One Trump to Rule Them All, a New American Journal graphic by Walter Simon [Art Market Place]

The Big Picture –
By Glynn Wilson –

The dark cloud threatening democracy around the world is spreading like the evil cloud coming out of Mordor hovered over Middle Earth in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings series, and the current occupant of the White House in the United States is a big part of the problem.

This is not just an editorial opinion statement fit for a Facebook meme. Freedom House, a non-profit organization that has been documenting the ups and downs of freedom and democracy around the world since 1941, just came out with it’s annual report, and the prognosis is not good.

“Democracy and pluralism are under assault,” Sarah Repucci writes in the opening statement of the report’s executive summary. “Dictators are toiling to stamp out the last vestiges of domestic dissent and spread their harmful influence to new corners of the world.”

At the same time, she says, “many freely elected leaders are dramatically narrowing their concerns to a blinkered interpretation of the national interest. In fact, such leaders — including the chief executives of the United States and India, the world’s two largest democracies — are increasingly willing to break down institutional safeguards and disregard the rights of critics and minorities as they pursue their populist agendas.”

As it happens, I’ve been following the Freedom House since 1982, when I found out about its annual report from a political science professor at the University of Alabama from Jamaica. It came as a shocking eye opener to me then to find out that America was not number one in personal freedoms in the world, an incident I compare to an episode of “The Newsroom” in which Jeff Daniels as broadcast journalist Will McAvoy shreds the notion that America is the greatest country in the world.

I wrote about the report way back then, and since back during the Bush years. But I don’t recall seeing a major mainstream American newspaper write about it before, since of course it challenges the great American myth that the U.S. is the country in the world with the most freedom.

It’s not. Let that sink in.

But when I clicked on the Washington Post front page online this morning, a blogger for that paper had done a post about the report.

Democracy is in decline around the world — and Trump is part of the problem

The conclusions of the report make a worthy followup to something else I wrote recently.

How Existential Anxiety Leads to Authoritarianism

In the Freedom House report, “A Leaderless Struggle for Democracy,” the authors talk about the “pressure” Trump is exerting “on electoral integrity, judicial independence, and safeguards against corruption” in this country and around the world, and “the decline in fair and equal treatment of refugees and asylum seekers,” something that is “worrisome for a country that takes pride in its traditional role as a beacon for the oppressed.”

President Donald Trump’s mission to reduce freedom and democracy, which seems as hidden to his supporters as the Dark Lord Sauron’s goal to bring darkness to the world was hidden even to some wizards and men, are not just a political threat. They threaten the very idea of democracy itself as carved on the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor.

A view of the Statue of Liberty at sunset from the Staten Island Ferry: Glynn Wilson

“Even if the U.S. remains very free, its rhetoric can have outsize effects beyond America’s borders,” said Michael Abramowitz, the president of Freedom House, citing foreign governments that have adopted Trump’s attacks on the “fake news” media into policies and legislation suppressing and even criminalizing free speech and press.

“The administration has been strong on issues like Iran and Venezuela,” the report says, “but less strong in its rhetoric” toward autocrats and monarchs in the Middle East, or in responding to the disturbing tensions bubbling to the surface in India, the world’s largest democracy.

The Freedom House report for 2020 concludes that 2019 was the 14th consecutive year of decline in global freedom.

“The gap between setbacks and gains widened compared with 2018, as individuals in 64 countries experienced deterioration in their political rights and civil liberties while those in just 37 experienced improvements,” the report shows. “The negative pattern affected all regime types, but the impact was most visible near the top and the bottom of the scale. More than half of the countries that were rated Free or Not Free in 2009 have suffered a net decline in the past decade.”

“Ethnic, religious, and other minority groups have borne the brunt of government abuses in both democracies and authoritarian states,” the report shows, even in India, where Trump recently visited and was cheered by 100,000 people at a sporting event.

“The Indian government has taken its Hindu nationalist agenda to a new level with a succession of policies that abrogate the rights of different segments of its Muslim population, threatening the democratic future of a country long seen as a potential bulwark of freedom in Asia and the world,” the report says. “Attacks on the rights of immigrants continue in other democratic states, contributing to a permissive international environment for further violations.”

China, for example, has pressed ahead with one of the world’s most extreme programs of ethnic and religious persecution. Applied techniques that were first tested on minorities have spread to the general population, and even to foreign countries.

“Violations of minority rights erode the institutional and conventional barriers that protect freedom for all individuals in a given society,” the report says. “The unchecked brutality of autocratic regimes and the ethical decay of democratic powers are combining to make the world increasingly hostile to fresh demands for better governance.”

The report laments the failure of citizen protest movements.

