Trump’s America: Banana Republic After a Year?

By Frederick T. Davis, former federal prosecutor and member of the New York and Paris bars

Is “democracy in America” in danger today?

The expression “banana republic” has no formal definition. It is used to stigmatize a society seen as lacking true democratic values and the institutional structure necessary to protect them. It is often associated with countries whose economies are excessively dependent on the export of raw materials (such as bananas). In domestic political debate, the phrase is frequently used to disqualify an opponent, suggesting that their policies would take the country to the level of banana-exporting nations. Few politicians have used this phrase more casually than Donald Trump himself, who, under President Joseph Biden, repeatedly insisted that his successor — and, ironically, his predecessor — was leading the United States in this direction. During the 2024 presidential campaign against Kamala Harris, he declared that if “Comrade Kamala Harris got four more years, you would live in a veritable banana republic, ruled by anarchy and tyranny.”

While Donald Trump has been president for almost a year, more measured observers and analysts are in turn wondering: what has become of our country? Are our democratic institutions really able to protect us against the “anarchy and tyranny” that Trump blames on his adversaries? The question is obviously in itself very political. Unsurprisingly, polls show that while members of the Democratic Party (and, to a lesser extent, “independents” who do not identify with either major party) overwhelmingly believe that democratic institutions have been considerably weakened under Trump, a still significant majority of Republicans continues to support the main axes of his program.

In a interesting analysis published last week in the Financial TimesBritish journalist and data analyst John Burn-Murdoch attempted to provide some measure of insight into this debate. He developed a matrix comparing several countries based on ten variables: the integrity of electoral processes, the independence of the judiciary, freedom of the media, the independence of the central bank, the autonomy of the civil service and the administration, the tolerance or encouragement of political violence, the use of public force against civilians, legislative constraints weighing on the executive, the targeting of political opponents, as well as respect for civil liberties and human rights.

He then compared developments during the first twelve months of Trump’s second term to the recent history of Russia, Hungary, Turkey and Venezuela — four countries that have clearly moved away from democratic norms, and to which the epithet “banana republic” is frequently applied. Its conclusion, illustrated by meaningful graphics, is striking: in twelve months, “ US democratic backsliding under Trump steeper than any recent precedent “. His analysis notably shows that, on a wide range of indicators, Trump caused a democratic weakening that took at least three years — and sometimes more — for these other countries to achieve.

What should we think of this analysis? This is obviously the point of view of a single author. But his article clearly sets out its methodology and the data on which it is based, and these appear coherent and reasonable. For those of us who live daily with a constant stream of news about Trump, it is useful to take a step back and put these events in even modest historical context. The bottom line is this: No, America is not yet a banana republic, but there are deeply worrying signs that we are headed down that path.

John Burn-Murdoch himself points out two things that hopefully still distinguish the United States from the countries he compares it to. On the one hand, although his study highlights “the corruptionthe brutality or the casual disregard for the law that characterized the American government during Trump’s second term “, it has, until now at least, made few lasting institutional or structural changes – in other words, the transformations it imposes could be reversible. On the other hand, he observes that, if the executive power has constantly deviated from institutional norms, other institutions have shown stronger resistance than in countries subjected to comparable tensions, in particular thanks to ” a media landscape robust et decentralizedwhich makes visible to all the excesses of the Trump administration “. The central question therefore is whether institutions not directly under Trump’s control are effective enough to limit the damage he continues to inflict on American democracy.

To listen : “Quid Juris” Donald Trump: a threat to American democracy?

In this context, no institution is more crucial to the long-term survival of American democracy than the justice system, broadly understood—courts and benches. The Founding Fathers considered the judicial power as “the least dangerous” of the three powers: precisely because it has neither an army nor the power to raise taxes, it was supposed to exercise, through its powers of passive judicial control, a balancing role against the more political branches which are the executive and the legislative. How does this system hold up today?

