His name was completely unknown to the Americans a few days ago. His name is Aaron Van Langevelde. This 40-year-old lawyer is a Republican activist in the state of Michigan. He is mostly one of four members (two Republicans and two Democrats) of the election commission that was expected on Monday to certify the final result in that state.
The pressure was enormous, as in all the decisive states since the evening of November 3. An order was issued from the White House for the Republican camp of Michigan to suspend the process, to better fuel the machine of suspicion on the regularity of the ballot. This intimidation operation thrilled many observers for three weeks. The embarrassing silence of a large majority of Republican senators showed Donald Trump’s still real hold over the party’s careerists.
But Aaron Van Langevelde did not give in. He put aside the factional spirit and courageously validated the results with his two Democratic colleagues. Taking into account the statements that we have received, we have a legal obligation to do so.
, did he declare. And paraphrasing John Adams, one of the fathers of Independence and second president of the United States, he added :we are ruled by laws, not by men
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Counter-powers
This refusal to be subjected to undue pressure is ultimately what turned the suspense on Monday night. Much has been questioned over the past four years about the nature and resilience of the checks and balances of American democracy. Faced with digital disruption, the mainstream media have deployed colossal energy to verify the facts, but most often aimed at an audience already convinced. The information self-service that the Internet has become threatens the principle of generalism. The counter-power of the press is thereby blunted.
However, the anti-democratic behavior of Trump when admitting defeat confirms the relevance of the fears fueled by his election in 2016. The populist danger is precisely this break in the rules of the game, once they have served to conquer power.
If the American election was followed so much in Europe, it is also because we perceived the gigantic test that it represented for the holding of the democratic system as such. And he held on. With its contradictions, its limits and its paradoxes. But with historic participation, despite the pandemic. With the intransigence of several judges, solicited in all the states lost by Trump by generally factious appeals launched by his lawyers. With the ethics of a Republican scrutineer and the seriousness of the thousands of agents involved in the count.
It was neither a Senate cador, a high-ranking soldier nor the street who made it possible to hold the dike. It is democratic life at its level closest to the field and in its ordinary functioning. Maintaining the democratic system is therefore more than ever everyone’s business.
This is a heartwarming signal. Our European democracies must take advantage of this, because we are just as concerned by the processes that we have seen at work across the Atlantic. Fragmentation, polarization, violence, exasperation, disinformation. What Aaron Van Langevelde has embodied is ethics and trust. Two values which are our best bulwark against what undermines our democracies.
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