 Now, if democracy is lost, what happens then? People think it'll be fine, it'll be okay, we'll muddle through, but they may not be quite correct about that. This is American Issues Take One. Today, Cynthia Sinclair and I will address that question, and we'll try to paint the most accurate prediction we can, knowing what we know today, knowing what we can find and analyze. Hi Cynthia, nice to see your face. Good morning Jay, nice to be here, thanks for having me. So people think we'll be able to muddle through, even if it really goes south in terms of democracy. And of course there's a question there about, you know, what is democracy? And the other question is, you know, what happens if we don't have whatever we think is democracy? The country is not so strong. The country is not so together and integrated as it might be. We've come a long way since the time, since the greatest generation. Since the time the country was, you know, the strongest beacon on the hill after World War II. And we have suffered in many ways and people talk these days about the loss of our democracy by virtue of Trump and others, mostly in the GOP, who seem to be dedicated to bringing the country down, or at least bringing our democracy down. So I think we have to address what happens if they succeed. What happens without democracy? Okay, so let me ask you first, let's see if we can fashion a definition of democracy. What are we talking about? Well, if you go by what the United Nations says, then, you know, it is freedom, right? And freedoms of individuals to believe what they want to believe, to say what they want to say, and to have that privacy. All of the things that seems like our Supreme Court is trying to undermine right now. Okay, so let's assume that, you know, the worst analysis comes true, and the Supreme Court continues in rolling back our human rights, civil rights. Let's assume that Congress continues to be mainly ineffectual. I mean, it was really extraordinary that in this big bill that Biden claims a great victory, he had to have Kamala Harris break the tie. Because no, this is the, let's see, it's the Inflammable Induction Act, you know. Oh, right. And he had to have her break the tie because no Republican, not one single Republican in the Senate would vote for that bill. It's really interesting. So they got it through with Joe Manchin and Kristen Sinema, which is pretty interesting. They control the policy of the Senate. In any event, so, you know, it seems to me that you're right, the Supreme Court is broken. Congress is broken, and the executive sometimes is naive and ineffectual, and never forget that during the Trump years, you know, he peppered the executive agencies with people who were loyal to him, and most of them are still there, loyal to him. And so I think there's a fair chance that Republicans will take control of both the House and the Senate in November, this November, coming soon, coming now, okay? And when that happens, some of these really draconian things they've been hoping for, working for, to undermine our democracy will take place. And if Trump gets into office again, which remains a logical possibility, he's not going down easy with the Department of Justice, he'll be fighting them right to the Supreme Court on everything. Or DeSantis or some other Republican gets into the, I mean, some other right-wing Republican gets into the Oval Office, you know, democracy, as you describe it, as we have known it, will be a great jeopardy. So that being the case, and what do you think from the United Nations analysis on this? We will lose in this country. What will it be like for you, Cynthia, and for me, and for the people we know? Well, we need only look to Russia, right? China may be too extreme of an example, but Russia is the perfect example. And the Republicans, especially Trump, seem to be, wait, wait, I'm going to do it the way John Highland does it on TV, that disgraced, twice-impeached, coup-voting, ex-president, instead of saying his name, hummer. Very good, very good. Every time he says it, that's what he says. And I think it's very true because how important is it that we remember those things? Because, you know, in our cycling media all the time, those things fall away. So every time we mention that crazy man, let's mention him as the disgraced, twice-impeached, coup-voting ex-president, one-term ex-president, also we can put in there. This is the thing. They want to rule by fiat, like you used to always say, right? They want to be that single proprietor corporation, instead of a democratic government that everybody has a say in. They want everyone to be, and you can see it by looking at the Republican Party right now, because they are all in one step. And if they aren't in one step, they get kicked out, right? That is not free-thinking American mentality. That is definitely dictator-autocratic mentality, when no Republicans can have their own say. Even when it's for truth, look at what has happened to Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, right? And they're still my dream team for the Republicans. To see Liz Cheney president, Adam Kinzinger as vice president, I think they would be a winning ticket. You would hope they would be a winning ticket, but we can look at what's happening to her in Wyoming and know that people with integrity don't matter in the Republican Party. Personal opinion doesn't matter in the Republican