On Democracy, We Should Practice at Home What We Preach Abroad
Published Mar 13, 2024
Both
of us spent many decades of our Foreign Service careers in
authoritarian states where open debate, fair elections, and the rule of
law were unknown. In places like Saudi Arabia, the Soviet Union, Syria,
and Eastern Europe we promoted democracy, freedom of conscience, and
legal reform. Under both Republican and Democratic administrations, we
worked with the American labor movement, numerous NGOs, and institutes
of both parties. We distributed literature promoting free societies and
market economies. We helped monitor elections. We helped train judges
and newly elected officials. We spoke out for human rights and religious
freedom.
We had some success. Former communist nations held free
elections and wrote democratic constitutions. Saudi Arabia held
municipal elections and began to allow non-Muslim religious services.
Yet to our surprise, when we returned to the United States, we found
that some of the values and institutions we had promoted abroad were now
threatened at home.
In many places where we served, commissars
and mullahs dictated the acceptable limits of discussion. Some thoughts
were deemed too dangerous to the existing order to be tolerated.
Expressing such controversial views could result in being branded an
enemy of the people or an enemy of God. We supported those who opposed
this sort of censorship; people like Soviet dissident Andre Sakharov,
who argued that freedom of conscience was the fundamental freedom from
which all other freedoms derive. Sakharov recognized that if you were
not free to think what you wanted, freedoms of speech, assembly, or
religion were meaningless.Campaign signs for
Republican presidential candidates former President Donald Trump and
former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley stand next to a sign asking voters to
write in President Joe Biden in the Jan 19 primary election,...
Back in the United States we found that many
views on topics ranging from climate change to gender identity had
become too toxic to discuss. Cancel culture and online witch hunts were
something new for us. As in George Orwell's dystopian novel 1984,
people were self-censoring for fear of social stigma or financial loss.
Yet as Orwell himself wrote, "If liberty means anything at all, it
means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear".
When
we advised foreign governments on how to conduct fair and transparent
elections, we used a specific set of guidelines set out by the U.S.
government. These explicitly called for voter IDs, a single day of
voting, paper ballots counted with observers from all parties present
and no effort to control the list of candidates. These same criteria are
still followed in most European democracies. When we tell our European
friends that some American states want to allow voting without an ID,
they do not believe us. A failure to follow at home the advice we once
offered abroad has led many to doubt the integrity of our own election.
Above
all we encouraged respect for the rule of law. Without confidence that
laws will be enforced fairly, principled statements about liberty and
equality have little value. In working with judges and attorneys abroad
we emphasized the importance of vigorous and impartial law enforcement
by disinterested prosecutors and judges who treated all citizens
equally.
Back in the United States we found these values eroding. We
found controversial and highly politicized judicial appointments. We
found shoplifters who were not being prosecuted and law enforcement
officials giving sanctuary to those who had openly broken immigration
laws. On the other hand, we found district attorneys running for
election on the promise to prosecute citizens who had not yet been
charged with any crime. As in the Soviet Union, we found the State
attempting to impose equality by fiat.
We are not legal scholars
and make no judgement about the legality of these events. We do
understand how the appearance in impropriety can damage public
confidence in government just as much as impropriety itself. We also
recognize that disorder at home weakens our standing with friends as
well as adversaries abroad.
After spending our careers analyzing
political trends abroad, we were troubled by what we found back home. We
found a nation deeply divided, with many Americans having lost pride in
our history and confidence in our civic institutions. Such a malaise is
not easily reversed.
Yet we were also encouraged to find
widespread agreement among our fellow citizens on some fundamental
points. Most do not view the constitution as an outdated 18th century
document in need of dramatic reinterpretation. Most support term limits
for Congress
and some sort of campaign finance reform that prevents billionaires
from buying excessive election influence. Perhaps what surprised us most
was how seldom candidates running for office raise these important
points of agreement.
David H. Rundell is a former chief of
mission at the American Embassy in Saudi Arabia and the author of Vision
or Mirage, Saudi Arabia at the Crossroads. Ambassador Michael Gfoeller
spent 15 years working Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union and former
Soviet Union.