It is difficult to have a clear vision at this stage. The Trump administration is engaged in hundreds of legal proceedings brought by citizens, but also by several states, and even by members of Congress, proceedings which could, in the long term, profoundly influence the course of events. Many courageous judges did not hesitate to say “no” to certain actions by Trump, notably against universities and law firms, to his attempts to mass arrest migrants in defiance of procedural guarantees, or to federal agencies which refuse to provide services even though they were mandated by Congress. It will take time before we can appreciate the cumulative effect of these decisions, but it is already clear that the strategy aimed at limiting Trump’s influence through litigation faces two major obstacles.

First, we do not yet know whether the Supreme Court will demonstrate the necessary courage and independence. It is indeed this jurisdiction which, in many respects, prepared the ground for Trump’s rise to power: by asserting that Congress can impose few limits on corporate political financing, by declaring itself powerless to regulate “electoral gerrymandering” (gerrymandering) by which state legislatures unscrupulously redraw districts to maximize a party’s electoral advantage, and granting Trump near-total immunity for acts committed during his presidency. What will this court say on certain issues it is now considering, including Trump’s authority to fire a member of the Federal Reserve (a threat to its independence) and his authority to impose tariffs without consultation with Congress? We wait, trembling.

Also read : The Supreme Court faces Trump’s tariffs

Second, Trump is literally overwhelming the system. Adopting a strategy that he and his allies describe as flood the zone (“flood the field”), they often respond to a temporary judicial setback by immediately launching new offensives, knowing that the slow and methodical reaction of the justice system will not be able to keep pace. This incessant succession of “emergency situations”, real or fabricated, risks trivializing their seriousness, particularly through an habituation effect.

Earlier this month, the Federal Bureau of Investigation seized voting machines in Georgia in what appears to be an attempt by Trump to fabricate or substantiate evidence that his loss to Biden in 2020 was the result of a “stolen election.” This episode is terrifying. Trump’s claims of voter fraud in Georgia and elsewhere have been repeatedly examined and refuted; his use of a federal police force to try to prove otherwise is dangerously reminiscent of the processes of centralization of power that led to the end of Germany’s Weimar Republic. Yet while the event sparked widespread criticism and at least one lawsuit, it did not provoke the massive outrage it deserves. For what ? Because this news was quickly overtaken by others.

Where will this take us?

Two characteristics specific to American democracy offer clues about the future — one relatively optimistic, the other much more gloomy.

As for reasons for hope, we can highlight the advantages of federalism: the fifty states retain strong political coherence and a significant degree of control over the lives of their citizens. In the state of Minnesota, its largest city, Minneapolis, has been de facto invaded by federal immigration agents looking for “illegals”. These forces, vastly outnumbered by local police, apparently created an atmosphere of military occupation and killed two local citizens who were protesting their presence. Although judges can, to a certain extent, limit the action of these unwanted forces, the essential element lies elsewhere: elected local political leaders, as well as ordinary citizens demonstrating in the streets, have shown remarkable solidarity and seem to offer determined resistance to this offensive.

Darker is a growing debate among academics and commentators that the fundamental problem lies with the Constitution itself. Law professor Erwin Chemerinsky published a widely cited work, No Democracy Lasts Forever: How the Constitution Threatens the United States (“No Democracy Is Forever: How the Constitution Threatens the United States”) in which he recalls that, when the Constitution was written in 1789, the Founding Fathers were in no way committed to what we today call a universal democracy: the president was not elected by citizens but by state legislatures; the distribution of electoral power favored the less populated states; and only white, property-owning men had the right to vote. While some of these deficiencies were corrected by amendments adopted after the Civil War, the federal structure remains such that it still allows a candidate who lost the popular vote to become president – which has already happened twice this century – and that a majority voting system within the electoral college allows the election of a president supported by states representing only 22% of the total population. For Professor Chemerinsky, the time has come to ask whether the Constitution should not be profoundly amended, or even replaced.