Party. If we have all the democracy sucked out of this country, that's what we are all going to be. And if we don't step the toe of the line, then we're out. We're going to be in the same way they are in Russia. If you speak out, you're jailed, right? If you go against what they say, you're jailed. And depending on how long, or if they just want to make something up, because they think that you are thinking things that don't go along with the way they are. Now, who does this remind us of? Nazis. Absolutely Hitler Nazis. And that's, you know, so when you hear Russia say we're going against the Nazis, that's just ridiculous. It's projection just like so much of what the Republicans here say. And we need not look any further, for example, than the Republicans in Congress afraid to step out of line, afraid to have their own opinion. Now, what does that mean in my daily life? First of all, you're right to point out that free speech, as we have known it, it has grown and flourished in this country for a long time. And it has defined us that whatever you say, you know, is okay, pretty much. Free speech will be a great jeopardy if people who like autocracy get into office. You know, you can have a benign dictator, that has happened in European history. But it never lasts for very long, because power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. And so the benign aspect goes away soon enough. And so the first thing is free speech, it has to go away. And then I watch MSNBC and I watch CNN and I watch, for that matter, BBC and then I read the Times and the Post and other news sources and I say to myself, how strong are they? Will they be able to continue in the face of a government that wants to call them fake, that wants to criticize them and say that they are lying, you know, your notion of projecting your bad acts on someone else? And I think, like your opinion on this, I think the first thing that goes is the liberal press or the remaining press, maybe I say, because we don't treat Fox News in that category at all. Fox News is propaganda, they're self-appointed propagandists, and you know they're not telling the truth. The other ones are doing a great service, but they're fragile. That's my notion. I want to know from you how you feel about the strength or resilience of the real press in this country. I think the press will be the first thing to go. Think about it, even before he was elected, right, the disgraced, twice impeached coup plotting ex-president, the first thing he did was go after the press, the fake news, fake news, fake news media. Oh, they're saying all these enemies of the people. Remember that one? Oh yeah, enemy of the people, which is exactly the way that Hitler started. That's how he started, one of the enemy of the people, and you know the next Republican president is going to really just push that to the max. They're already pushing it anyway, even without being in power. Congressman, senators, people who want to be congressmen and senators are saying that you can't trust the press. MSNBC is no good. Oh, they're partisan hacks, partisan hacks. The only real partisan hack that's on mainstream TV is Fox. And I do watch those guys sometimes. I don't just listen to MSNBC and CNN, and I do Washington Post and all of those, the Atlantic, and I love to read those. But I try to look at the New Yorker and the New York Post. And I watch Fox News for as long as I can stand it until I'm just screaming at the TV, and then I have to change it, because it just gets me so mad. Well, you know, Trump threatened the New York Times. He wanted to make it impossible for them to continue in business. And a president with a bully pulpit, he did damage to them in terms of reputation, but he can also do regulatory damage and judicial damage to them and essentially muzzle them or put them out of business. They really wonder how free speech will fare if there are no organs. Now, if you leave it to social media, internet media, tweeting media, and he or his successor, his Republican successor, get back into Twitter, we will be surrounded with questionable statements. Trump had 30,000 lies during his administration. He lied about everything. It was pathological. And yet there were people out there that believed him, believed his stop to steal initiative, and still do. And it shows you that a deaf demagogue can control public opinion with lies. So if you take away the liberal press, if you take away the press that criticizes a right-wing autocrat, that leaves you with the pandemonium in social media, and it leaves you with lies, surrounded with lies, and that leads to confusion. And we're all subject to being confused. It's hard to be confused if there's nobody giving you the straight scoop. So I think that part of this scenario we're painting is that you can't find out what's going on. You don't know. And the country in general has more confusion than it has now. That's one of the things that happens if democracy fails. But let me talk about corruption. Corruption. One of the things about Trump, he comes in as a businessman, and he brings his lack of morality and lack of ethics into the White House. And he operates the government like a corrupt business, quid pro quo for everything. And I wonder what happens in terms of the national economy. I wonder what happens in terms of the credibility of the government. I wonder what happens to the efficacy of all