In an interview a few days ago, Secretary of State Mélanie Joly said that we must prepare for the possibility of another Trump presidency.
She was absolutely right to mention it.
The authoritarian drift
When the minister points out that Canada needs to be prepared for different scenarios, she is only doing her job, but these comments echoed my concerns and those of many other observers and analysts.
Since Donald Trump’s narrow victory in 2016, the United States has become significantly more unstable, both domestically and internationally.
That a significant number of American voters pay little heed to an authoritarian tendency, the rise of the far right, and many Republicans’ contempt for the most basic rules of healthy democratic life are all reasons to break a sweat.
If you think about it seriously, the January 6, 2021 attack and the multiple maneuvers by Trump and his supporters to invalidate the results of the 2020 election could have resulted in even greater chaos were it not for the Constitution and the Separation of powers and opposition from some elected officials in key states.
The Supreme Court yesterday rejected a theory of so-called “independent state legislatures” that would have allowed states to set their own electoral rules while allowing them to avoid legal challenges.
The American states already enjoy extraordinary leeway in federal elections. Since the birth of the United States, there has been a desire to decentralize power and entrust large parts of it to the states.
While the states have the right to regulate the procedures of a federal election, there has never been any serious thought about removing them from the judiciary’s control.
That such an option finds enough support to be brought before the Supreme Court is in itself a symptom of a deviation.
Fringe theory but real dangers
I was impatiently waiting for yesterday’s verdict. I wondered if the more conservative majority of the Supreme Court, made up of “originalist” jurists (who stuck to the 1787 version of the Constitution), would find arguments against the founding text.
Equally important to me, a victory for the “independent state legislature” theory would have meant that in some states Trump supporters could achieve in 2024 what they missed in 2020: the annulment of a legitimate election.
Removing state legislatures from the scrutiny of the judiciary leaves the door open to manipulation by specific states to reduce or prevent broader voter turnout, while retaining the exclusive right to validate the results.
I invite you to remain vigilant because this failed attempt is just one of the paths taken by right-wing extremists. The verdict prevents the worst, but there will be more episodes.
