Will the US survive the 2016 election? (II)

Sandy Levinson

Having just returned from a trip abroad that included time in Portugal, the UK, and Israel, my thoughts have very much been directed to the decline of empires.  June 23, of course, will see the vote on Brixet, which has the potential to doom both the United Kingdom (since Scotland would almost certainly exit from the UK should the UK exit from Europe) and the European project that took hold following the devastation of World War II (itself a product of the lunacy of World War I).  My wife and I went back to the British Museum, where my favorite exhibit continues to be the monumental Assyrian sculpture of a thoroughly dead empire, even if more visitors are undoubtedly drawn to the Elgin Marbles and its memorialization of the defunct Athenian polity.  The entire Middle East, of course, is a continuing saga of the rise and fall of empires (including the Sykes-Picot division of the World War I spoils that is becoming unravelled in every way).  So, obviously, the question is whether the American empire is "exceptional," destined to remain in full vigor even as the general story is one of decline and fall.  Mark Tushnet has offered a melancholy posting about the survival of constitutionalism in the US should Donald Trump--accurately described by Meg Whitman as a would-be Mussolini (though without Mussolini's rootedness in genuine ideological debate).

I continue to wonder how or why the losers of the upcoming election will accept the verdict, given that the only thing we're going to hear over the next five months is savagely personal criticism of the two leading candidates.  Donald Trump must be exposed, every single day, without hesitation, as the utter fraud and menace that he constitutes.  It is not fair to say that that election of 1800 was also vituperative, since even their opponents had to concede that Thomas Jefferson and John Adams were men of substance and intelligence, even if, say, many regarded Jefferson as the anti-Christ.  (This is why Hamilton chose Jefferson over the man without principles, Aaron Burr.)

No doubt Trump will respond in kind to Hillary Clinton, since, among other things, he is intellectually unable to participate in a serious policy debate that requires actual knowledge and not merely fascistic bluster.  And, of course, given the vagaries (actually a euphemism for "indefensible features") of the American political system, where political hacks are in charge of the election process, it remains conceivable, e.g., that Trump will win North Carolina, Wisconsin, or even Ohio because of the blatantly partisan voter suppression presided over by rabidly Republican secretaries of state or other election officials.  (If you won't believe me, then read Richard Posner's great opinion in Walker v. Frank,, dissenting alas, about Wisconsin's efforts re voter suppression.)  No doubt Donald Trump will complain about various features of the electoral process, but there is no serious argument--i.e., none whatsoever--that Democratic political officials are trying to prevent Republicans from voting.

I note with interest that Doug Bandow, of the Cato Institute, is advocating secession and, therefore, the breaking up of the United States..  Will the "mystic chords of memory" be enough to keep Pacifica or Cascadia (or, for that matter, Texas and lower Dixie) in the Union if, from their perspective, an utter scoundrel is elected President?  Why exactly should those chords continue to resonate.  Who would have imagined 30  years ago the breakup of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics or, even five years ago, of the United Kingdom?  Why is the U.S. necessarily exempt from the "disruptions" that are endemic in the international political order these days?

Even if the UK survives, no one expects the Remains to win a truly resounding victory.  Indeed, I heard an interesting talk at Oxford suggesting that the worst outcome would be a narrow victory for Remain where the marginal votes for victory are provided by Scots against the fairly strong desire of "the English" to leave the EU.  The "Leavers" are being driven very much by "Little England" nationalism, and one wonders if UKIP and the Euroskeptics among the Tory party would quietly accept the verdict, especially if it turns out, as it is likely, that the promises made to David Cameron by worried heads of other governments are totally unenforceable, as a matter of European law, and also serve to promote similar pleas for special treatment by the completely unattractive Hungarian and Polish governments, among others.

This really and truly may be the most important election in our lifetimes if, as I fear, it will call into question basic issues of political stability within the US.  We really are looking more and more like Weimar in the late 20s, where parliament is basically beneath contempt because of an inability to respond to the challenges facing the country, and the political parties increasingly view their opposition as Schmittian enemies to be crushed--which is certainly the way I view Donald Trump and the craven Republicans who are giving up any sense of personal honor by endorsing him--rather than fellow participants in a system of respectful political dialogue and elections to resolve basic controversies.

Do you really think it can't happen here?  And even if Donald Trump is a thoroughly farcical figure, his triumph already is nothing less than a national tragedy.  



Posted 4:29 PM by Sandy Levinson [link]