For many countries around the world, US foreign policy has often been what a red scarf is to a bull: it provokes a fight or flight reaction, with foreign nations becoming increasingly disillusioned with US behavior on the world stage. At the same time, the US finds itself more and more confronted with its own shadows. The recent uproar stems from Trump’s exclusion from the ballot in Colorado through a court decision, not the voters’ choice.
One doesn’t need to be a Trump supporter to point out how detrimental it is for a democracy to disqualify the front runner of an opposing party from a ballot in absence of having been charged and convicted for the offense he has been disqualified for. Preserving the presumption of innocence until proven guilty is crucial for maintaining the credibility of democratic and human justice systems.
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“The US has lost its ability to lecture any other country on democracy” El Salvador’s President promptly expressed on Colorado’s decision.
If another country would have removed the front runner of an opposing party from the ballot – the outcry from US leaders and Western mainstream media would have been as loud as a lion’s roar.
The US has long been accused of calling out countries for undemocratic procedures at will, while failing short to uphold its own, an argument often used by voices from the global South. Trump’s removal from Colorado’s ballot is pouring fuel onto that claim. Indeed, it poses a challenge for the leader of the free world to genuinely criticize those who fail to uphold widely accepted democratic values in the future.
On the one hand, it lectures countries like Bangladesh about the Prime Minister’s “locking away of opposition members”; on the other, the US could be seen as doing the same.
Unsurprisingly, the majority of American citizens find themselves increasingly disapproving of their government’s direction. With only 32% approving Biden’s handling of the economy, foreign affairs and the situation of Israel-Palestine according to Gallup’s Nov 28 survey, Americans demonstrate disdain with their government’s course.
The world’s largest economy, once seen as a self-centered bully by other nations, is currently contending with its own internal crisis. As the United States grapples with its identity, its foreign policy undergoes a parallel struggle.
After all, there is a connection between self-esteem (or the lack thereof) and outer behavior. Much like the human psyche, a lack of internal clarity about one’s identity prevents external clarity. This principle extends to nations as well.
To materialize something long term, one needs a vision. Rooted in lived principles and a sense of boundaries on what’s tolerable and acceptable within those principles. Too many deviations from that lead to confusion, a loss of credibility and perceived hypocrisy.
The US is facing all three right now. A nation pondering existential questions as to what it means to be American, what the US stands for and how valid its institutions are today. With only 2 in 10 Americans trusting the government, trust is at a record low. By contrast, in 1958, ¾ of Americans trusted their government, according to Pew Research 2023. — A danger zone for democracy.
Weaponizing Justice Systems – The Danger Zone for Democracies
When the justice system in a democracy gets more and more pushed into a corner of being politicized to impact democratic processes – in systems theory terms – this is a tell-tell symptom of a cycle coming to a close.
From Afghanistan to Ukraine and Israel-Gaza, the United States grapples with existential questions on the global stage, revealing an ad-hoc foreign policy and a lack of self-assurance. The Israel-Gaza discourse within the U.S. exemplifies this.
Yet, it’s not exclusive to the U.S. Nations worldwide face similar dilemmas.
Citizens pose existential queries: What is democracy? Who speaks the truth? What defines us? What fosters a thriving life and society? How do we optimize resource utilization? How can corporate and government power be effectively limited? What institutions are essential—more regulations or less?
The root of these existential questions lies not only in the evolving value system and demographics but also in the shifting from an old paradigm to a new era. This transformation prompts individuals, nations, and the planet to closely examine their multifaceted identities from various perspectives.
As we shift from an old paradigm to a new one, people, nations and the planet are undergoing a transformation forcing each of us to look closer at who we are at our human core, multi-faceted and from many angles.
New Modus Operandi
While in the 20th Century, the modus operandi was based on a simplified, linear worldview with communism and capitalism as the two main driving choices; with (usually two) mainstream party systems, simple right or wrong thinking, and polar opposite world powers being the ones making the rules, the 21st Century is bringing out all the complexity of living organisms in a non-linear world. As a consequence, the simple either or, right or wrong, left or right, black and white choices no longer work.
