We’ve all heard a lot about how Donald Trump won the presidential election, which voters he managed to draw in, and where.
But what about the big picture, and the long game? What does Trump’s victory say about how safe America’s democracy is? And what, in turn, this might mean for the safety of the rest of us around the globe?
International and political editor Peter Hartcher has been covering politics for more than 40 years, and reported from Washington for four years of those, covering George W Bush’s presidency.
Today, Hartcher discusses what Washington insiders, including a renowned political scientist and the journalist who broke the Watergate scandal, have told him about all of this, and more.
Read/listen/watch:
From the newsrooms of the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. This is the morning edition. I'm Samantha Selinger Morris. It's Monday, November 11th. We've all heard a lot about how Donald Trump won the presidential election, which voters he managed to draw in and where. But what about the big picture and the long game? What does Trump's victory say about how safe America's democracy is? And what, in turn, might this mean for the safety of the rest of us around the globe? International and political editor Peter Hartcher has been covering politics for more than 40 years, and he reported from Washington for four of those covering George W Bush's presidency. Today, he joins me to discuss what Washington insiders a renowned political scientist and the journalist who broke the Watergate scandal have told him about all of this and more. So, Peter, I really want to know what you think Donald Trump's win tells us about the United States and its people that maybe we just didn't know prior to November 6th.
I think it's a really profound moment in the evolution of what the new America looks like. I think it's much more than just an election between two candidates, two political parties and two sets of policies. I think that completely undersells and misunderstands what we are witnessing in the change of the very nature of the world's largest power and, of course, Australia's alliance partner. The two really big things, I think it tells us are one, that America no longer represents liberal democracy, that it was for a long time, and certainly since World War two. And second, it shows us that the US is abandoning the international order that it established after World War II. The enlightened self-interest has now becoming a very narrow self-interest under the rubric of America First. So remember, values underpin politics and policy. So you can't make sense of big changes in policy or politics without understanding what's happened to the underpinning values that are the root of all, of all of the others. So liberalism is the doctrine that respects the rights of all peoples equally, all individual rights equally, and they are defended by an impartial state. And liberalism has collapsed in the US into something deeply infected by identity politics, where instead of trying to preserve and improve and deliver the rights of all citizens equally under the law, it's turned into a festival of trying to deliver specific outcomes for specific social minorities. So that's huge. That's huge. And Trump now represents a reaction against that and in his own way overturns it. And advocates for other specific minority or personal or sectoral interests, rather than an equal and impartial advocacy for the rights of all under the law. And second, is democracy. So we know that Donald Trump has no respect for democracy. So democracy is fraying or or at worst, dead. And finally, a country that was prepared to shed blood and treasure, not in the narrow self-interest of imposing its will on one country or another, or extracting something coercively but to uphold a liberal international order that allowed countries to live free of the fear of invasion and coercion from bigger countries, and an alliance structure that was designed to deliver on that. And Trump doesn't believe in allies. He's showing every sign that he won't support allies. He won't support the pursuit of liberty. And the US has walked away from that entire system. So this is a profound change, Samantha, in all of the fundamental values that govern the world and the world order. Not not perfectly and not always. But that's the broad picture. Those values, broadly speaking, were the foundation of the US conducting itself, operating the world. And the election of Trump for a second time with an emphatic majority tells us that this is a changed country.
So perhaps I guess Trump's greatest threat is, is to democracy itself. I mean, you wrote that he is set to be American democracy's undertaker. So I wanted to ask you what you made of Bob Woodward, because he said something the other day on the ABC program, the 730 report to everyone.
Australians included. And that is, don't quit or give up on American democracy. It has its ups and downs. It has its struggles. But I believe it's strong even now.
So, Peter, do you agree or does this perhaps smack of hopeful thinking rather than reality?
I profoundly disagree. You know, the Founding Fathers George Washington described, I think, the first to describe American democracy as an experiment. Bob Woodward is a famous American journalist. He's been famous since the Nixon presidency when he, together with his co-author from The Washington Post, Carl Bernstein, broke the Watergate scandal stories. He is is regarded as a benchmark of impartiality and accuracy. I think the emphatic re-election of Donald Trump after he proved himself to have no respect whatsoever for either the mechanics of an election, the principle of an election, or the liberal values that sit with a democracy. I think that shows us that the American public has declared this a failed experiment. They're not interested anymore. Kamala Harris, one of her biggest themes, as you know, was that Trump is a threat to democracy, a very, you know, a threat to the very existence of America as a democratic country. And Joe Biden had said it for months before her. Did that deter any voters? Doesn't seem so. They've voted him in, as I said, the popular level, the Electoral College, the Senate, the House. And of course, thanks to the Supreme Court ruling last year, the Supreme Court has now decided that a president has the prerogatives of a king. As long as he's doing acting in official business, then he can do no wrong and commit no crime, which is astonishing. And the American people have endorsed all this. So, so much for the checks and balances. Effectively they have been narrowed down, whittled away. And the American people are saying I'm fine with that.
