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Politics

La Constitution ne sauvera pas la démocratie américaine

Sep 24, 2019 Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson

CAMBRIDGE – Les révélations selon lesquelles un dénonciateur de la communauté du renseignement accuse le Président américain Donald Trump de faire des promesses déplacées à un dirigeant étranger ont ravivé les espoirs récemment attachés au rapport du Conseiller spécial Robert Mueller. Un bon nombre de personnes, exaspérées par la présidence de Trump et par son habitude de transgresser les normes, d'adultérer la vérité et de polariser la société, ont estimé que d'une manière ou d'une autre, le système parviendrait à le punir, à le freiner ou à le révoquer. Tout ce monde s'est bercé de faux espoirs - et continue d'y croire à présent.

La majorité des électeurs qui en ont assez de Trump et du Parti Républicain qui a loyalement accumulé du retard sur lui ne devraient pas compter sur des experts de Washington ou sur un chevalier blanc pour demander des comptes à Trump. C'est la responsabilité de la société, d'abord et avant tout le jour du scrutin et lors de manifestations dans les rues si nécessaire.

L'idée que les États-Unis peuvent être sauvés par des experts de Washington et par la Constitution provient d'un récit commun sur les origines des institutions américaines. Selon ce récit, les Américains doivent leur démocratie et leurs libertés à la conception brillante et prévoyante par les Pères fondateurs d'un système doté de l'équilibre et de la séparation des pouvoirs et d'autres garde-fous.

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Daron Acemoglu

Writing for PS since 2012
62 Commentaries

Daron Acemoglu, Professor of Economics at MIT, is a co-author (with James A. Robinson) of Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty (Profile, 2019) and a co-author (with Simon Johnson) of Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity (PublicAffairs, May 2023).

James A. Robinson

Writing for PS since 2012
8 Commentaries

James A. Robinson, Institute Director of the Pearson Institute for the Study and Resolution of Global Conflicts, is University Professor at the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy. He is the co-author (with Daron Acemoglu) of The Narrow Corridor: States, Societies, and the Fate of Liberty, and Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty.

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j. von Hettlingen Oct 11, 2019

Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson urge voters who can no longer tolerate Trump in office for a second term and his spineless Republicans to unseat him at the ballot box in 2020. If it does not help, they must protest, because they can not count on the Constitution to protect America from his “depredations.”
Although the vast majority of Americans venerate the Constitution and the democratic principles it embodies, there is little hope that “Washington insiders or a “white knight” will hold Trump accountable. Instead, it is the responsibility of the civil society, which “has always been more democratic” than the Framers.
The authors cast doubt about how democratic the US Constitution is. Written in 1787, it reflected the “preconceptions” that laws and institutions were developed to “support a strong, capable state under the control of like-minded rulers…. It did not include a bill of rights and enshrined many non-democratic elements.” America was not founded as a democracy. Leaving out all those unable to vote (slaves, women, men without property in many states), the founders created a republic.
James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and George Washington and others were alarmed by the new freedoms ordinary people gained after Independence. Teem with passions they wanted to have a say and bend the states to their will. This inspired Madision to write, “you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.”
The Framers were wary of direct democracy, and “did not think it was a good idea for people to protest, elect their representatives directly, or become too involved in politics.” They believed “institutional arrangements, including an elite, indirectly-elected Senate, were needed not to protect the people from the federal government, but to protect that government against excessive democratic zeal.”
The authors debunk the narrative that “Americans owe their democracy and freedoms to founders’ brilliant, foresighted design of a system with the right types of checks and balances, separation of powers, and other safeguards.” In their new book, “The Narrow Corridor: States, Societies, and the Fate of Liberty,” they explain how democratic institutions and freedoms come about – they “emerge and are protected by society’s mobilization, its assertiveness, and its willingness to use the ballot box when it can and the streets when it cannot.”
The Shays’s Rebellion, (August 1786–February 1787) in western Massachusetts is an example of what protests could achieve. Armed men forced the closing of several courts to prevent execution of foreclosures and debt processes. In September 1786 Daniel Shays and local leaders led several hundred men in forcing the Supreme Court in Springfield to adjourn. Pursued by the militia, he was decisively defeated. As a result of the rebellion, the state legislature enacted laws easing the economic condition of debtors. Though small in scale and repressed, Shays’s action became a persuasive argument for a stronger and conservative national government, contributing to the movement for the Constitutional Convention.
The authors point out that “democratic rights and liberties have been furthered not so much by the system’s safeguards against excessive democracy or by the Constitution’s brilliant design, but by popular mobilization.” America has a tradition of progressivism, a political and social-reform movement that brought major changes to American politics and government during the first two decades of the 20th century.
Disgusted by the massive inequalities of the Gilded Age, when powerful tycoons, the “robber barons,” came to dominate America’s economy and politics, the first Progressives sought comprehensive reform. Changes to the US Constitution adopted during this period include the introduction of the federal income tax with the 16th Amendment, direct election of senators with the 17th Amendment, and women’s suffrage with the 19th Amendment.
“Likewise, in the 1950s and 1960s, it wasn’t the separation of powers that finally broke the back of legal racism and repression in the US South. It was the work of protesters who organized, disrupted, and built a mass movement that forced federal institutions to act.” The authors say, only a mobilised society can deliver the US from the current turmoil and crisis. They say Robert Mueller’s report has done the country a favour: It does not recommend an impeachment of Trump, but its findings are so devastating that voters, who have a sense of morality must vote him out of office.
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barkeep Oct 4, 2019