Societies can’t be homogenized without resorting to authoritarian methods, a trend becoming more apparent even in Western contexts.
Complexity is the raw material of the 21st Century. It cannot be reduced to the simplified modus operandi of the 20th Century. Unfortunately, this is what many governments and leaders are trying to do. The outcome is desperate measures such as e.g. weaponizing justice systems to “protect” democracy which in reality undermines the very thing it says it protects. Trump’s ballot removal without an official conviction is an example of that.
The thing about complexity is that it brings out insecurities, flaws, old baggage, and unhealed wounds – emotional triggers of human nature multi-dimensionally and hyper-connectedly. When not grounded and rooted in who we are from within, it’s easy to lose balance and get scared. Political leaders as well as their opponents around the world find themselves in that space. Fear among the political class has become a new status quo.
Thus, discontentment with governance around the world is a natural consequence.
Instead of working with complexity – expressed through encouraging more voices, more debate, and inviting more differing opinions through a demonstrated flexibility and an understanding of complexity as raw material to increase intelligence, innovation, and evolution — many government leaders use excessive force against their own citizens and political opponents and censor speech. And opposition leaders use fear to create a counter-reaction.
Bullies are driven by insecurity at their core. Thus, they tend to rely excessively on safety and control. In the world of governing, the same psychology is at play.
A governing body usually takes a huge measure of control when it starts fearing its own people. The more insecure one is within, the bigger measures one takes to control the outside, the environment. This is what we see in China and now unfolding in other countries including the EU with increasingly excessive regulations covering almost every aspect of people’s lives, to the US, where the judicial system is increasingly weaponized to undermine democratic processes as this latest move to curtail the voters’ choice by allowing only candidates on the ballot that pose little threat to the ruling party demonstrates.
Germany has made similar moves where mainstream parties have tried judicial avenues to take the fastest-growing party, AfD, off the ballot. It’s a move autocratic regimes make. Not those with an intact democracy.
What does that mean for Foreign policy of the 21st Century?
The question is what living systems have in common with governance? Governance is based on the relationships of systems. Every living system behaves like an organism where every thought, emotion and action make up the whole.
A human body is a good example: thoughts and emotions affect the health of the overall organism. It programs its nervous system which then subconsciously influences the body. — The same can be applied to societies.
Societies function as living organisms, with the thoughts, emotions, and actions of each citizen contributing to the overall health of the collective entity. This underscores the importance of the programs citizens watch, the news they consume, the education they receive, and the feedback loops they encounter, all playing pivotal roles in shaping belief systems and the collective nervous system of a society.
In healthy societies, when citizens align with its promoted values mentally, while freely and emotionally embracing those values, anchored in a clear sense of self — debates can flourish and checks and balances are in place. In unhealthy societies, fear and control take over instead, anchored in limited or no debates and a legal system that is being abused to limit free speech and take freedoms away.
As human beings change through their own evolution and following more a path of spiritual awakening to becoming their own inner leader, so, too, societies change. While in the 20th Century, everything was focused on the external, the material world to identify with and approach new territories; in the 21st Century, the more our outer structures are falling away, the more we’re forced to look within. Consequently, countries too, are forced to look within.
Bangladesh as a young nation with democratic principles, is undergoing a phase of looking within. Asking itself questions on how far the nation has come and what its success means. As a fairly young independent nation, parameters like economic growth, income growth per capita, and wealth of its citizens can easily be measured and serve as good guides. For older democracies, it’s harder. Because what used to be right, is suddenly wrong.
The shift from the Old World to the New not only alters the what, how, and why of actions but also transforms our identities in the process. This is the current challenge facing the United States, reflected in its foreign policy. While the U.S. introspects its own identity and purpose, the rest of the world must find its voice and vision.
The 21st Century’s battle is not about right or wrong, left or right; it’s about recognizing that there isn’t a singular best way of doing things. As Americans redefine what it means to be American and the role the U.S. wants on the global stage, foreign policy ad-hocism may persist for a while.
For smaller nations, this presents an opportunity to further define their identities and roles on the world map. The year 2024 is poised to be pivotal.