Okay. So let's go a bit further down this line of questioning, I guess, because if Trump's win does actually signal an erosion of democracy in the United States, then what might that actually mean for the rest of us outside of the US? I mean, does it pose a threat, for instance, to our own safety and security?
Absolutely it does. I'll tell you an anecdote that John Bolton told me from the time years ago, from the time when he was Trump's national security adviser. Australia under Malcolm Turnbull decided to ban Huawei, the Chinese telecommunications company, as a security risk to Australia. And Malcolm Turnbull picked up the phone to Donald Trump, who was the president at the time, and said, listen, Donald, we've just done this. We've banned Huawei. And he said, Trump said to him, we're going to do that too. But nine months went past and the US did not act to ban Huawei from its 5G system, as Australia had done. And I said to John Bolton, who was in the job in the white House at the time, why did he not? Why did Trump not act on that sooner? And Bolton said, because Trump was holding out for a grand trade deal with China, and if he'd been able to get the deal he wanted, he would have sold out the Australian interest in a heartbeat just to get the deal. Now, John Bolton and others say that Donald Trump has the same basic stance now towards China. If he thinks he can get a mega deal out of China on the economy, he will dump any other commitment to allies or any other policy to to achieve that.
But how might that filter down to us, say, in Australia? I mean, I know a lot of people would have been thinking, okay, this might really impact Europe very badly. You know, Bob Woodward, uh, I think he told you or he certainly put in his book that Ukraine's leader, Volodymyr Zelensky, would be feeling terrified at the prospect of Trump favouring Putin in a prospective peace negotiation. But what about us in Australia? Could it actually impact our own security and safety?
Absolutely. So there are many dimensions of the Australia-us alliance. If Donald Trump doesn't believe in the alliance or in acting to defend allies, then the alliance becomes inoperative. And it's not just us, and it's not just NATO. Taiwan is very worried about what Donald Trump will do if the Chinese annex Taiwan by force, if necessary. Donald Trump has said, well, it's only 90 miles from China and it's thousands of miles from the US. So, you know, and I've got no commitment to Taiwan is the implication. Until now, it's been difficult for China to operate beyond the first island chain into the western Pacific, which is dominated by the US and particularly the US submarine fleet. If the first island chain breaks breaches and Taiwan is the obvious breach. The Chinese People's Liberation Army is liberated to operate throughout the Pacific unchecked, unmonitored by the US. What does that mean in summary? It means after 80 years of US dominance hegemony, really, as the military power controlling, dominating the Pacific to becoming a potential Chinese one, the Chinese navy would essentially be unchecked and the US would be unable to defend its current position. So that simply tells you that Australia would be very subject and open to Chinese government coercion.
We'll be back in a minute. One of my favorite things that you wrote recently was a piece that was based on an interview that you had with renowned American political scientist Francis Fukuyama. So tell me about his theory that he first set down in 1992, because in something of a stunning turnaround, he spoke to you shortly before Trump's win, and he told you that his election would completely end what he had always thought about what sort of governments humans would usher in in future.
Yeah, that's right. His famous 1992 book, The End of History, uh, made the the assertion that liberal democracy with the end of the Cold War had triumphed as the best form of government available to humanity. But with everything that's happened, not necessarily in, in the world, but in America itself. Fukuyama has now revised and restated his doctrine of the end of history. And I'll tell you what he said to me. He said, it could be. And here's where he revises his his trademark thesis. It could be that at the end of history, all possible approaches to government will have been tried and found wanting, and that we will be consigned to simply cycling them in an eternal return of the same. So cycling through not just liberal democracy, but illiberal democracy, autocracy, right wing dictatorship, left wing dictatorship and all the other shades in between. So instead of the end of history being a prosperous liberal democratic condition, we will be consigned, in his words, to simply cycling them in an eternal return of the same. Wow.
