By: Miran Černec
John Adams, one of the founding fathers of America and the second president of the United States, wrote the following about the pitfalls of a democratic state system in 1798: “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People.
It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” Adams’ words were a warning that a democratic order alone is not enough; more important is the character of the nation, which considers itself capable of governing itself. This is worth remembering in the light of the recent US presidential election. Even in many African countries, where they have abundant experience in falsifying election results, they have been shaking their heads at the US conundrum; and the opportunity to hold a mirror up to the beacon of democracy was not missed by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.
Similar things that Western elites like to accuse the latter of, today the US President Donald Trump is accusing of the US propaganda machinery – for example, that his opponent Joe Biden was enthroned as the winner in the mainstream media prematurely; that independent observers did not have access to the polls; that people from the afterlife was casting postal votes; and that the notoriously unreliable electronic voting machines attributed thousands, perhaps even hundreds of thousands, of votes casted for Trump after “programming errors” to Biden. Biden did not win with 80% of the vote, as Lukashenko usually does; but the magic with which he overtook Trump in a few key states by a breadth of hair after lagging far behind him at first after the vast majority of ballots had been counted, has at least rewritten the rules of statistical probability …
Trump is right in contradicting the media coverage of the election results with all legal means. He even has the ability to actually win the required 270 electoral votes through the courts, audits and recounts. But after November 3, 2020, millions of Americans will long wonder how their democracy has sunk so deeply … Would John Adams know the answer?