William Galston’s op-ed in the Wall Street Journal last week reminded me of one of the reasons I am thankful to live in America. Galston faulted President Trump for launching the Iran war without making a case for it to the American people. He then cited a number of polls showing how the president’s popularity has diminished due to the war. He wrote: “These statistics signal more than a political threat for Mr. Trump and the Republicans who must face voters this fall.”
The beauty of America is that political power is so broadly distributed that it is all but impossible for autocracy to take hold in this country. Some people might say it already has. Yes, there are cracks in American democracy, but the political system is nowhere near shattering. Because of the frequency with which officeholders in America have to face the ultimate decider, the voter, our governors have to be on their toes constantly.
That political pressure finally forced the president to address the nation to explain the rationale for the war. Due to the upcoming midterm elections, he and his team have also been scrambling to find measures to tame gasoline prices, which have soared in the past month as a result of the war. It is quite clear that this same fear of voters is prompting the president to try to seek an off-ramp to end the war quite a bit sooner than he probably would prefer.
Reading Galston’s op-ed made me think of another major war that is currently going on in Europe between Russia and Ukraine. That one is in its fifth year. Estimates put the number of Russian casualties, dead and injured, at well over 1.2 million. Russia’s economy has been badly damaged, mostly from the raft of sanctions the country has been under since its invasion of Ukraine. Persistently high inflation has driven up the cost of living. Despite that heavy toll on the Russian population, the war continues in full swing because politics in Russia is a one-man show.
The Russian emperor accounts to no one. He holds “elections” periodically but he personally selects who can run against him. It is usually a close friend to whom he allocates a tiny percentage of the vote, after which he declares himself the winner in a landslide. Tweaaa (“Tweaaa” is a scornful Ghanaian expression).
For the most part, in America we are able to express our views on the war that our country is currently fighting without fear of being jailed. If the president and his team are unhappy with the things we say about the war, the most they are able to do is to call us nasty names. Saying something negative in Russia about the “special military operation” in Ukraine incurs a 15-year jail sentence. People have actually been thrown into prison for that.
The Kremlin tightly controls access to the internet, which is switched on and off frequently as a way to keep Russian citizens in the dark about what is happening inside and outside their country. Nothing of the sort happens here in America.
Deep divisions have made life in America not as pleasant as it once was. But we should pause periodically and appreciate our good fortune. Ordinary Russians, Iranians and many other populations living under tyranny would take our ugly America in a heartbeat.