We begin today’s roundup with analysis of the fall of Boris Johnson and the notion of accountability in a democracy. First up, Michelle Goldberg at The New York Times:
For an American liberal, however, the schadenfreude brought by Johnson’s collapse is mixed with envy. We are watching a still-functioning democracy dispatch its bombastic populist leader because his amorality and narcissistic dishonesty were simply too much. On Wednesday, a day after resigning as health secretary, Sajid Javid lambasted Johnson during Question Time in the House of Commons: “We’ve seen in great democracies what happens when divisions are entrenched and not bridged. We cannot allow that to happen here.” [...]
But, of course, Britain and the United States are very different countries, and not just because the U.K. is a parliamentary system, a generally more effective form of government than our own presidential system. British people are still evidently capable of being shocked by officials’ sexual harassment and shameless untruths, even when those officials are on their side. Their country is not heavily armed, and does not have a powerful faction that regularly threatens violence. Britain still appears to have some minimal social agreement about acceptable political behavior. Its government is falling apart precisely because its society is not. [...]
The quaint part is the near universal condemnation of their behavior, and the widespread acknowledgment that, after years of bullying and dishonesty, Johnson’s dissembling was the final straw. Imagine having final straws!
The resignation of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is testament to the power of elected politicians to hold their leaders accountable. It is a lesson that has been lost on Republican Party officials as they have weighed repeatedly how to deal with former president Donald Trump. [...]
Trump has never experienced what Johnson has just gone through. At no time have Republican leaders — senators, House members, governors, national or state party officials — collectively tried to confront him. After Jan. 6, 2021, there was talk among Trump’s Cabinet about invoking the 25th Amendment and declaring him unfit for the office, but it came to nothing. Lawmakers condemned him for the attack on the Capitol and then over time began to compliantly fall back in line.
And here’s Sasha Abramsky’s take at The Nation:
Boris Johnson’s demise is a massive victory for those in the UK who value the bedrock principles of democracy and parliamentary accountability. It is a long-overdue righting of Britain’s ship of state.
All of which stands in stark contrast to what is going on in the United States these days. How is it that Conservative parliamentarians in the UK were able to dispatch a narcissistic, power-hungry leader in two days of internal bloodletting, while their GOP counterparts in the US are still, 18 months after the January 6 insurrection, in thrall to the violent, irrationalist Trump cult?
Meanwhile, at The New York Times, Jamelle Bouie dives deep into the next phase of legal attack on our democracy by the extreme right:
A Republican victory at the Supreme Court would, according to the election law expert Rick Hasen, “radically alter the power of state courts to rein in state legislatures that violate voting rights in federal elections. It could essentially neuter the ability of state courts to protect voters under provisions of state constitutions against infringement of their rights.” [...]
There is a somewhat common view that the counter-majoritarianism of the American system is acceptable because the United States is a “Republic, not a democracy.” That notion lurks behind the idea of the “independent state legislature,” which would empower partisans to limit the right of the people to choose their leaders in a direct and democratic manner.
But from the start, Americans have rejected the idea that their system is somehow opposed to more and greater democracy. When institutions seemed to subvert democratic practice, the voters and their representatives pushed back, demanding a government more responsive to their interests, desires and republican aspirations. It is not for nothing that the men who claimed Jefferson as their political and ideological forefather labeled their party “The Democracy.”
Switching topics, on the uniquely American plague of gun violence, don’t miss this analysis at The Washington Post:
The surge in gun violence comes as firearm purchases rose to record levels in 2020 and 2021, with more than 43 million guns estimated to have been purchased during that period, according to a Washington Post analysis of federal data on gun background checks. At the same time, the rate of gun deaths in those years hit the highest level since 1995, with more than 45,000 fatalities each year.
Guns account for most suicides and are almost entirely responsible for an overall rise in homicides across the country from 2018 to 2021, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
And on a final note, The New York Times has the latest news and analysis on the tragic assassination of former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe.