The Stanfield Conversations: The US election and democracy's global fate

Abstract

In 2024, more than half the world's population went to the polls. Rather than serving as an emblematic year for democracy, these elections suggest that democracy is at a crossroads, with many countries experiencing democratic erosion or shifts toward autocratic rule. The US presidential election exemplified this trend, raising questions about the resilience of democratic institutions. These concerns were the focus of the annual Stanfield Conversations at Dalhousie University, where CBC Radio host Piya Chattopadhyay moderated a discussion between renowned international affairs journalist Doug Saunders and Canada Research Chair in Racial Inequality in Democratic Societies Dr. Debra Thompson on the global ramifications of the US election and the broader challenges facing democratic governance. In this essay, I analyze their key insights, exploring the pressures threatening democracies worldwide and the specific implications for Canada's political landscape.

About the Stanfield Conversations: The Stanfield Conversations is an annual public dialogue at Dalhousie University that brings together preeminent scholars, public intellectuals, and policy leaders to critically examine the state of democracy in our times. Hosted by CBC Radio host Piya Chattopadhyay, the 2024 event featured Debra Thompson, Canada Research Chair in Racial Inequality in Democratic Societies and associate professor of political science at McGill University, and Doug Saunders, an acclaimed international affairs journalist with The Globe and Mail, who discussed the implications of the 2024 US election for democracies worldwide.

2024 was the year of elections, in which more than half of the world's population headed to the polls. In most instances, these were elections in which the nature of democracy itself was either explicitly or implicitly part of the choice. If we find proof of democracy in every election, then there is reason to be optimistic about a democratic future. If we take a more robust reading of democracy—defining the term, in the words of Doug Saunders, as “the full suite of things that give us a free society: rule of law, equal rights, a healthy opposition, a free and critical media, a peaceful transfer of power”—our outlook changes. Indeed, perhaps we can find democracy in its most durable and profound form outside of elections. As Debra Thompson reminds us, for many, voting is not “the be-all and end-all of democratic politics”; indeed, it has never been where the politics of “Black folks” are. After all, Black Americans have held a grand total of four Senate seats in US history.

What, then, of 2024? A year of widespread elections embedded in atrophying democracies, perhaps? Saunders references a pre-US election report by the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, which found that most countries with elections in 2024 have become less democratic, and forty-two countries have actually begun “autocratizing,” as citizens elect leaders who then work to undermine, dismantle, and shutter the institutions of democracy. ¹ The erosion of these “democratic guardrails,” as Thompson calls them, includes the co-opting of checks on power—both internal, such as parliamentary constraints on executive power, and arm's length, such as media. It is perhaps unsurprising, then, that Saunders calls 2024 “the worst year for democracy this century.”

And yet a puzzle remains: on the one hand, figures who seek personal authority over and above legitimate democratic institutions are winning open electoral contests; on the other, the citizens themselves are electing these figures—an act of collective expression and democratic self-determination. If the US election is to serve as an example, the intentions of would-be leaders are often explicit: in his campaign, US president Donald Trump promised to be a dictator for “day one” of his second term in office. ² Even so, rather than an indication that democracy itself was up for election, Saunders contends that this pattern is not driven by voters but “by parties and leaders who take advantage of the chaos and vulnerability of voters.”

Inasmuch as citizens are constitutive of democracy, so too are their vulnerabilities. The roots of this shared vulnerability are many. One is the citizens’ propensity to err. In the US, the multi-year erosion of trust in evidence and expertise, shepherded to great effect by populist movements at home and abroad, has stoked public discourse with imagined threats, which Saunders warns are designed to “persuade voters, falsely, that they are on the verge of losing their comfortable status.” Indeed, far-right voters in the US tend not to profess anger about their own circumstances, but about things “they’ve been told [are] happening elsewhere.” The role of emotion in voting was also raised by Thompson, who suggests that the Democrats are less willing, or perhaps less able, to allow evidence to take a back seat to the lived experiences of citizens. For instance, Thompson stresses that empirical realities, like a thriving US economy, may not be experienced as affluence by citizens who feel their social mobility is diminished. Thompson argues that the Democratic Party failed to validate those feelings in the way that Republicans did. Republican candidates may not have the policies or the power to deliver the scale of changes promised to address the suffering felt by US voters, but they acknowledge where US voters see themselves and their prospects, often because these narratives were of their own making.

In power, and in perceptions of power, lies another vulnerability. Saunders argues that “people today don’t really believe that the government does much in their lives or is important.” Yet much does depend on government. Without internalizing that fact, many citizens cast votes as if they are not consequential. No wonder, then, that one campaign's claim that US voters should fear the erosion of democratic institutions would find little purchase with those same voters. The implication, for at least some members of the winning coalition of voters, was that a Republican victory would either be ineffective, because government does not matter, or wildly successful at making government into a body that works to great effect, but only on their behalf.

The implications of Trump's return to the Oval Office are uncertain. Forecasting the events of his second presidency is helped by the illustrative template of his first term in office. But how similar will this term be? Thompson points out that the checks that tempered Trump's last presidency are essentially gone, leaving room for “huge ramifications for domestic governance” and real implications for the rest of the world. This time, Trump is much more able to do what he says he will do. We should not expect this presidency to be like his last. As US allies consider their responses to the election, Saunders suggests that the “functioning democracies of the world, including Canada, can come together to face the international challenge of the threat to the democratic order”—including the potential undoing of existing trade relations—but that it will be a struggle. In a sense, though, Trump is both a symptom and a cause of upheaval. As the US share of global economic activity shrinks, ³ the opportunities for trade partners to look elsewhere grow. Periods of transition are painful—a pain that Trump may well intensify—but there is room for other actors to forge their own paths.

Despite concerns about the US as a potential threat to Canada and other democracies, neither speaker is concerned about democratic backsliding in Canada in the same ways it has occurred elsewhere. Saunders points out that the differences in the way power is concentrated in Canada's parliamentary system, versus the US presidential system, make it more difficult to affect a wholesale takeover when a new administration is formed. Moreover, even though the current leader of the Conversative Party of Canada, Pierre Poilievre, may employ populist rhetoric, Saunders contends that its effects are tempered by the diversity of his party. Here, Saunders draws a distinction between holding far-right views and being a threat to the democratic order. For some, this is worrisome, as in this view, Poilievre would be Trump, were it not for the institutional constraints that he inherits. For others, it is mollifying, as it shows those systemic constraints working as they should: to ensure the survival of democratic institutions against would-be assailants.

Canada, perhaps more than most countries, is trying to galvanize against the effects of the US election. “The US,” Thompson explains, “is the only superpower left; for good or bad, it is an exemplar,” and the effects of this election will extend beyond its borders. Still, both Saunders and Thompson see pathways to a more hopeful future. Saunders advocates for a “restigmatization” of voting for would-be autocrats—a return to the idea that “to cast a ballot for the sort of person that your grandparents fought a war against is not something that you do.” He contends that democracy “will win again when we stop tolerating anti-democratic forces.” Thompson suggests that existing practices of solidarity are resource-rich and hopeful. She stresses that we have found ways to resist before, and we will again, “to keep going as we always have.” Those citizens concerned with securing a vibrant, accessible democracy should find the ideas and the language needed to express intolerance for that which would erode democracy itself. At the same time, Canadians who share these priorities need to find each other—building those relationships, habits, and institutions that, outside of elections, give democracy its daily bread.