the governmental agencies. I wonder what happens to players out there who don't want to participate in corrupt deals, because every deal that Trump makes, or his successor, or an autocrat that follows him, every deal is a corrupt deal. What happens to the country in the absence of democracy, which hopefully regulates those deals? Well, let's look at Russia again. What happened during the invasion of Ukraine? All of the people that tried to stand up and protest it were jailed. People that were in the media that tried to report on the truth have been jailed. Not just like, OK, you get put in jail, then you get bailed out, and you go home, and then you come back for court. That's not the kind of jail they have over there. You go in, you don't come back out unless you can convince them that you are no longer against what they have going on. So political prisoners would just be rampant. That would be the norm. So nobody's going to speak out. Well, let's go to the general business process of the country. You want to do business with the government? You want to do business at all. You want to do business under a governmental license. It's different if the whole country is corrupt. I mean, there's a corrupt index in Asia where these nonprofits rate the countries by how much corruption is present in terms of the business community versus the government community. And sometimes it's very high there. There are American statutes making it a crime to participate in corruption elsewhere. So the question is, if you remove democracy and you remove those limitations, what happens to our business world? When everything is pretty quote quo and nothing is a straight line rational business, it's all paying the piper, pay for play kind of thing. So query, what is our world like, Cynthia, in a world where America, the heart of capitalism, drinks into the heart of corruption? Oligarchs, right? The way they get to be oligarchs is they monopolize a certain area or a certain field of business. And so all the money doesn't get to just go to the people that are running that business. They are now beholden to oligarch that oversees their business. So their profits have been cut in half, if even not more than that, right? Because they have to pay, like you say, pay to play. They have to pay their oligarch that's overseeing their particular business. So the oligarchs get to be more powerful. They get to be more wealthy. They have the benefit of all of this. They're like the Russian oligarchs, the oligarchs. And that changes the way the society works. Because by being wealthy and powerful beyond where they would be in a democracy, they spend all their time trying to perpetuate their power. Trump wanted to be president for life. Xi Jinping is effectively president for life. And Putin, no question about it, he's president for life. It only unfolds now. And Hitler would have been president for life. And Stalin would have been president for life. So instead of having somebody capable or who is amenable to the peaceful transfer of power, you have somebody who wants to stay there forever and get wealthier and more powerful every day. Power begets a need for more power. So I think that's part of the world without democracy. And indeed, I'm going to ask you about this, too. We saw, we are seeing, one president who doesn't want to give up power, he does not believe in the peaceful transition of power. He wants to be there forever on the basis of lies. And if we have failure of democracy, one of the indicia of that will be that if you get into power, you use the power to perpetuate the power forever. And there will be no peaceful transition ever again. We will effectively be in a perpetual autocracy, a monarchy, if you will. And if it is not a benign monarchy, it will have an effect on everyone in the country. What do you think? I don't think it's a monarchy. I think it's a dictatorship. OK, fine. Monarchies can be more amenable, more benign somehow, at least in our notion of it, although some monarchs were pretty tough. They've got the monarchy, and then they've got parliament. So the UK has both, right? A monarchy does not necessarily mean you don't have government, but a dictator, that's it. That's the government. And there's no room for anything else but that one dictator. We know that the disgraced, twice-impeached coot-potting ex-president, he has been known for a long time and admitted to his favorite book is Mind Cuff. He's read it probably maybe the only book he's ever read, but he has read it. There are statements that it's on his bedside table. It's his favorite book, all that other stuff. The way a Christian reads a Bible, he has read that book and really patterned his life after it. So we need only look to the past to see what's going to happen in the future. Look what happened in Germany, in Nazi Germany. As of right now, we're actually 10 points below Germany in the measurement of how strong a democracy is. We fell 11 points between 2010 and 2020, and six of those points happened in the four years that Donald Trump was president. Now, we can only hope that in this next four years, having a decent president, it might go back up again. I don't know. But they do a new assessment every year, so we shall see. On a 100-point scale, we're 83. We're even with Romania, Panama, and South Korea. So when you look at that, we're not very strong. And people have to realize that our democracy