, that's a good thing because they are somewhat immune to this grave polarization and these cultural battles—they just want to live their lives.

00:14:33: Looking from outside if you follow German media coverage or even part bubble you tend to exaggerate how pervasive this polarization is.

00:14:44: So I do think there's still hope that they can be unifying force in the country, it won't happen overnight and their lot of preconditions This not a given but its possibility That There Can Be A Process Of Healing.

00:14:57: so To Speak If You Want To Be

00:14:59: Healing The Body Politics

00:15:01: That They Can Be a Process Of Healing Of Returning To More Civilized Political Discourse.

00:15:08: But Thats Only The people fight for it if the majority of Americans get on board.

00:15:15: Sasha, are you as optimistic as Johannes?

00:15:17: I'm sensing a little bit of optimism in Johannes's response there when he says healing and finding your way to enliven and really give some oxygen to democracy again.

00:15:30: Yeah i mean the healing could happen.

00:15:32: And this other America that we don't see right now is silenced because its not Happening in Congress much.

00:15:40: It's not on the White House certainly, and it also only partly in the courts.

00:15:45: I think this America still has to potential To advance This idea enshrined In The Declaration of Independence that all are created equal somehow And life?

00:15:55: And the pursuit of happiness for alright.

00:15:57: But i mean so far we talked a lot about the obstacles but I Think the Potential For healing is there and it just needs to show up at the elections and it Also Needs to And I think Obama did this and tried to do it.

00:16:11: It also needs to cope with these tendencies of backlash in society against emancipatory movements, right?

00:16:19: This is like the central dilemma about how to advance a liberal society while taking everybody on board but not alienating one over

00:16:27: another.".

00:16:29: The US has been through tough times before.

00:16:39: really polarized, as polarized as it is now.

00:16:41: And we had high political violence and the country recovered from that.

00:16:46: then there was a new era of progress after

00:16:49: that.".

00:16:51: This absolutely not a given?

00:16:54: I think we should not draw either conclusion from history so can't be sure US democracy done over with might still recover but also draw opposite conclusions.

00:17:05: in fact U.S has always recovered before doesn't mean that it's guaranteed to recover again.

00:17:12: So history is made by humans and really depends on how people behave, not just politicians but society as a whole.

00:17:22: Okay so all eyes in the midterms.

00:17:24: first of all I'm guessing Broadening out.

00:17:29: finally what does Europe need to do differently when it comes to America?

00:17:35: When it come to transatlantic relations?

00:17:39: Should European policymakers and European leaders change their current strategy?

00:17:45: Have they caught up with what's going on,

00:17:46: Sasha?"?

00:17:47: Well I think there are two sides to the equation.

00:17:50: We talk a lot about one side which is the material capability site becoming more autonomous in strategic action military economic but also this other side preconditions to really absorb what's happening in the United States and draw conclusions from it.

00:18:10: And I think that title of Thomas Wolff spoke, you can't go home again actually aptly captures this thinking that needs be more widespread among European policy makers.

00:18:20: is that the transatlantic relationship as we have come to know net is kind over there need something else but not only requires material capabilities to act autonomously, but also the immaterial capabilities of realizing these changes and acting accordingly.

00:18:40: And do you think that policy makers leaders again people in Europe are all that far?

00:18:46: Have they had that realization yet?

00:18:49: I mean it's a huge task.

00:18:51: People have come to be socialized into transatlantic relations including me and Johannes.

00:18:56: i think we were part Of The Institutions We studied In The United States.

00:19:00: But for me, I learned to reflect and think critically about the United States which is what we're doing right now.

00:19:07: but i learned it there for the first time.

00:19:09: so this immense potential to foster independent critical thinking still exists even with those elites that have been socialized into this transatlantic community as you know people here in Europe to actually act according to this new transatlantic relationship, I think.

00:19:35: There's a little bit of optimism from Sasha as well, Johannes?

00:19:38: Yeah!

00:19:39: As Sasha mentioned he and i have been socialized into the Transatlantic community if you want to call it that as we empathize with people who really cling concept of good transatlantic relations and the U.S as being a partner in being a centerpiece of European foreign policy, but I really do think this era is over no matter what comes afterwards.

00:20:07: One thing we hear a lot from our counterparts In German government Is that they reassure us or reassure themselves?

00:20:15: That on the working level the relations are still good And then they continue to be good.

00:20:21: I don't want to question that, and i think we should change while it lasts.

00:20:26: But do you think this is not something we can rely on?

00:20:30: That's not an excuse to lean back or hope things will turn out all right but Germany really needs the homework.

00:20:39: everything being talked about in public discourse in terms of becoming more strategically independent autonomous developing own capabilities, but also ideas and policies really needs to happen.

00:20:55: And we can't let up on that.

00:20:58: the sense of urgency certainly needs to stay no matter what the outcome.

00:21:04: Well, in observing European leaders over the past year and a half we've seen to some extent fairly inconsistent approaches.

00:21:13: To Trump on fairly wishy-washy approaches at times.

00:21:17: what would your advice be to leadership?

00:21:19: In Europe

00:21:20: well watching The approach of different world leaders to trump I can only draw the conclusion that the effort to appease him and not anger him, pretty much give in all of his demands hasn't been very successful.

00:21:38: I would argue that leaders like Brazil's President Lula or Canada's Prime Minister Carney have been more successful by standing up to Donald Trump than ones who've basically tried.

00:21:55: Provoke is higher.

00:21:57: he tends to respect people that stand their ground and When it comes to Trump appeasement, there's really not a strategy

00:22:03: Sasha.

00:22:04: Yeah I think maybe to give you a concrete example when the trump administration leveled these allegations about this so-called censorship industrial complex And threatened to impose sanctions on actors That for example have to implement a digital service act To go against hate speech in Europe.

00:22:22: um i think Therefore, Europeans must be able to defend these actors that have been threatened with sanctions and this would require financial channels.

00:22:32: This will require a lot of political will to support them And I think there are many other examples.

00:22:38: but here I think strategic autonomy is really concrete in terms.

00:22:43: it's not only against the United States or without united states But its really able to chart your own course.

00:22:53: So if nothing else, The Cage Fight is a startling wake-up call rather than just another Trumpian quirk.

00:23:00: We will no doubt return to the studio to continue our discussion but for today I'd like to thank our guests Zasha Lawman and Johannes Tim For their shared insight.

00:23:09: you can find links to their latest work and publications in the podcast show notes And If You Like What You Hear you Can Subscribe To Us In The Usual Places Including Spotify & Apple blue sky and on linkedin.

00:23:24: Today's episode was brought to you by our editor Maya Dana, my me your host ,and of course by guests Johannes Tim and Zasha Lawman.

00:23:31: Thank You for tuning in.