Last week’s marking of the January 6, 2021 insurrection in the US reminded us that democratic values in that country, and in so many other others, remain fragile.
Many law enforcement officers responsible for defending Capitol security are still traumatised by the attack incited by former president Donald Trump. More than 150 police officers were wounded and four rioters were killed. One police officer died of a stroke after responding to the riot and several more died by suicide in the ensuing weeks.
The human cost was shocking enough and great efforts were made over the last year to beef up security on Capitol Hill.
That was by far the less complicated part of ensuring democracy will prevail. The unfinished and most challenging task is to convince the vast majority of US citizens that democratic values need to be strengthened so that there will not be a repeat of what happened in 2021. The signs so far are not good.
Various polls show voters are still sharply divided over who is to blame for the siege. A Washington Post-University of Maryland survey showed that 40 per cent of Republicans say it is “justified” in some cases for citizens to take “violent action against the government”, compared with 23 per cent of Democrats.
In a democracy, citizens act on how they perceive the government is performing by casting their votes at election time. Taking up arms to overthrow a legitimately elected government is the antithesis of democracy.
President Joe Biden has so far failed to persuade voters to reject Trump’s brand of Republicanism. Many US political analysts argue that the recent polling reflects the entrenched partisanship in American politics. They also believe that this political polarisation is partly the result of media outlets that have allowed right-wing voters to believe false claims about the Capitol riots. Senior Republican lawmakers initially blamed Trump for the riots. They later reverted to publicly supporting the former president and are focused on winning as many congressional seats as possible in the mid-term election in November.
The Democrats have resorted to discussing the attack on democracy in a congressional committee investigating the attack.
Matt Bennet, of Third Way, a non-profit political organisation, has criticised the Democrat lawmakers for the slow pace of concluding the riot investigations. He argued: “They proceed as if they are a court of law and not a court of public opinion.” The wheels of criminal justice often turn too slowly and fragile democratic values can be damaged in the process.
Discussion on the threats to democracy often sound nebulous and of little interest to most ordinary citizens who want to get on with their daily challenges. US political leaders, as all political leaders in a democracy, must not neglect the bread-and-butter issues that win elections. The Biden administration’s best chance of ensuring that the January 6, 2021 riots do not happen again is to make the lives of all Americans better.
Admittedly, this is easier said than done in a scenario where former president Trump and many in his Republican party focus on increasing their power in the mid-term elections and winning the presidency in 2024.
Valid democratic values can only be embedded in peoples’ beliefs when they feel that their leaders are indeed working to promote their prosperity.
One year on from the Capitol riots that shocked the democratic world, that world must not fall into complacency. It must be ever vigilant to threats to the values of Western liberal democracy posed by political extremists preying on people’s dissatisfactions.