is not weak right now because of some random thing that's happening. It's very intentional. It's very specific. And we can name where it's coming from. We've got to start taking specific steps to protect the democracy, not just, well, we'll have another election and see how it goes. For all of the wonderful things Biden has done, especially over this last few weeks, but since he became president, he has passed six or eight different really important big legislative bills that have been written into law and signed into law. Not one of them deals with voting, which to me was number one. And they didn't. And then not. Well, that's the number one issue, isn't it? Because voting is the complete and total elephant in the room. We lose the, if we mean in the country, the people lose the election to autocrats or followers of Trump and the right wing Republicans. In November, that changes everything. And all of a sudden, there's not even two sides to the discussion. It's one side. So you spoke before about Russia and the rule of law, the rule of criminal law, for example. And I'm reminded that Nicaragua, there was a report yesterday in the paper about how the autocrat in Nicaragua is making people disappear again. And you have that in various places in Latin America. They're really too bad. That represents a failure of whatever kind of system, whatever kind of rule of law there is. That the autocrat can do that. It's happened in Africa, too, and with resulting atrocities and war crimes. But query could have ever happened here. And the answer is, well, if you have an autocrat, if you have somebody in absolute power who doesn't care about the Constitution, it's a really significant element, doesn't care about the rule of law, wants to make the courts follow his beck and call, or her beck and call, and just generally and wants to undermine the independence and integrity of the FBI, for example, and the Department of Homeland Security, which has a lot of power, and make them work for him, not the people, not the country, not even the rest of the government, marginalizing the rest of the government. You get what happened in Nicaragua and other countries in Latin America and Africa. And so the rule of law is very important, and governmental corruption, where the chief executive uses the government for his own agenda, and not for any of the principles of democracy, is very scary on a personal level. To be arrested, prosecuted for a phony crime, may I say, trumped up crime, and put in jail, like Navalny, and made to disappear off the public stage, off the personal stage, is really out of Stalin and Hitler and some of these other guys. Because autocrats get more powerful, and they use the system to undermine, to punish, to imprison, to kill their adversaries. So that could happen. Do you believe that could happen here? I absolutely believe it could happen here. Look at how far the disgraced, twice impeached, coup blotting ex-president got to doing that very thing. Look at how powerful Mitch McConnell, and I guess I should call him Moscow Mitch, since I'm giving them all names today. Moscow Mitch, you know, totally tied in to Russia, has somehow, I don't know how, but he has managed to get every single one of the people, all 50 senators under him to exactly follow, and not just the senators, because that power has bled down to the House too, and not one Republican in the House is voting, even on things like, and I guess a really good example here, just recently with the, what is it called, the PAC? PAC they think? The one for the veterans that have been around burn pits and been affected by burn pits. The Republicans are fist bumping and high-fiving and then, yeah, look at that, we defeated something that's going to help veterans. You know, something that has already been studying and proven to be hurting veterans. You know, all their claims that we love the military, they only love the military for the guns and the power that come with it. They don't love them to take care of them after the fact, we've seen that. So speaking of guns, you know, we do have the militia active and threatening, I mean, even with this FBI search and seizure in Florida, of Trump's Mar-a-Lago, this is obviously for a good purpose, and we know Merrick Garland well enough that he's not going to be rambunctious about that, he can be careful. Oh yeah. Nevertheless, there were people in the Trump camp who threatened violence over that. There was an article in The Times, I think, where they were all popping up and saying, well, this is war, you know? And so, I want to address that with you, because, you know, we saw that in the state of, it was in Oregon and Washington back a few years ago and you're going to blame Black Lives Matter and then you send in these phony, you know, brown shirt troops, federal troops and you don't give them insignia. You know, it reminds me of Kent State when it was a complete misuse of the National Guard and the military might. Trump has threatened that, he's been manipulating that from the beginning. And so, what you have is some people like, you know, the Proud Boys and all, they go into the streets supporting Trump. Some people would like to fight with them about it. I'm not sure they have as many guns as the Proud Boys have. And then you have the Autocrat, who comes in with national troops, which is against the law for domestic disturbance. And then you have a