JUDITH FEBRUARY: Lessons from the US – and a reminder that democratic degradation doesn’t happen overnight

That was the election that was. Kamala Harris, spirited into a presidential candidacy had 100 days to convince Americans to vote for her. In the end, for a variety of complicated (and perhaps not-so- complicated) reasons, she failed to do so.

There is no doubt that America faces an existential crisis. The traditional checks and balances of the system failed to restrain Trump’s excesses in his first Presidency and the norms and conventions generally adhered to by those in power have mostly fallen by the wayside. As David Axelrod has said, looking back on past presidencies seems almost like an exercise in sepia-toned memory-making, so far has Trump strayed from what would be deemed “normal” or conventional behaviour for a president.

Trump’s Presidency was venal and cruel, his way of governing was a form of constitutional vandalism. Given his suggested Cabinet picks, talk of mass deportation of immigrants and the denial of science about vaccines, it seems Trump 2.0 will be even worse.

To be sure, however, democratic degradation does not happen overnight. Trump, like all populists exploited the complex grievance of his base – mostly white and male – which existed long before he came along. This time around he also had a broader appeal across race groups, something which provides food for thought.

Populists like Trump don’t do complexity: MAGA is easy to remember, after all, and cloaked in the language not only of grievance but of God, the result is a toxic mix. As writer Masha Gessen says in her book, Surviving Autocracy, Trump has also cunningly used a Putinesque playbook specifically when it comes to weaponising language to create an alternative reality. He’s also had help from information and algorithm manipulators like Elon Musk.

The distracting and destructive impact is clear when Gessen concludes, “We can’t do politics if we can’t talk to one another. We can’t talk politics if we don’t inhabit a shared reality. We can’t have politics if we can’t agree on what we’re living through, because then we can’t discuss how we’re going to be living together tomorrow, which is what politics is.”

Gessen goes on to lay down the future challenge when, in an interview with Vox, she says, “But we also have some incredible damage done to political culture and political language. There will have to [be] real institutional repair and a total reinvention of how we think American democracy is represented institutionally.”

Gessen’s message is not only for the US, however. As we look on in dismay at what is happening in the US, democrats around the world would do well to heed the lessons provided by the degradation of that democracy for the impact of Trump revisited will be felt globally.

It matters who is in the Oval Office for all sorts of reasons, which are obvious given America’s global power. China and Russia, in an environment of four more years of Trumpian instability, will seek to use even more of their “sharp power” than before. The implications of that for the world should cause us all to pay attention.

So, what lessons are to be drawn specifically in our South African context, so different and yet experiencing democratic degradation of its kind?

Firstly, it is that democratic progress is not inevitable. All democracies can experience regression. In South Africa, we know regression only too well.

In Roosevelt’s inaugural address of 1933 made during the depths of the Great Depression, he said clearly: “We do not distrust the future of essential democracy.”

In South Africa, with our strange animal, the GNU (Government of National Unity), we have come to learn after a decade of state capture and a Jacob Zuma Presidency, awash with corruption and constitutional vandalism of its kind, that democratic institutions can be hollowed out if we do not take care to protect and defend the Constitution and the institutions themselves.

As we slowly repurpose our institutions, it is an opportune moment to consider afresh our Constitution, the document our Founding Fathers and Mothers intended as our lodestar. It may have faults but it is in essence aspirational, transformational and provides a broad framework for bringing about socioeconomic equality. Our Constitution is clear about the kind of State we are seeking to build, that is, “a multi-party system of democratic government, to ensure accountability, responsiveness and openness”.

But, any Constitution can only be as effective as the men and women who are charged with implementing the country’s rules, as well as creating the culture of accountability the Constitution demands.

In many aspects, we have failed, but in many ways, South Africa is a cacophonous, lively democracy. Ours is a country ill at ease with itself, with its social contract (such as it ever was) straining at the seams.

The noise can be unhelpful and unproductive. Finding constructive ways to mediate public life is the only way in which we will be able to confront our present challenges and deal with our haunting past.

So, if democracy requires responsiveness, then perhaps we would do well to focus too on constitutional education and building a culture of accountability. The latter means there are consequences for the powerful if their actions violate constitutional conventions and the law. The Constitution demands this, and giving life to such accountability is the next frontier in the work of breathing life into our tired democracy.

It is often unfashionable to call for leadership, as it can be viewed as citizens abdicating responsibilities to men and women who “know better”, but what we know is that where there is a lack of leadership or there is destructive leadership, it has deep consequences for the future of democracy itself.

When former president Nelson Mandela was called to testify in court on whether he had “applied his mind” when setting up a commission of inquiry into SA Rugby, many were outraged that Mandela, so revered, was called to testify.

Yet he did so without complaint. That Mandela was prepared to place himself in such a position of scrutiny was a singular act of leadership. It not only showed his commitment to the rule of law and the Constitution but was also a visible reminder that no one – not even the President – is above the law.

South Africa also needs even more active citizens who do the work of democracy wherever they find themselves. John Lewis’s reminder before his death is as true for the US as it is for South Africa when he wrote: “Democracy is not a state. It is an act, and each generation must do its part to help build what we called the Beloved Community, a nation and world society at peace with itself.”

Those mostly quiet acts go on every day in our country despite the excesses of government and oft-pervasive corruption. They are a response to circumstances and necessity often in the most creative of ways. The building Lewis talks about also requires thoughtfulness on each of our parts – how and when do we respond to what we see around us?

Democracy, after all, is work – and it is the work of every generation to build not tear down. In South Africa, this has a particular resonance.

Let us not squander the everyday opportunities to mend that which has been broken and create a more just society – and above all, as Steve Biko said, to remake a South Africa with “a more human face”