A very unhealthy and dysfunctional democracy in the United States, unfortunately, has repercussions across the world.
Democracy can be a funny thing; it has numerous ways of exposing an Emperor without clothes. No democracy has ever been perfect or has managed to come anywhere near a so called Utopia. But some things are crystal clear: no matter how flawed, there are two critical conditions for anyone to claim that a democracy is healthy and functional despite weaknesses.
The first is: citizens and voters have access to facts and information that enable them to make informed voting choices based on their personal preferences, ideologies, identities and even prejudices. The second is that all bona fide citizens have the right to vote to elect their candidates. There are many other conditions that make a democracy healthy, including the most fundamental one, which is respect for institutions and rule of law. But that’s a given.
If you look at the United States of America today, it would be difficult to categorise it as a healthy and functional democracy the way even American scholars define it. A very unhealthy and dysfunctional democracy in the United States, unfortunately, has repercussions across the world, since it still is the most powerful economic, geo-political and military power in the history of the world. Look at how the first condition of a healthy and functional democracy has been brazenly violated; particularly in the last few years in America.
All citizens and voters in a democracy need to have access to facts and information that are credible so that they can make informed choices. On this count, American citizens have been “deliberately” kept in the dark about the health, fitness and mental acuity of the current President Joe Biden. Since 2022, many analysts, columnists and commentators have pointed out that all doesn’t seem well with the now 81-year-old Joe Biden. By 2023, the decline in his health was evident even to ordinary folks who have no medical expertise. By 2024, it had become the most talked about open secret. The authors vividly recall a G-7 meet some months ago in Italy hosted by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
A completely oblivious and befuddled Biden was seen wandering off elsewhere and Meloni had to gently bring a vacuous looking Biden back for a group photo. And who can forget the lavish fundraiser organised soon after that in America by Hollywood superstar George Clooney with former President Barack Obama? The manner in which Obama had to escort a completely “lost” Biden out of the stage was cringe-worthy. And of course, there was the “debate” on TV where the moderator and the entire set of rules were stacked in favour of Biden against his rival Donald Trump. The performance of Joe Biden was so pathetic that despite the filters, ordinary Americans finally saw the fact: Biden was simply not in any physical or mental condition to “perform” in a debate; forget about taking decisions that could affect hundreds of millions of lives.
The problem is not the episodes that could not be cauterised from public view because of the ubiquitous live feeds and mobile videos of this age. The problem is how there was a deliberate attempt to hide the fact that Biden is not really fit. The legacy, or mainstream media in the United States—that never fails to lecture and hector India about democracy—actually kept “lying” and insisting that Biden is as fit as a fiddle. Anyone who thought or said otherwise was demonised as a far-right conspiracy theorist. Almost every print, electronic and digital platform was busy day in and day out, saying the 81-year-old Biden was fit. This reminded the authors of an era when Soviet Union and other East European communist dictatorships would routinely hide information about the health of their leaders.
Even if the leader was incapacitated and in hospital, “media” outlets would post fake stories about the leader interacting with people. Mercifully, the United States is not Soviet Union. But that’s no thanks to the so-called media. It is thanks to social media; and more importantly, Elon Musk controlling the platform X that was earlier known as Twitter. It is mostly through posts on X that American citizens could get information about the health and mental acuity of their President. Ironically, when Joe Biden finally decided to withdraw from the US presidential election, he used X to post his decision.
For most legacy media in that country, X is now a toxic and pro “fascist” platform and Elon Musk is evil. There is more. Within literally hours of Biden withdrawing from the race and endorsing his Vice President Kamala Harris as the candidate for the November 2024 presidential election, the legacy media started the process of transforming her into a warrior saint. Just one example would suffice to show how the legacy media misleads ordinary citizens in America. In the early days of his presidency, Biden had tasked Kamala Harris with looking after the southern border of the United States from where hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants were pouring in.
Almost all legacy media outlets described her as the “Border Czar”. Illegal migration has skyrocketed since then. So when her rivals pointed out her failures, the entire legacy media started saying that Harris was never a “Border Czar” and that the criticism was a right-wing conspiracy. When fact checkers posted old television shows and opinion pieces showing how legacy media had indeed described Harris as the Border Czar, the most prominent media personalities simply said it is a right-wing conspiracy. Now, it is the right of any media platform to be open about the ideology, party and candidate it supports.
In a healthy democracy, a media platform would have every right to say Donald Trump is not fit to be a good President. Tens of millions of Americans share the sentiment. But when the mainstream legacy media resorts to lies, we start entering Soviet Union territory. The second condition is the ability of bona fide citizens to exercise their voting rights. Here again, millions of illegal migrants are being settled in so called “sanctuary” cities and towns in America and there is a process on to enable them not just to enjoy welfare benefits, but also vote in the presidential and other elections. This issue would resonate with even Indians as illegal migrants have been voting in large numbers in states like Assam, West Bengal and Jharkhand.
In the US, there is no word from legacy media calling out this mockery of democracy. In effect, the US media is so consumed with trying to demonise Donald Trump that it has decided that democratic norms and processes can be ignored to deny Trump a second term. The irony is: it is these creatures that constantly criticise and lecture India over democracy.
Yashwant Deshmukh is Founder & Editor in Chief of CVoter Foundation and Sutanu Guru is Executive Director.