Divisions are a threat to all democracies

A building synonymous with democracy was overrun with ease and its parliamentarians sent scurrying for cover.

For a few hours the heart of a superpower stopped beating as the country’s belief in the unity of ‘we, the people’ was tested.

The scenes that gripped the world showed all too vividly that no democracy is invulnerable. If the US can flirt, even briefly and never convincingly, with such utter disaster no jurisdiction can take its governance for granted.

The combination of factors at play in US politics is unique to that country: a political system awash with cash and patronage, a toxic racial divide, huge inequalities, crumbling industries and a constitution that has not aged well.

However, there are other elements familiar to many western democracies, including our own.

Chief among these is the growing inability to respect all sides of an argument.

Viewpoints are entrenched, with social media doing much of the digging. Those taking an opposite view are shouted down with no attempt to understand the reasoning or find common ground.

It is the politics of the football hooligan: you either stand wholeheartedly and unquestioningly with us or you are the enemy to be despised.

It is corrosive to democracy. With voters allowing no compromise, politicians either tell them what they want to hear or become part of the opposition.

Caught in the crossfire is the mainstream media.

If the message of the media is critical it is dismissed as ‘fake news’, all too often by thin-skinned politicians who should know better.

The disgruntled then seek alternative information sources in the echo chamber of social media, further narrowing their understanding of issues and eliminating all chance of co-operation.

It is all part of Senator Mitch McConnell’s ‘death spiral’ of democracy.

Talk of sedition, insurrection and coup might be overblown but the threat to US democracy of a binary society is genuine.

However, it is not just Americans who must find a way to counter it.