By Robert Danisch
The United States is on the precipice of becoming a failed democratic state. In January 2021, pollster John Zogby conducted a survey that showed 46 per cent of Americans believe that the U.S. is headed toward another civil war.
As Canada’s closest neighbour fractures at the seams and slides toward dangerous forms of authoritarianism, we should be deeply worried. As someone whose research has tried to explain how and why democracy works, I am deeply worried.
We should be planning our possible responses and preparing for what comes next. Failing to do so will put our own democracy at risk — as we’re witnessing right now with the so-called freedom convoy in Ottawa and its nefarious funding.
The worst-case scenario in the U.S. — blood in the streets — isn’t necessarily the most likely, but we ought to resist the tendency to assign too low a probability to events that could have serious, catastrophic consequences.
Some of the most constructive academic work in the middle of the 20th century, after all, was motivated by doom-saying around nuclear war (Thomas Schelling’s Nobel Prize work on game theory, for example).
More recently, predictions about the devastation that will result from the climate crisis are being used to drive public policy and political debate. Will all the predictions bear out? Maybe not, but the intellectual exercise of preparing for the worst can improve our decision-making and position Canada to succeed in times of crisis.
Jan. 6 just a prelude?
For some reason, systematic and dispassionate analyses of what will happen if or when the American experiment with democracy ends have not happened, either in Canada or the U.S.
Many are engaged in the battle to prevent the right wing from stealing the next U.S. election, but this is only one, narrow concern. Spend an hour listening to someone like Dan Bongino, a former Secret Service agent and Donald Trump supporter, and you’ll come away certain that the violence we all saw on Jan. 6, 2021, was not an isolated event but the beginning of something bigger.
The trucker convoy is one small example of what can happen here when the dangerous forms of anti-democratic rhetoric south of the border spread into Canada.
The people in Ottawa aren’t protesters, they’re occupiers. They reject the use of democratic rhetoric in favour of authoritarian rhetoric, and they aim to dismantle the system that makes protest and free speech possible in the first place.
What happens when that anti-democratic rhetoric becomes the norm in the U.S.? The combination of media outlets like Fox News that have far-reaching impact and anti-democratic, authoritarian rhetoric is exactly a recipe for the contagious spread of the kinds of behaviours that can threaten our own democracy.
What are the likeliest problems? Most obviously, violent rhetoric tends to fuel violent actions. We will see violent rhetoric normalized by cultural figures like Tucker Carlson but also U.S. politicians.
Imagine Fox News no longer playing the role of a media outlet that’s welcoming to the fringe voices of the far right, but instead is the formally sanctioned voice of the state. The more violent, extremist rhetoric becomes the norm, the more danger and violence we’re likely to see.
What will happen when Carlson turns his attention to Canada as a target and radicalizes our own citizens with the authoritarian rhetoric he regularly employs?
Critical questions for Canada
Can we, should we, regulate American media if they are clearly driving the rise of authoritarianism and the spread of propaganda aimed at ending free, liberal democracy? How do we treat American broadcast media and social media if they become obviously responsible for hastening the end of liberal values like equality, reason and the rule of law?
How will Canada combat the virulent spread of propaganda and misinformation when it comes directly from a government pretending to be democratic while enacting fascism?
What if American journalists wedded to the ideals of free speech, objectivity and professional standards of fairness become targets of state violence? Will we protect the right to a free press? How?
If American elections become obviously rigged, what will our role be in monitoring that kind of democratic backsliding?
What about American citizens still committed to the rule of law and the basic tenets of liberal society? Will they seek asylum in Canada by the millions?
How do we negotiate trade deals with an ideological, irrational state? We’ve had some preparation for this during Donald Trump’s one term as president, but he was still constrained by a semi-functioning system of checks and balances. What happens when that system is dismantled?
Ripple effects
We need a national conversation on these urgent questions. Our security, our economy and our culture are so deeply enmeshed with the U.S. that any significant change there will have ripple effects here.
Those ripples may turn into a tsunami should the changes be as radical and dire as some predict.
Such a national conversation will require us to shore up our own democracy and to learn how to regulate and prevent the spread of authoritarian rhetoric, hate speech and other forms of misinformation in the U.S.
We must be ready and able to champion the values and advantages that are afforded by living in a democracy. We might avoid the worst, but the preparation will make Canada a stronger, freer, safer country.
Robert Danisch is Professor in the Department of Communication Arts, University of Waterloo.
The Conversation arose out of deep-seated concerns for the fading quality of our public discourse and recognition of the vital role that academic experts could play in the public arena. Information has always been essential to democracy. It’s a societal good, like clean water. But many now find it difficult to put their trust in the media and experts who have spent years researching a topic. Instead, they listen to those who have the loudest voices. Those uninformed views are amplified by social media networks that reward those who spark outrage instead of insight or thoughtful discussion. The Conversation seeks to be part of the solution to this problem, to raise up the voices of true experts and to make their knowledge available to everyone. The Conversation publishes nightly at 9 p.m. on FlaglerLive.
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beachcomberT says
Ironic that a free-ranging, wide-open media site like FlaglerLive carries an oped that implies Canadian and American democracy is too fragile to tolerate right-wing “propaganda” like Tucker Carlson and his Fox promoters. The professor claims to be “deeply worried” about the future of North American democracy. I’m deeply worried as he makes a case for censorship.
Pierre Tristam says
It seems to me you’re making a leap on two counts. Danisch nowhere suggests that American democracy is too fragile for Carlson-type incendiaries, nor is there any suggestion, hint, allusion to censoring them here. The focus is entirely on Canada, where, yes, there is a hint of regulating media from across the border: “Can we, should we, regulate American media if they are clearly driving the rise of authoritarianism and the spread of propaganda aimed at ending free, liberal democracy?” But if you’re going to raise the question of Canada regulating American media, which pours over the border unimpeded and is available to Canadian households like any other domestic network, you might first wonder why, in 2022, we Americans still don’t have access to Canadian (let alone other nations’) media on an equal basis. You might not call it censorship (it is more correctly termed protectionism), but the effect is the same. We get Canadian or other nations’ programming in little tiny drips here and there, an occasional series on Netflix, an occasional news show on some cable channel, but nothing like the “wide open media” access to American networks Canadians enjoy. The mere fact that Carlson is available so broadly in Canada but nothing similar, no Canadian talk show of any sort, is available widely here, tells us that closed minds are on this side of the border. In that context, I would hardly see Canadian decisions to cut back on their access to Fox as censorship anymore than I would Fox’s nonexistence on, say, French, Danish or Scandinavian television menus, where he’s not available, as censorship. To argue the contrary is an argument for media imperialism. (I was tempted to say cultural imperialism, but of course Fox is as cultural as viral squiggles in a petri dish.)
Geezer says
“viral squiggles in a petri dish”
Inspirational!
Kat says
Agreed! Put a smile on my face as well.
Ray W. says
Thank you, Mr. Tristam.
As an aside, my wife has nearly finished watching “Frontier”, a Canadian television series about the violent struggle for control of the fur trade at the turn of the 19th century. She says it is one of the best series she has watched in a long time.