Trump’s assault on democracy is real and escalating – Europe should be alarmed, warns ex-diplomat Alex Hall Hall in a recent webinar, writes Bremain Treasurer Helen Johnston for Yorkshire Bylines.
On 8 July, Grassroots for Europe hosted a webinar on the current state and future of government and democracy in the USA, and the knock-on implications for Europe. The key speaker was Alex Hall Hall, a former diplomat who made waves when she resigned from the Foreign Office in December 2019, because she felt unable to represent the UK’s position on Brexit with integrity. She was joined in the webinar by former MEP Richard Corbett, who led the UK Labour Group in the European Parliament.
Be afraid. Be very, very afraid
Alex drew parallels between events in America and the situation in Georgia, where she was ambassador. Pointing out that democratic collapse can happen faster than we think, she believes American democracy is like the frog boiling in water, and not enough Americans fully understand the gravity of what is happening.
The administration is chaotic and disorganised, with people appointed for loyalty rather than competence. For example, a source told Alex there is no systematic national security process, with proper briefing papers and meetings. Senior national security officials often simply try to grab the attention of the president, vice president or cabinet ministers as they walk by in the corridors of the White House, to try to get them to focus on a policy issue. Individual cabinet ministers and senior political appointees are also scared to take decisions without official blessing from Trump.
Executive overreach
The White House is churning executive orders out at an unprecedented rate, making huge administrative decisions with no congressional oversight. Trade policy, budget matters, and decisions on war, including arguably the decision to bomb Iran, are the domain of Congress, but the executive is trampling over its normal legislative powers, with little or no meaningful opposition from the Republican dominated legislature.
Meanwhile, the judiciary branch’s authority to check whether the president’s actions are constitutional or legal is also being weakened. Although almost all cases against executive orders have been won by the challengers, the administration is simply ignoring court orders. So, for example, despite orders saying people may not be deported without due process, the deportations are still happening.
Attacks on institutions
It’s not just the major branches of Congress and the judiciary that are under attack. Numerous semi-independent bodies set up by Congress to oversee the operations of the executive are being dismantled or sidelined – such as inspectors general, judges advocate in the military, labour boards, ethics watchdogs, etc.
Scientific and medical bodies are being disbanded, auditing authorities dismissed, or asked not to produce reports. There are attacks on universities, law firms which take up cases against the administration, and the media, all repeatedly threatened with budget cuts or lawsuits unless they comply with the administration’s demands.
For example, recently, the government has suggested it will attack CNN for reporting on a new app that tells people when Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents are in their area, accusing CNN of enabling people to resist law enforcement. It has slashed funding to public broadcasters and to highly regarded independent organisations like the National Endowment for Democracy, Radio Free Europe, and the US Institute for Peace.
Lack of resistance
There’s been astonishingly little resistance. There is public opposition, but the elites, Congress members and business leaders in the private sector, who should know better, are either going along with it or keeping their heads down. There has been no organised resistance from the university sector to the attacks on them, including on Harvard University, Columbia University and the University of Pennsylvania, who are fighting their own battles while others are hoping they won’t be next in the firing line.
Republicans are utterly cowed and running scared. Some have just decided to step down and no longer fight, while others, like Alaskan Senator Lisa Murkowski, say this is all very inappropriate, and then vote with the administration. Meanwhile, the Democrats have no unified strategy for resistance and bureaucrats are terrified of losing their jobs. They have to sign loyalty pledges and are ordered to report on colleagues if they support woke policies.
The Supreme Court has shown it is willing to give the executive extensive leeway, and has made a few astonishing decisions, such as the 27 June ruling limiting the ability of federal judges to issue nationwide injunctions, so that, even if an executive order is unconstitutional, a single federal judge can no longer block it from taking effect nationwide. Most recently, the court approved the administration’s plan to dismantle the Department of Education. It has also sanctioned the dismissal of thousands of public sector workers.
Constitutional crisis
The damage Trump has caused will last beyond this administration because so many good people have been driven out or purged. Institutions have been turned upside down, programmes have been slashed or ended. None of these will easily be reinstated. The damage will take decades to put right.
Though many of her Republican contacts insist Trump will not try to stay on for a third term, Alex personally does not rule out the risk. He and the people around him who have facilitated his actions risk a flurry of lawsuits when they leave. Trump can pardon himself and his family members, but he can’t pardon everybody who has been complicit in his law breaking, so they have an incentive to help him stay on in office. He could engineer a crisis and declare a state of emergency, for example in response to public protests against his administration’s actions.
This has already gone beyond a constitutional crisis. The checks and balances in the system and the institutions that are supposed to act as a check on the executive are failing. This is how Alex sums it up:
“So what we are facing is a constitutional failure. I think it’s incredibly serious. I have no good news. If you’re worried you should be. Sorry about that.”
The danger to Europe
Richard Corbett agreed Trump’s actions are essentially undermining democracy. He also believes Trump is more or less overtly seeking regime change in Europe. The invitees to Trump’s inauguration were the first tell-tale sign of this: not foreign heads of state and ministers, but the leaders of far-right parties from across Europe, including Nigel Farage. In Munich, JD Vance argued that the main threats to democracy in Europe are not Russia or China, they are internal. He was not referring to the parties on the right and the far right, he meant the so-called ‘liberal elite’, allegedly imposing its views on the people of Europe.