Yes! It's fundamental to human nature. Those that want to control will not like democracy. Democracy fundamentally requires prevention of power consolidation. Leadership will never like it.
We are at the end of 50 years of power capture, both market and political. Now it is only authoritarians that are able to consolidate more and thus we have Trump.
As of Oct 2019, the US populace and media is awake to the real threat. However, our energy is only great enough to vote them out of office. Our energy is not great enough for active resistence. Trump and sycophants count on this and will continue to ramp up fear in hopes we will stay in our seats. We may. It's how authoritarian takeovers always work.
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John Sweeney Sep 29, 2019

Oh, swell. Mob rule. That's what turned the Weimar Republic into socialist (i.e. National Socialist) thuggery. With official sponsorship of leftist violence -- in Portland, Oregon, for instance -- we're on the same path.
- John Vaassen Oct 7, 2019
  
  Perhaps it is more a matter of the people being governed by the people for the benefit of the people (many rather than the few).
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ferdinand van Dieten Sep 29, 2019

Yes reform based on grass-root movements is necessary, but it should not be short time against Trump only. What the USA (and the same for the UK) needs is a long process to catch up with revolutions of continental Europe. First reform election system to proportional representation and allow for a multi party system. Then there can be a parliament that is capable of and willing to elaborate a correct system of trias politica and implement it in a real constitution (copy the German one, as is is designed by the USA, UK and France ;-). The rich and powerful are simply to strong in the USA, to force the reforms in a faster way. Revolutions are dreams but for adolescents and other lost people. (so elect Warren not Sanders this time. )
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About Face Sep 29, 2019

Democracy, Constitution, Institutions of government cannot save society from rogue operators. Why? Institutionalised corruption that makes the morally unlawful, lawful. Justice for all in democracy is a cliche, not matched by unequal administration of justice in the eyes of the system that perpetuates such corruption. Revolution, messy though it is, is tough therapy and medication.
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P. Kamath Sep 25, 2019

“...The Constitution will not save American democracy. It never has. Only American society can do that....” The author’s view reflects what is in the mind of tens of millions. The constitution was not written in stone and needs revision and amendment every now and then. A clever politician with his dedicated buddies, followers and stooges can always bend the rules as Trump and his followers has been doing these three years 😁!
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Paul Martin Sep 25, 2019

My gut's feeling tells me that the authors of this article are mistaken. The American society and people could take the party of Donald Trump against the hated élites. Thus, it is true that the constitution is republican, not democratic, and it is also true that there were cases in which the people's opinion and mobilization triggered progressive reforms. However here it is different. The mobilization could be in favour of a Trump and lead to his sounding reelection, and consequently an American form of cesarism.
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Joseph Zorzin Sep 24, 2019

Believe it or not- the majority of Americans don't consider Trump corrupt or criminal.
- P. Kamath Sep 25, 2019
  
  How did you arrive at this conclusion? Did you tap on the shoulders of a large number of Americans and infer these words of wisdom?
  - jmsirko Sep 25, 2019
    
    Trump is only corrupt in the weak minds of corrupt thinking people who are racists or bigots and can't stand someone who tells the truth.
    - P. Kamath Sep 26, 2019
      
      “ POTUS Trump tells the truth”. 😀! Washington Post has compiled a long list of Trump’s lies, misleading the public for the past three years. It runs out to be nearly 10,000 or more!
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