breakdown of civil order. This is very troublesome. And related to that, Cynthia, is the notion of setting up a scapegoat and then having one group hate another group and fomenting unrest with propaganda, such as what Putin would do, to make one side argue with the other side and let them duke it out. This happened in Rwanda, where one side, you know, was incentivized by the government who were in charge to shoot at the other side, to slay and burn the other side and vice versa. So it's a great achievement for an autocratic government to have everybody fighting with each other. And that's what Trump has done from the beginning. And that is one of the things that would happen if you take away, you know, the rule of law and order and you make the government a player in bigotry and in street violence. Aside from the fact we already have street violence, which is way too high for the lack of democracy, the government would incentivize more street violence. So do you agree, not agree? How do you feel about all that? Well, I think we've been talking about that for years. We started talking about Trump trying to foment that kind of anger and inflection. And back in the very beginning, we said it was so that there could be a big fight out, you know, in the streets and then he would have to declare martial law. And martial law makes whoever is president all powerful. They control everything. They don't have to go through Congress. They don't have to get permission. They can just do whatever they want. And we know that. And that's what Trump was going for. That's what, oh, Mike Flynn was going for. Sidney Powell in that last, you know, big meeting at the Oval Office, trying to get him to do that. But, you know, going back to what you said a little bit ago about some of his appointees still being in the administration, we've got to remember not just benign people that are still in the administration, but also in the military, in high positions of the military. And that's the part that scares me the most. Mike Flynn's brother is still one of that main head generals over there. And he was a player in January 6th. Exactly. So why are they allowed? In my mind, when Biden got into office, he should have clean house. He should have got rid of every single possible, just in case, because he has the power to do it. Just in case. He doesn't have to charge them with anything. He just has to dismiss them, because for whatever reason he wants, really, he's president, it's his administration. He can make those changes just like Trump made. No, excuse me, that twice impeached, disgraced, coup blotty guy. He did the same thing. But when he placed his in there, he wanted them, they were there for a reason. And they're showing their colors because they're not doing things that should be done. They're just holding back almost as if they are trying to tie the hands of Biden in order to not allow him to do things. Right there in his own administration before it even gets out to Congress. Right, well, undermine him as a potential second term. Right, oh yes, in so many ways. And the Democrats, undermine all the Democrats for a second term. Right, and leaking information out through their propaganda machine, right? That might have a little kernel of truth. And that's what they say every lie has a kernel of truth. That's how they get believed. And so that's I think what's going on. And it's hardly tying his hands. And I think he was, I don't know what he was thinking to let them all stay there. It didn't make any sense to me. And it still doesn't right now. As January 6th committee gets more and more and more closer to their ending report. And we know more and more about who exactly was involved and what the intentions were. And it's no longer just we think it happened but we know it happened because we can prove it happened. And we can prove who was involved. So on January 6th, Mike Flynn's brother, and I don't know his first name, but he was already at the top decision-making guy in the military. So maybe that's probably why the military didn't respond is because of that reason alone. And so many other things I think are gonna come out. And hopefully that will get rid of the people, but I don't know if it will. Right, that's the point. We don't know. We don't know what's gonna happen in November with all these funny money bills that are being passed in so many red states by Republicans who are, it's a wink and a blink. Like they're false reports to Congress on who won. Remember the fake electors? Well, I've got some statistics about that actually. We have eight states that already have those interference election laws. We have restrictive election laws. And those are just like don't give people water and reduce the number of polling spots and things like that, the restrictive laws. But the ones that are dangerous are the interference laws. There's already eight states that have those laws in place to be able to have the legislature make the decision. So a partisan body will be deciding who won. No longer the partisan body. Let's see, it's the end of democracy, but what I'm asking you about is what happened. I'm making the assumption that one way or the other the right wing GOP guys and girls will win. They'll be in charge of the government. And one of the elements we haven't talked about is the notion that we as citizens will be effectively deprived of voting going forward. We don't have