The fate of nations often comes down to the choices made by a handful of individuals at a particular moment in history. Today, the United States is facing just such a moment. What a handful of individual Republicans decide will shape the future not just of the country, but of democracy itself in America.
Modern history is littered with similarly pivotal choices, for better or worse. A century ago, the Russian Revolution came down to a showdown between the iron will of Vladimir Lenin and the indecisiveness of Alexander Kerensky, who ended up sneaking out of Saint Petersburg to escape the Bolsheviks.
Another Russian Revolution — on New Year’s Eve 1999, when President Vladimir Putin gained the government foothold that ultimately enabled him to rule the country to this day — also came down to a solitary selfish decision by the country’s then-leader. Choosing to prioritise his own safety and that of his family over the well-being of Russia, former president Boris Yeltsin named Putin, a former KGB colonel, as his successor.
On a more positive note, where would France be today, if, in June 1940, the then-relatively unknown General Charles de Gaulle had not gone into exile and delivered his passionate call for his country to resist the Nazi invaders? Where would the West be had anyone other than Winston Churchill become British prime minister that year?
The US has also had its share of such pivotal moments, several of which were described by former US president John F. Kennedy in his book Profiles in Courage, which he wrote before becoming president. For example, former US secretary of state Daniel Webster supported the Compromise of 1850, despite his hatred of slavery, in order to save the union.
Similarly, Robert Taft denounced the Nuremberg Trials, despite his hatred of the Nazis, to defend the fundamental US legal principle that a person could not be criminally charged on the basis of a retroactive statute. Webster and Taft, like the six others that Kennedy examined, risked political and reputational ruin to take difficult decisions, because they believed themselves to be defending the best interests of their country.
Such political courage is not a thing of the past. Recently, 11 Conservative members of the British parliament balked at giving Prime Minister Theresa May’s government “Henry VIII powers” — the authority to create new laws or eliminate old ones, without parliamentary approval. Led by former attorney general Dominic Grieve, the rebel Tory MPs refused to countenance such a step, regardless of the cost. And that cost turned out to be high: Grieve received death threats, and others were sacked by the Tory leadership.
The US today is one place where such bravery and selflessness cannot be glimpsed. President Donald Trump and a majority of Congressional Republicans tax bill would benefit America’s wealthiest households at the expense of saddling the country with more than $1 trillion in additional debt.
US Republicans have long decried any measure that increases the US budget deficit. Rob Portman of Ohio had even served as director of the White House Office of Management and Budget under former president George W. Bush. Yet, now they support tax cuts that will cause the deficit to grow as much, if not more, than it did under former president Barack Obama. To be sure, seven Republican senators — Susan Collins of Maine, Robert Corker of Tennessee, Jeff Flake and John McCain of Arizona, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and Marco Rubio of Florida — have voiced concerns about the bill. Of course, it is hard to ask for more heroism from McCain. His courage as a prisoner of war for five years in Vietnam seems to be doubted only by Trump, and the dignified way he is battling brain cancer today has only heightened the esteem in which most Americans hold him.
McCain’s fellow senator from Arizona is failing to back word with deed. Flake, whose memoir is called The Conscience of a Conservative, recently delivered a searing speech on the Senate floor denouncing Trump, whom Flake sees as threatening American “principles, freedoms, and institutions”, disregarding “truth and decency”, and engaging in petty and “reckless provocations”. Yet, Flake supported Trump’s tax bill without so much as a grimace.
Murkowski and Collins played a vital role in preventing the Trump-supported repeal of the 2010 Affordable Care Act and its replacement with a much crueler health-care bill. Corker, too, has presented himself as somehow apart from the Trumpian mire. Yet, when it comes to tax cuts for the rich, these figures are as willing as any firm Trump acolyte to trade their honour for the approval of their tribe.
Years from now, some young and ambitious politician will survey the Trump presidency and, in an effort to explain the events that are unfolding before us, pen a Kennedyesque ‘Profiles in Cowardice’ focused on Republicans’ lack of personal integrity. The question is what will have become of American democracy by then.
— Project Syndicate, 2017
Nina L. Khrushcheva is professor of International Affairs at The New School and a senior fellow at the World Policy Institute.
