Monday, February 10, 2025 | Sha'ban 10, 1446 H
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EDITOR IN CHIEF- ABDULLAH BIN SALIM AL SHUEILI

Opinion- Trump's double standards on democracy

For democracy to be good to the Americans, as well as to others, people must first be good to democracy, be fair in applying it, regardless of time, place, and involved people.
President Donald Trump speaks to reporters as he signs initiatives and executive orders in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, on Monday, Feb 3, 2025. — The New York Times
President Donald Trump speaks to reporters as he signs initiatives and executive orders in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, on Monday, Feb 3, 2025. — The New York Times
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January 2025 reminds us of the attack on the US Capitol building in the same month in 2021, which was both unprecedented and unexpected, since the US is “the home of democracy”, where people decide on who to run the state, through elections. And once the people have spoken, all contestants have to accept the results of those elections. Like a sports game, you have to accept the rules and abide by them, regardless of the results.


Unfortunately, this was not the case with the 2020 elections, when President Donald Trump refused to accept the results and concede. What was more disastrous is that he and his team members kept talking about “widespread fraud” and “stolen elections”, which incited many supporters to engage in riots and later in assault on the Capitol building on the day the President-elect’s winning of the elections was certified. It is legitimate to doubt whether Trump and his supporters would have acted differently if he had lost the 2024 elections. But ‘thank God (for the Americans)’, he did not!


In other words, accepting the results of the elections only when they are in our favor is a sign of double standards, a practice that is counter to justice, justice being another principle of the democratic doctrine. When Donald Trump won in 2016 and also in 2024, he and his followers accepted the results, but when someone else won, he and his followers refused to accept the results. If an athlete rejected the results after an opponent won the game, the athlete would have been suspended, but the “American democracy” would still permit an angry loser to participate in future contests; how lawful!


But does such a practice (i.e., applying democracy selectively) have a precedence, or maybe recent roots, in the American politics? It is obvious that Trump’s reluctance to accept the results of the 2020 elections indicates that he no longer abides by the rules of the game. This seems to suggest that the reason for Trump’s rejection to apply the democratic practice (which is accepting the results of the elections) in 2020 (compared to 2016 and 2024) is related to his rejection to accept the application of democracy itself in other places in the world.


Differently put, if the US is “the home of democracy” (as the majority seem to believe), why would the Trump’s followers attack the Capitol? It may be true that the US is the home of democracy, but only because they usually practice democracy at home. In other words, the reason Trump’s followers did not accept the results of the elections, a genuine democratic practice, is that he did not accept those results, and that is because he does not truly practice democracy.


My point is that Trump and his team –and this is what incited his followers– do not really believe in democracy, simply because they do not support it unless it is in their favor. When it is in other people’s favor, American or other, they withdraw their support of it, and the examples of US opposing democracy or supporting pro-US dictatorships are so many that they cannot be mentioned in one article.


An important point here is that this unprecedented incident should have sent vital messages to the US political institution, simply that not being loyal to principles backfires disastrously. And the various incidents of US citizens, military and civilian, who engage in terrorist acts in the US, and abroad, should be seen for what they are, as evidence that the American people are aware of how selectively democracy is being practiced. We all know that Trump himself should know better; he was miraculously saved from two assassination attempts last year, by someone who, just like Trump, does not approve of some democratic practice, which is, in this case, people’s right to run for public offices.


And to support the claim about Trump’s indifference towards democracy, Trump has recently revealed dictator like intentions to violate the sovereignty of some countries, to combine them and make the US a bigger nation. Do these intentions and statements belong to democracy in any way. Absolutely not. If anything, they are utterly in opposition to true democracy if democracy is simply defined as being elected by the masses. In Trump’s version of democracy, the masses are being driven, either to attack the Capitol, or to believe that they can aspire to possess other people’s properties.


And to further breach justice and democratic norms, one of the first things Trump did after assuming office in 2025 is pardoning the rioters who attacked the Capitol 4 years ago; doesn’t this indicate that they did it for him, and thus he is directly responsible for January 6th? This pardon can have even more serious implications; basically, he is ready to pardon any similar behavior against democracy and justice, as long as he is the beneficiary.


The thing about the attack on the Capitol is that it should have revealed to the US and the world political institutions that Trump’s approach to democracy is the famous saying: “my way or the high way”, which is not much different from dictator practices. And with such irrational attitudes to democracy, by citizens and politicians, in the alleged home of democracy and elsewhere, one should wonder where the whole world is heading, since these so-called democracies are leading the world politically and economically.


These incidents are a sign that Americans and others should expect more irrational behavior if they continue to follow a double-standard policy with regard to the application of democracy. Noam Chomsky is reported to have said: “If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all”. Therefore, for democracy to be good to the Americans, as well as to others, people must first be good to democracy, be fair in applying it, regardless of time, place, and involved people.


The writer is Associate Professor of Linguistics, Sultan Qaboos University


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