His stubbornness in contesting the victory of his rival Joe Biden, in words and then in violent acts for which he is responsible, attests to him a fundamental allergy to democracy when it no longer serves his interests and his ego.
He thus furiously tramples on the very founding basic principles.
The first of these relates to the place assigned to law in the definition of a regime which, as much as the rule of the people, is that of law. Authentic democracy, liberal democracy, is defined by the precedence and superiority of the law, of the Constitution over political power and therefore the latter’s submission to its demands. It marked in history the break with the regime of arbitrariness which was and remains that of subordination to the will of a man or an oligarchy, or both as is the case in most democratures today. In the service of the law, the political enters the field of the public with correlative erasure on the part of the private, of personal desire.
Trump has made politics his private domain
However, like the worst dictators who were moreover his favor, Donald Trump has made politics his private domain, managed at his convenience, according to his “good pleasure”. Hence the graces generously granted in recent times to his loved ones, hence his refusal to admit the result of elections thwarting his desire to continue in office. The spoiled child did not admit that the electoral law frustrates his desire. And it’s final: We will never concede it! “.
Violence had to ensue, logically.
The second principle, no less founding, is that in a democracy, power does not appropriate but is temporarily occupied. In theocracies and monarchies, the occupation is intended to be permanent through the game of dynastic succession or the like, which means that once taken, power is not supposed to escape its holders.
There is no doubt that if Trump could designate a son, daughter or son-in-law as his successors, it would appear quite natural to him: Trump 1st, Trump II … but does not exactly agree with the thinking of democracy where power, as the philosopher Claude Lefort, appears as an empty place and those who exercise it as mere mortals who only occupy it temporarily …
. But “empty place” does not mean empty of convictions since it is necessary at least, as a preliminary, to admit the singular status of this place and the rules which surround it, which does not go without saying for everyone, seems- he does.
This refers to the third founding rule: that of pluralism which gives meaning to what precedes. Democracy is that regime which takes the risk of recognizing the virtues of the native diversity of opinions and of giving them a political expression. Starting from the conviction that social and political truth is shared and that it is the confrontation of points of view that makes it possible to approach it the best. Two of us are smarter
said the philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty. So, to several million and more…. what extraordinary potential! Trump is so convinced that he is the best that he cannot imagine any alternative to his genius …
Where we can see that without modesty, truly founding, democracy runs the greatest dangers. “
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