Now the US is giving overt support to far-right candidates in Romania, Germany, and Hungary. The US. Secretary of State for Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, actually went to Poland during its elections to say that Karol Nawrocki, the far-right candidate, should be the country’s next president.
Money is also being channelled from ultra-conservative groups in the US to European political parties and campaigning groups. Steve Bannon has been reactivating his network of contacts and meetings across far-right parties in Europe, while right-wing Christian groups channel funds to conservative Christian groups in Europe to challenge gay rights.
The European response
Richard notes that parties like Germany’s CDU, previously very pro-US, have been talking up the need for European cohesion and for the EU and European countries to work together more. Public opinion in countries that were traditionally somewhat Eurosceptic, like Denmark, has switched to being much more pro-EU. Trump’s threats to Greenland have certainly focused attention in Denmark and beyond.
Governments, however, and indeed the European Commission, are still being very cautious, as we are still highly dependent on the US for security. They fear Trump may act on his many hints to pull the plug on NATO, or at least reduce the American commitment, and Europe is not yet ready to take up that challenge by itself, despite unease about Trump’s relationship with Putin.
Trump is disrupting world trade, tearing up agreements, imposing tariffs, changing his mind, reimposing them, prolonging and shortening deadlines. It’s chaotic, and a real threat to Europe’s economies. Hence attempts to appease Trump or to flatter him. European countries are publicly very cautious at the moment about confronting him, but their hand may well be forced if Trump really does act on withdrawing or reducing US support for NATO or refuses to compromise on tariffs.
Pushing back
Alex mentioned Georgia, where people have been out protesting for over 200 days, sustaining the pressure on the regime. Likewise, Americans should be lobbying their members of Congress and supporting politicians who have the courage to stand up and resist. They should be making sure they vote, and they should be taking part in civil activities and peaceful protests, like the recent No Kings marches, whenever they can.
She is concerned by the lack of effective pushback in the US. Before the election many intelligence and defence experts were saying Trump was a threat to national security. This included John Bolton, Trump’s own national security advisor in the first administration. Now their criticisms are muted, as they are afraid of being painted as part of the anti-Trump deep state. They hedge their words and express support for some of his actions. Those who have tried to really speak out have had no effect, and people who work within the bureaucracy risk losing their jobs.
The Democrats are divided. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, Bernie Sanders and Zohran Mamdani, the New York mayoral candidate, are speaking out, but the more establishment Democrats are worried this opens the party up to accusations of harbouring socialists and terrorist sympathisers, or of being accused of allegedly ‘failing to learn the lessons’ from the November elections, about public sentiment on immigration or ‘wokeness’. There is real anger in the Democratic grassroots about the Democrat party leadership’s failure to mount more effective resistance to the administration.
Giving dictators the green light
Is Trump’s success in dismantling the checks and balances of democracy in the US emboldening would-be autocrats elsewhere? Alex believes dictators in Belarus and Georgia would be doing what they are doing anyway, but Trump’s attacks on universities, free media and independent organisations make it much harder for the US to then criticise other countries. Trump has slashed funding for organisations that promote democracy abroad, such as Freedom House, the National Democratic Institute, and Radio Free Europe.
The State Department has revised what it will report on in its annual human rights report, avoiding subjects such as the repression of protest or election rigging, because the US might want to do these things itself. The US under Trump will not care about what is happening in Georgia, for example. His foreign policy is values-free: if a regime has something Trump thinks will benefit America or him personally, he is not going to care what it is doing to its own people. He’s happy to be hawkish on Iran, not because Iran has a terrible human rights record, but because Iran has nothing to offer America.
Richard agreed Trump is emboldening far-right groups and autocratic leaders in Europe and elsewhere. Orban, for instance, is isolated in Europe, but at least he can rely on US support. Trump’s overt backing for far-right parties helps them sell themselves in their own countries: “You see, we’re not extremists. The president of the United States thinks we’re good.”
How should the UK handle Trump?
Richard understands that Starmer is doing the same as most European leaders, that is, trying not to alienate Trump by avoiding overt criticism. After the Zelensky incident in the White House, Starmer invited Zelenskyy to London, and made a point of welcoming him on the doorstep of Downing Street. He didn’t openly criticise Trump but his deeds made a point. It’s a very fine balancing act until we can build greater resilience, and that means, says Richard, Europeans must work together.
Alex agreed a responsible British prime minister can’t afford to fall out with America. Trump’s attitude on Ukraine has softened. He’s sounding more critical and frustrated with Putin, and he’s just resumed sending armaments to Ukraine. She thinks Starmer has been influential in that. There was concern Trump’s administration might walk away from the AUKUS nuclear cooperation deal between Australia, the UK and the US, which is key for security in the Pacific, but Starmer has kept it on the road. So, while it’s uncomfortable sometimes to see Starmer having to appease and flatter Trump, until we are truly independent, we can’t afford to upset him.
Final thoughts
Alex concluded by noting that, at the end of the day, no constitution can withstand a determined assault. Such attacks can only be combatted when the people decide they will not tolerate them. The American constitution is being stretched to the limit, and ultimately it’s not words on paper, it’s a living document. Its survival depends on how much people are prepared to fight. “And the failure is not coming from the American people. It’s coming from the American elites and the people who staff these institutions. That is the failure.”
