Our view: Democracy, but not as we know it

President Donald Trump would prefer to challenge the US election vote, rather than step down.

Confirmed lovers of the original TV space opera Star Trek will know how James T Kirk succeeded in passing a key test at Starfleet Academy — he cheated, changing the parameters of a computer-generated no-win scenario so that he could pass it, even though it was designed to fail all challengers.

Donald Trump is trying to do something similar by cheating his way to another term in office. For the past four, we have been listening to him complain about what he terms “fake news”. Yesterday, we heard him pronounce the falsest news of all — that he had won the 2020 US presidential election despite the fact that nowhere near all the votes were counted.

Trump falsely claimed victory over Democratic rival Joe Biden with millions of votes still uncounted in a White House race that will not be decided until tallying is completed. Then, boldly going where no other president has gone before, he described the election as a “fraud on the American public” and vowed to go to the US Supreme Court to stop the counting of postal ballots likely to favour Biden.

His remarks bring to mind Winston Churchill’s famous observation: “No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”

The fragility and imperfections of democracy are plain to see on both sides of the Atlantic, from the vanity, ignorance and impulsiveness of Trump to the willfulness and untrustworthiness of Boris Johnson. Both men demonstrate a pathological desire to dominate and control and an almost complete absence of integrity, a characteristic essential for any leader in any true democracy. The result is that there is little, politically, that is “united” in either the US or UK.

Trump’s first chaotic term as president has seen a rise in racial tensions as well as political and social polarisation. As part of his America First mission, he has openly flirted with white supremacy. He is now fanning the flames further, increasing the risk of violence on the streets of American cities and towns by seeking to delegitimise the election results.

Boris Johnson’s rhetoric has been more muted yet his bullish insistence on “getting Brexit done” has alienated millions of people in Scotland, resulting in an existential threat not just to the UK but to Great Britain. Johnson’s leadership is the biggest factor driving voters in Scotland towards backing independence. According to a recent poll, support for independence now has a 56% to 44%lead.

Democracy, by its very nature, is fragile and we in the EU cannot afford to be complacent about it, as we witness the rise in extremist ideologies throughout Europe. Democracy isn’t just about elections and includes the kind of civil liberties that are now under attack in Poland and Hungary.

For more than 200 years the United States has been a bulwark against totalitarianism and a global champion of democratic freedoms. What Donald Trump is attempting to do threatens that. To paraphrase Star Trek’s Commander Spock, “this is democracy, Jim, but not as we know it”.