For centuries Americans have been convinced of their country’s exceptionalism and invincibility. It was the first among democracies, and therefore was democracy itself. It was among the first to enunciate the idea of freedom in a constitution, and thus it was freedom itself.
Travel across the globe and you will see the US projecting itself as the citadel of democracy and freedom.
Its belief of what it is may or may not be true, depending where you stand. That does not matter. What matters is the idea of it.
In his election victory speech on Saturday, president-elect Joe Biden expanded on this exceptionalism: "Tonight, the whole world is watching America. I believe at our best, America is a beacon for the globe. And we lead not by the example of our power, but by the power of our example."
President Donald Trump broke all that. There was no longer an example to follow. He made US democracy look a sham; he came, he saw and he broke it. He packed the Supreme Court with his own appointees in the hope that it would keep him in power. In the month before this election, he whipped his Republican Party into line to swear in justice Amy Coney Barrett to fill the vacancy in the court left by the death of the widely respected Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
The Republicans had stymied Barack Obama from making a replacement to the Supreme Court with a year of his tenure to go, saying he should wait for a new president to do so. Trump’s Republicans swore Barrett in with just a few days to go to an election.
In brazen confirmation of their cynical motives, Trump’s lawyers said they would take their claims of election fraud to the Supreme Court. Trump campaign legal adviser Harmeet Dhillon told Fox Business that the campaign hoped Barrett would help Trump win a second term.
The US has now tasted what it’s like to be the laughing stock of the world
"We’re waiting for the US Supreme Court, of which the president has nominated three justices, to step in and do something. And hopefully Amy Coney Barrett will come through," she said.
Read that. It is the stuff of banana republics.
For ages the US had fooled itself that this sort of thing "could never happen here". The idea of the "strongman" was a bogey from Russia, Africa, Latin America, Asia and other parts of the world that Trump crassly and ignorantly referred to as "shithole" countries.
With Trump’s presidency the strongman was in the White House now. He refused to read intelligence briefings, took decisions on gut reaction rather than science and consultation, threw his weight in with fascist and right-wing organisations to the extent of telling them to "stand back and stand by", flirted with the likes of murderous North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, Russia’s Vladimir Putin and others who sneered at democratic norms and practices.
The US has now tasted what it’s like to be the laughing stock of the world. It knows what South Africans under Jacob Zuma went through as the man’s bumbling and corruption were exposed to the world. Will the US do some introspection or will it continue to believe that it is exceptional?
SA used to think it was exceptional, too. Before Zuma we would point to other African countries and claim we would never be as corrupt as some of them. Now we steal money that’s supposed to help the poor during a pandemic. Now we steal food parcels. Now we appoint incompetents such as Mosebenzi Zwane and Dudu Myeni to positions they should never come within sniffing distance of.
What lies ahead for the US? Undoing the damage of a Trump will not be easy. Half the country voted for him, which means Trumpism remains a huge part of the political firmament. Trump himself will continue to fight, stoking hatred and divisions, the way our Zuma often trolls us with the "radical economic transformation" he was spoon-fed by Bell Pottinger and the Guptas.
The US would do well to learn from others. Here we are, three years after Zuma was ousted, and we are still cleaning up his mess.
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