Democracy will be tested in the United States during the presidential election on November 5 and in the days that follow if the Associated Press news agency, which plays the informal role of referee of the elections, does not declare any candidate of the night to morning. The responsibility falls mainly 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 respect the principle of the peaceful transition of power.
This test is a continuation of his business of challenging the results of the presidential election on November 3, 2020. It culminated in his followers’ assault on Congress on January 6, 2021. This episode was devastating for the image of the United States. . The United States, a country that has long been presented 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 those of the V-Dem institute, an observatory attached to the University of Gothenburg, in Sweden, financed mainly 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 surveyed consider that it is already “ 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 misinformation, the questioning of the rules governing elections and the temptation to“extension » of the executive branch, according to the formula of the American political scientist Nancy Bermeo.
Two researchers at the Brookings Institution, a progressive think tank in Washington, Elaine Kamarck and Darrell West define misinformation as material “false, organized, intentional and malicious, harmful and fast” In a work published in August, Lies that kill. A citizen’s guide to misinformation (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 176 pages, 26 euros, untranslated). The growth of this misinformation is joined by the richest man in the world, Elon Musk, a 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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