the “crash test” of American democracy

Democracy will be put to the test in the United States, during the presidential election on November 5 and in the following days, if no candidate is declared the winner overnight by the Associated Press news agency, which plays the informal role of arbiter of elections. The responsibility mainly falls on the Republican candidate, Donald Trump, who, as during his first two campaigns in 2016 and 2020, refused to accept in advance the verdict of the polls and to respect the principle of peaceful transition of power.

This test is a continuation of his business of calling into question the results of the presidential election of November 3, 2020. It culminated with the assault of his supporters against Congress on January 6, 2021. This episode was devastating for the image of the United States, a country which has long presented itself as a model.

In fact, the main indicators of good democratic health, those of Freedom House, an organization financed by the American federal government, as well as the V-Dem institute, an observatory attached to the University of Gothenburg, in Sweden, financed notably by the World Bank, highlight the deterioration of democracy in the United States. A survey of New York Times showed on October 27 that 76% of those questioned consider that it is now « threatened »even if Republicans and Democrats differ on the origin of the danger.

Conspiracy theory

This decline fuels debates like many academic works. Three factors contribute to this: the devastating effects of disinformation, the questioning of the norms governing elections, and the temptation to“enlargement » of executive power, according to the formula of the American political scientist Nancy Bermeo.

Two researchers from the Brookings Institution, a progressive think tank in Washington, Elaine Kamarck and Darrell West define disinformation as material “false, organized, intentional and malicious, harmful and rapid” in a work published in August, Lies that Kill. A Citizen’s Guide to Disinformation (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 176 pages, 26 euros, untranslated). The growth of this disinformation to which the richest man in the world, Elon Musk, fervent supporter of Donald Trump, with his social network with the collapse of traditional media in the United States. With the disappearance since 2005 of 2,900 local newspapers, according to Northwestern University, the country is paradoxically seeing the emergence of “information deserts”.

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