“A striking number of new citizen protest movements have emerged over the past year, reflecting the inexhaustible and universal desire for fundamental rights,” the report says. “However, these movements have in many cases confronted deeply entrenched interests that are able to endure considerable pressure and are willing to use deadly force to maintain power. The protests of 2019 have so far failed to halt the overall slide in global freedom, and without greater support and solidarity from established democracies, they are more likely to succumb to authoritarian reprisals.”

Unsteady Beacon of Freedom

Democracy advocates around the world have historically turned to the United States for inspiration and support, and Congress has continued to fund programs to that end in practice, according to the report.

“To date, however, the Trump administration has failed to exhibit consistent commitment to a foreign policy based on the principles of democracy and human rights. Although the president has been outspoken in denouncing authoritarian abuses by U.S, adversaries in countries like Venezuela and Iran, and he reluctantly signed legislation supporting basic rights in Hong Kong after it passed almost unanimously in both the House of Representatives and the Senate, he has excused clear violations by traditional security partners such as Turkey and Egypt.”

He has also given a pass to tyrannical leaders whom he hopes to woo diplomatically, the report says in something of an understatement, including Vladimir Putin of Russia and Kim Jong-un of North Korea.

“On multiple occasions during 2019, he vetoed bipartisan efforts in Congress to limit arms sales and military assistance to Saudi Arabia. Balancing specific security and economic considerations with human rights concerns has been difficult for every administration, but the balance has grown especially lopsided of late.”

This problem has been compounded by efforts to undermine democratic norms and standards within the U.S. over the past several years, “including pressure on electoral integrity, judicial independence, and safeguards against corruption.”

“Fierce rhetorical attacks on the press, the rule of law, and other pillars of democracy coming from American leaders, including the president himself, undermine the country’s ability to persuade other governments to defend core human rights and freedoms, and are actively exploited by dictators and demagogues,” the report says, accurately. “An ongoing decline in fair and equal treatment of refugees and asylum seekers is also particularly worrisome for a country that takes pride in its traditional role as a beacon for the oppressed.”

In 2019, new federal rules or policies allowed the blanket rejection of asylum claims for those who cross through Mexico from other countries to reach the southern U.S. border, forced asylum seekers with credible claims to wait in Mexico while their applications are considered, and gave states and localities the power to block refugee resettlement in their jurisdictions, according to the report.

“Many of the administration’s tactics appear to violate existing national and international law, leading to a plethora of court challenges. In a move that also drew lawsuits, President Trump declared a national emergency in order to redirect Defense Department funds to the construction of a wall along the southern border. The project was a core feature of his efforts to control migration and reduce the number of asylum claims.”

A more consequential circumvention of congressional authority lay at the heart of the impeachment process touched off in November by allegations that President Trump had abused his office in a bid to extract a personal political favor from Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, according to the report.

Trump temporarily blocked military aid that Congress had allocated to Ukraine and withheld a White House visit, while concurrently asking Zelenskyy to announce two investigations — one aimed at his potential 2020 election rival, former vice president Joe Biden, and another bolstering a debunked conspiracy theory meant to absolve Russia of interference in the 2016 election. The administration then ordered current and former officials to defy all congressional subpoenas for documents and testimony about the matter.

“These actions threatened important components of American democracy, including congressional oversight of the executive branch and the fairness and integrity of electoral competition,” the report concludes. “The constitution’s impeachment mechanism offers a powerful means of holding presidents and other senior officials accountable for major transgressions.”

The report also takes to task the Republicans in Congress who seem either afraid of Trump or in league with him.

“With Republican lawmakers largely defending the president’s actions and questioning the motives and fairness of House Democrats’ efforts, the impeachment seemed to drive a wedge through the American public and political class, reinforcing the impression on both sides that elected representatives were placing partisan loyalty above the national interest and the constitution.”

Yep. That’s about it. America is NOT the most free country in the world, or the greatest country in the world anymore. Will it take a hobbit to destroy the ring of power to save democracy and the planet?

Since the Washington Post did not reveal the freedom scores in its report, I guess it’s up to us to burst the bubble and tell it like it is and let the chips fall where they may.

Want to guess which countries scored the highest on the freedom scale?

Never mind, I’ll tell you: Sweden came in at number 1 or 100, according to their numbering scheme, followed closely by the Netherlands at 99, Canada at 98, Denmark at 97, Belgium 96, Barbados at 95.

Where does the U.S. fall? In 14th place at 86. Even France makes the top 10 at 90.

Which countries are the least free?

Syria, Tibet, Eritrea, South Sudan, North Korea, Turkmenistan, Western Sahara and Eastern Donbas.

There you have it. Way down in Alabamaland, they don’t call me Frodo Baggins for nothing.