American Nihilism: Is the US Democracy in Peril?

American Nihilism: Is the US Democracy in Peril? # 1 6 - N O T E AMERICAN NIHILISM: IS THE US DEMOCRACY IN PERIL? Emmanuel Kattan / Director of the Alliance Program and Lecturer in the French Department, Columbia University October 2024 ABOUT THE AUTHOR Emmanuel Kattan / Director of the Alliance Program and Lecturer in the French Department, Columbia University Emmanuel Kattan is Director of the A. [...] PRESENTATION OF THE POLITICAL AND GEOSTRATEGIC OBSERVATORY OF THE UNITED STATES Under the direction of Romuald Sciora, Associate Research Fellow at IRIS, the IRIS Political and Geostrategic Observatory of the United States aims to shed light on the presidential and legislative elections of 2024 and on developments in the contemporary United States, in particular their impact on Franco-American coo. [...] According to Freedom House, from 2010 to 2020, “the United States’ aggregate Freedom in the World score dropped by 11 points, placing it among the 25 countries that suffered the largest democratic declines in this period.2” Many political crises and internecine conflicts have tested the strength of American democratic institutions and principles in the past – from the Civil War to the Vietnam War,. [...] The disappointment – and the return, in countries like Egypt, to authoritarianism – that followed the promise of the Arab Springs further dampened the idyllic belief that the “arc of history” tended towards freedom. [...] As the authors of Hate Speech and Political Violence argue, “The significant number of current and former members of the armed forces among the violent participants in the January 6 storming of the Capitol, the open support for Donald Trump’s Stop the Steal lies, the vilification of the Democratic Party by a large number of retired admirals and generals, and the mainstreaming of violent far-right.