I mean, wow indeed. And what do you think of Francis Fukuyama's revamped theory? I mean, do you think it's likely? Because, I mean, really, this paints a very, very grim picture of the future. And of course, at least in the United States, democracy as a as a form of government has stood for nearly 250 years.
Yes. That's right. Although, as I say, the Founding Fathers said it was only an experiment. I think what Francis Fukuyama, what he's doing, what he's said is an ex post facto readjustment of theory to fit reality. He didn't expect that the US would lose faith in liberal democracy and liberalism and democracy. He didn't expect that Donald Trump would be confirmed in a second term as president, with an enlarged and emphatic majority. He did see Donald Trump coming in his book as early as 1992, even before The Simpsons had postulated that Trump might be president one day. Fukuyama said somebody like Trump could pose a threat to the democratic order. These guys with these giant, towering, limitless egos. But he said, in a liberal democracy, there is an escape valve for these giant egos. Instead of becoming dictators, we let them go and make billions of dollars and exert their energies that way. Well, he's now had to revise it and say Trump is living proof that that doesn't work. Universally, the safety valve wasn't enough to contain Trump. He's in the process of abandoning liberalism, democracy, liberal democracy, and Lord knows what endpoint he's going to achieve over the next four years.
Well, I guess my first question to that is, you know, we always think of or we have for so long of America as a superpower. So is it no longer going to be a superpower? Like, is that where it's at now? Because obviously, Joe Biden, his inability to curtail Benjamin Netanyahu's use of force in Gaza, you know, he obviously copped a lot of criticism for that. And I think that really dented the perception from outside the United States of his power, the power of that American presidents used to have. So is this really going to shift the power that America has on the global stage?
Well, if the US doesn't believe in the values that it's traditionally enforced, and if the US doesn't believe that it has any responsibilities globally anymore, then yes. So you've mentioned the Israel-Gaza war as an example. That's an example where the US has tremendous power, but Trump and neither Trump nor Biden, I should add, wanted to exercise that power. If they simply cut off US supplies of munitions and armaments to Israel, Israel would be churning through and running out of weapons and would be severely limited in what it can do based on its own production abilities. But the US doesn't want to exercise that power. But the Ukraine-russia war illustrates the divide much better, because the principle there is where one country has invaded another without justification. It's a very clear breach of the UN charter, very clear breach of all the the mores and rules. And yet Trump is happy to endorse it. And his very first reaction, as you know, when Putin, um, brought on his full on invasion of Ukraine, was to say genius.
Now, Peter, just to wrap up, I really wanted to ask you about something that Canadian writer Margaret Atwood said just nine days ago at a writer's conference in Idaho.
How dedicated Americans are to the idea of democracy. If they're not dedicated to it, fine. They'll live the dream. The dream being a totalitarian society will see how well they like that.
Is this the sense that you're getting from people about the way they view the US?
Absolutely, absolutely. So in the US itself, Bob Woodward being a case study. People have to have some confidence in the future. You can't simply despair and give up. Some people recognize the threat. Some people recognize the unfolding reality and yet still express hope that things aren't going to deteriorate. Collapse. Their liberties aren't going to be curtailed. But equally, many people and Fukuyama is an example. If you think through logically, The process of what's happened. This is a country that no longer believes in liberal democracy and therefore is heading towards a Donald Trump defined new order where the only thing that matters is his will, his interests, his impulses. And he does have dictatorial impulses. So I'd say he's revealed himself over the years to be a wannabe dictator who's now in a position unfettered by any of the checks and balances, to impose those dictatorial impulses on the entire United States.
Well, there's been so much to take in. Even just five days since Donald Trump was confirmed, the president elect. And I feel so lucky to have you on, Peter Hartcher to help us make some sense of it. So thank you so much for your time.
Always a pleasure, Samantha. And sometimes history happens and sometimes big history happens. And, you know, on Tuesday, us time Wednesday here. Big history happened.
Today's episode of The Morning Edition was produced by Tammy Mills. The Morning Edition is a production of The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald. If you enjoy the show and want more of our journalism, subscribe to our newspapers today. It's the best way to support what we do. Search the age or Smh.com.au forward slash. Subscribe and sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter to receive a comprehensive summary of the day's most important news, analysis and insights in your inbox every day. Links are in the show. Notes. I'm Samantha Salinger Morris. This is the morning edition. Thanks for listening.