Martin Wolf on the US midterms: Is American democracy safe?

Robert Kagan (0:00)

I don't feel I need to be living under Vladimir Putin tomorrow in order to say that we're heading in the direction of dictatorship. I just think it's very hard for people to imagine this happening in America, but clearly it is happening. I wish I saw a deeper commitment on a part of the American people to the principles of the Declaration and the Constitution, rather than for them to be only concerned if it's hitting their gas prices or if somebody they know that they like has been deported.

Martin Wolf (0:25)

Is American democracy safe? I'm Martin Wolf, Chief Economics Commentator at the Financial Times. Americans head to the polls for the midterms on November the 3rd, and I'm worried. Worried about what the result will tell us about the future of democracy. Can the United States continue to be the leader of the free world?

My family's history taught me what happens when democracy fails. My mother was a Dutch Jewish refugee who fled the Nazis in 1940 My father was Austrian, also a Jewish refugee who fled to the safety of Britain in 1937 Which is why I'm talking to leading thinkers about what's at stake in these midterms for Donald Trump, for American democracy, and for the rest of the world.

I wanted to kick off this series about US midterm elections on November 3rd, with the former Republican scholar, Robert Bob Kagan. He's someone who has been sounding the alarm ever since Donald Trump first ran for president in 2016 Bob, welcome to the show.

Robert Kagan (1:44)

Thank you, Martin. Great to be here.

Martin Wolf (1:45)

We last spoke for another podcast series that I did on the future of democratic capitalism back in 2023

That was ahead of a US election that saw Trump voted in as president for the second time. And you were already warning then about the dangers of America slipping into autocracy. You've since gone further, saying the US is not merely on a path towards dictatorship, but effectively already in one. So, to put it bluntly, are these midterms just a waste of time? A foregone conclusion. So, what's really at stake? What do you think?

Robert Kagan (2:27)

It's a good question. I guess I feel like there is hope in the midterms. But I do think that we need to understand that these midterms take place in the context in which, as you say, we've already moved well into dictatorship. I find it rather remarkable to be able to take this for granted that the Justice Department has been completely subverted in its mission, that it is that the Justice Department, which is the law enforcement agency of the United States, is now entirely a personal fiefdom of Donald Trump, doing his bidding, going after his opponents, using the power of the law against people he doesn't like, whether they've committed any kind of possible crime or not. We have an FBI that is completely controlled by the administration. We have a Pentagon and the military that is being turned into a personal arm of the president. We've had major elements of the federal bureaucracy destroyed and most of the most professional people have been fired. That is a big shift from where we've been throughout most of American history, and I think it's worth keeping that in mind. Now, even in full-scale dictatorships who hold elections for whatever reason, they do have to worry about elections, and a bad electoral result can be a problem for them.

The question that I have is, since it looks like that Trump is going to have a bad electoral result, is he going to allow that to happen? And I must say right now, I think that it will be difficult for him to overturn a lopsided election, but it will not be difficult for him to disrupt the counting and perhaps even the seeding of the next Congress. So I think that we're still very much at risk. And then even if there is a big Democratic victory, Trump has been operating pretty much without Congress, without permission from Congress, and with pretty solid support among his own party. He may continue to ignore Congress. We haven't seen what he would do with an opposition Congress yet, but I suspect that he will not play ball the way most presidents normally do.

Martin Wolf (4:35)

Before we go deeper into this, let's consider sort of a bit of pushback.

There are still elections. It seems likely there will be some sort of midterm. We'll discuss them more in detail. The courts are certainly still blocking the administration, including occasionally even the Supreme Court. State officials have resisted federal demands and state officials still are elected and have power. The press still attacks the president. So why do you think this is a dictatorship rather than just a severely degraded and threatened democracy?