The Hour Has Come for US Civil Society
It’s civil society’s turn to take a step forward, as at other times, to curtail the regressive tendencies now afflicting the United States.
By Silvio Prado (Confidencial)
HAVANA TIMES – “There are no countries where associations are more necessary to prevent tyranny of parties or the whims of princes than those whose social state is democratic,” said Alexis de Tocqueville from “Democracy in America”
The robustness of civil society is put to the test when called on to confront its greatest challenges. Since January 20, civil society in the United States is undergoing what could prove to be one of its greatest tests in modern times. Cited as a reference for its capacity to undertake struggles that broaden the portal of civil and social rights, today US civil society finds itself before the violent dismantling of its most important achievements in a way that threatens to return US society to the cave era, politically speaking. As has occurred in other countries, it’s faced with the challenge of defending itself or watching its most iconic banners go up in flames.
For obvious reasons, this focus excludes another sector of civil society, such as the National Rifle Association, the Proud Boys, and the Klu Klux Klan. Far from promoting a broadening of citizens’ rights, these organizations seek not only to mutilate them, but also to demolish the rules of social coexistence in favor of the privileged few, in a return to the nineteenth century.
The Trump Administration’s agenda has set out to revert the principal conquests of the great social movements of the United States, summed up in the programs known as DEI: diversity, equity, and inclusion. These programs, in turn, are based on the 1964 Civil Rights Law, itself the fruit of a massive movement for civil rights, against racism and exclusion in the United States.
As a result, it’s no exaggeration to stress that the fabric of civic associations that Alexis de Toqueville so marveled at in the nineteenth century has never been called into question this strongly since the McCarthy era. Since January 20, any clamor for demands that smell of equality has become anathema, and although there still hasn’t been any political persecution against its proponents, the dismantling of the institutional measures that guaranteed the forceful push for affirmative action within the administration and US companies has spawned the same hostile environment felt by civil societies under authoritarian regimes such as Russia, Turkey or Nicaragua.
Trump’s offensive directly threatens the organizations behind the large mobilizations that have shaken US society – the struggles against the war in Vietnam, the movement for gay and lesbian rights, Occupy Wall Street, the student protests throughout the country against the genocide in Gaza, and the no less striking Black Lives Matter movement. To this, we must also add the enormous capacity of the universities and centers of thinking that have illuminated the sciences of other countries. The social sciences in Latin America owe them a very special debt, as well as the field of Political Science itself, for their studies of government and public administration, their analysis of public policies, and – even more so – the construction of the body of theory behind the social movements and civil society.
Given its characteristics, especially its density and autonomy, US civil society has been cited as an example of a strong civil society. When we speak of density, we refer to a quality that has been evident since Toqueville’s time. Alexis de Toqueville, a nineteenth century French aristocrat, diplomat, political philosopher, and historian, called attention to the fact that people in the US formed associations for the interests of their communities with such frequency that there were few spheres of human activity that weren’t organized. Autonomy has more to do with the political will of its inhabitants to organize themselves in ways independent of the State, which in turn implies setting their own norms, what Levitsky and Ziblatt termed informal rules that regulate everything, “from family life to the functioning of the companies and universities.”
Powerful organizations have emerged from this reserve, like the omnipresent American Civil Liberties Union, founded over a hundred years ago, which actively confronted the arbitrary measures of the first Trump government. There are also other organizations that have transcended the US borders, such as Human Rights Watch in the field of human rights, and the PEN Club for freedom of expression, as well as other organizations that have been decisive in promoting gender theory, ecology movements, anti-racism, the rainbow family for the tolerance of differences, and pacifism.
With such a pedigree, it would be very sad to see US Civil Society succumb to the current assault of political power and techo-olilgarchy. In the first pages of their work, Levitsky and Ziblatt ask a question that’s far from rhetorical: “Will the autocratic leader subvert the democratic institutions, or will these be enough to contain him?” Both authors respond that the institutions can’t defend themselves alone, that the political parties and an organized citizenry must defend the Constitution. Now, in the first 30 days of Trump, we’re seeing the institutions being dismantled with the zombi-like complicity of the Republicans and the powerless complaints of the Democrats. Only the Courts appear to be fulfilling their function of defending the rule of law.
It’s now civil society’s turn to take a step forward, as on other occasions, to curtail the regressive tendencies that today are afflicting the United States, in the same way that other civil societies have confronted the authoritarian regimes in other countries. Perhaps this time it falls on these civil societies to mobilize in solidarity with those of the US, as US organizations have done to support struggles beyond their own frontiers.
Perhaps we’ll find in Trump’s far-right onslaught an opportunity to breathe new life into the concept of solidarity between peoples. Perhaps it can inspire a South-North solidarity that puts new types of alliances on the world chessboard in support of the US people’s struggle to preserve their democracy. Has the moment come to organize committees in solidarity with the United States of America?
First published in Spanish by Confidencial and translated and posted in English by Havana Times.