How to think about the threat to America

For the first time since the 1940s, Americans have been asking: Can it happen here?Thequestion, which has been debated in the US for months, is meant to drawattention to the potential fragility of democratic self-government –and to emphasise that in some periods, democracies are especially likelyto turn in authoritarian directions.It would be fair to pose thatquestion in any case in light of China’s continued rise, Russia’sresurgent aggression, and the disturbing developments in Turkey, Poland,Hungary and the Philippines. To his most severe critics, some of thewords and deeds of President Donald Trump make it seem as if democraticprinciples might not be entirely secure in the US itself.But there’sgood news. If “it” means genuine authoritarianism, Americans probablydon’t have much to worry about. The American system of checks andbalances, adopted after a war against monarchy, was specificallydesigned to limit the power of any would-be authoritarian.For well over 200 years, the system has held firm. It continues to do so.Inmost domains, the president cannot act on his own. He needs explicitcongressional permission. Independent courts are available to strikedown presidential actions that violate the law. The Bill of Rightsstands as a safeguard against abridgments of freedom of speech, freedomof religion, and unreasonable searches and seizures.At multipleturns, the Trump administration, no less than its predecessors, has beenstymied by these obstacles. Repeated losses in court, on issues largeand small, have been a defining feature of its first 14 months.Even if Americans need not worry about authoritarianism as such, however, the current period does justify serious concern.1)History teaches that even in the United States, serious abridgments ofcivil rights and civil liberties are possible, at least when nationalsecurity is threatened.During World War I, Congress made it a crimefor anyone to “cause or attempt to cause insubordination, disloyalty, orrefusal of duty in the military forces of the United States.”Prosecutors seized on those words as a basis for bringing criminalproceedings against dissenters. During World War II, more than 100,000Japanese-Americans were placed in internment camps on the West Coast. Inthe 1950s and 1960s, the executive branch directed a range of actionsagainst “subversive” people and organizations, including suppression ofspeech and violations of privacy.Such events may seem like ancienthistory. But let’s not be complacent. If there is a successful attack onthe country or a novel threat, liberty will face serious challenges.2)Russia has reportedly obtained the capacity to interfere with ourelectoral processes – not only through the use of social media tointensify social divisions and to promote its favoured candidates, butalso by targeting voting machinery. In addition, Russian hackers areeven attacking our sources of power and water.To date, the WhiteHouse’s response to these threats has been unaccountably tepid – whichis worse than alarming. Russia’s actions do not mean thatauthoritarianism is a serious danger in the United States. But they domean that authoritarianism may be a serious danger to the United States.If we do not response to that danger, it will grow.3) One of themost striking lessons of the rise of fascism in the 1930s is that manycitizens were simply living their lives – focusing on their families,their friends, their jobs.They liked the fact that the economy wasimproving. They did not embrace authoritarianism as such. But they didnot do anything to stop it.In 1927, Justice Louis Brandeis warned,“the greatest menace to freedom is an inert people.” The US has a robustculture of freedom. But in the face of challenges to democratic norms,it is not illegitimate to ask whether Americans will be sufficientlyresistant – at least if the challenges come from a president whosepolicies they like.4) President Trump has successively attackedinstitutions, both public and private, that do not bend to his will. Sofar, the attacks have generally taken the form of words rather thandeeds. But delegitimation of independent institutions can weakenstructural constraints on leaders – and ultimately compromise democraticvalues.5) The Trump administration has been intensifying partisandivisions, with the president himself calling for criminal prosecutionof political adversaries and demonising those who disagree with him onmatters of policy.That’s bad enough. But in politics as well aslife, brutality breeds more of the same. There is a real risk thatDemocrats will not only lurch to the left but also engage in Trump-likerhetorical strategies – and thus fail to treat Republicans and Trumpsupporters with grace, or the respect that they deserve.That wouldbe a disaster, because it would aggravate a situation in which peopleare finding it increasingly hard to engage with one another acrosspartisan lines – or to learn that on numerous questions, they do notmuch disagree, and thus can find good paths forward.Authoritarianismalmost certainly can’t happen here. But a damaged and polarisedsociety, incapable of solving shared problems? That’s a clear andpresent danger. – Tribune News Service * Cass R Sunstein is aBloomberg View columnist. He is the editor of Can It Happen Here?Authoritarianism in America and a co-author of  Nudge: ImprovingDecisions About Health, Wealth and Happiness.