the power to vote. And our civil rights will be impeded. And our quality of life will be impeded. It'll be like Eastern Europe after the war when Putin was in the KGB in East Germany, that kind of depressed life. And I think that that's coming and people don't realize it's coming. If you have a government that's completely dysfunctional, doesn't care about you, doesn't have policies that will improve the lot of disadvantaged poor people and seniors for that matter, then the quality of our life will change. And oh, and social security and Medicare, I mean, all that stuff, it will change. And unless you're in the top one percent in the oligarch crowd, you won't like it. And then finally, you won't have the prospect of being interested in government. Because you will have given up on your participation in the social fabric, the democratic social fabric of the country. And that's in addition to the fact that other countries who have seen us as the beacon on the hill, the leader of the free world, of the liberal world order, they will see this and they will no longer see us as the leader. We will be a pathetic, chaotic, pitiful country relative to what we were. That's my view, but let me ask you. I mean, what about the mindset of the average citizen when we lose our democracy? Well, I think you have to kind of look at people in two different, like age groups, right? Or not just two different age groups, but I think by how old you are, we'll make a difference in how you react. And older people I think will maybe just sort of give up and say, oh, well, I tried, I'm tired, forget it, right? Whereas the younger people, I think we'll rise up. In the same way they do in Russia, the young people rose up, you know? And- Are you talking about revolutions, Cynthia? Well, isn't that what it's gonna take to have to get it back if we get there? If we end up in that place, how else do we get it back? A very good rhetorical question. Let me go to one last point. We gotta get off soon here. Oh yeah. And that is this. You know, Xi Jinping always says that his system is better than ours and that our democracy is failing, okay? And I'm sure that Putin feels the same way. And that's why they take potshots at us and they try to undermine us. And they'll continue to do that. If we all by ourselves or with their help, we lose our democracy. We're vulnerable, aren't we? We're vulnerable to attacks, whether cyber or kinetic attacks. We're vulnerable to losing territory and economic advantage, to losing the ability to affect world opinion in terms of our foreign policy and foreign relations. We're really behind the curve. And they may decide to put the pennies on the eyes to really attack us. And we will not be in a position to deal with that. Alternatively, if a guy like Trump is involved without any good reason, he might create a war just to enhance his own power because wars are often to enhance the power of the autocrat. And so one way or the other, it seems to me that the failure of democracy in the United States will ultimately lead to a change of the United States as a party of influence on the world stage. But maybe worse, it may lead to war, in which case we may very well lose the war. And that's another conversation altogether. But what do you think about that? How does it affect our position vis-à-vis those who would like to bring us down? Well, of course it puts us in a very vulnerable position, right? It may be that whoever ends up as that hypothetical Republican dictator or autocrat, it depends. He may be the one that's attacking everywhere else, trying to expand his power. As we have said, absolute power corrupts absolutely. So we don't know if we get into trouble with Canada or Mexico, you know, there's a lot of stuff out there that when I worry about more than anything, is just everyone, so many people are gonna die. If that happens, a lot of people are going to die, period and know if ends or buts about it. Because if that happens, there's going to be the people that rebel and there's going to be the people that fight back and people are gonna die. And what can we do about it? I don't know, but we need to start now. We have what, two and a half years left with this president and we don't know if we'll end up further down the road. We can hope that right now, even without voting rights put in place or bolstered at all, we have to hope that the young people are gonna take this climate change bill and be boldened by it. We're gonna take all of this attack on Roe v. Wade and be emboldened to come out because with these new younger voters, we might have a chance to hold on to Congress, hold on to the Senate. We might, it's possible. We'll see, won't we? We'll see in November. We're in an inflection point right now and if your optimism for that generation holds true, we will see it. We may not see it and the reality is maybe dire. And anyway, Cynthia, that's why I really like to show like talking with you about it because this is not necessarily in the public conversation, but it should be. We have to evaluate what happens on the contingency and the contingency is ever closer and ever more threatening. Thank you so much, Cynthia Sinclair. Thank you for joining me in this conversation on American Issues, Take One. I hope to see you tomorrow for Take Two, Aloha. Aloha. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn and donate to us at thinktechawaii.com. Mahalo.