Ali Demir*
The United States will hold congressional and presidential elections on November 5, 2024. Until July 21, 2024, the Democratic candidate was Joe Biden, and the Republican candidate was Donald J. Trump. However, Joe Biden has announced that he no longer wishes to be his party’s presidential candidate. His withdrawal from the presidential race did not shock the world. The public story of this withdrawal begins with the debate between Biden and Trump on Friday, June 28, 2024. In this first encounter, Biden appeared old, tired, forgetful, distracted, and even mentally unstable. Despite all strong statements to the contrary, asserting that this impression was inaccurate, this judgment only solidified in the following days and weeks. As of Sunday, July 21, 2024, Biden officially withdrew from the presidential race and announced to the world that he was endorsing Vice President Kamala D. Harris as the presidential candidate. Given Biden’s numerous public missteps and gaffes, this withdrawal from candidacy was expected and desired by many Democrats and seen as a threat to their own interests by many Republicans. Of course, Trump viewed this resignation as a turning point in his own success.
How exactly did these events unfold? Since we are not direct witnesses to the events, we have no choice but to make some assumptions. Was Biden forced into this withdrawal? It seems impossible not to have known about Biden’s weaknesses beforehand. So why was this withdrawal delayed for so long? Another question is this: If someone is said to be mentally unstable, how can they still continue to govern the United States? If Biden is truly mentally unfit, shouldn’t he be forced to resign from his current position as well? As long as Biden remains in office and his ability to perform his duties is not questioned, a logical explanation is needed for why he cannot and should not be a candidate for the presidency. Whatever conspiracy theories or perspectives are considered, the timing of the resignation requires a good, logical explanation.
Below, I want to discuss Biden’s resignation from a democracy perspective. In doing so, I first want to discuss some questions of interest regarding the opposing candidate, Donald Trump, and then ask this hypothetical question: What process would have been initiated if Joe Biden had announced his resignation a year ago? I believe that by discussing the issues surrounding Trump’s candidacy, the question of Biden’s resignation timing can be better contextualized, explained, and understood.
Donald J. Trump and the Nationalist Right Consciousness
Donald J. Trump’s chances of winning the election seem very high. Trump is the candidate of one of the world’s most powerful organizations, the Republican Party. Politician Trump represents the upper class of Americans and big money in terms of economic interests. These may be few in number, but their impact is decisive. Trump also claims to represent the conservatives from the lower middle class (those under pressure from above and below) and people from the lower class who have no social connection with any political party.
As a proponent of the free market economy, Trump represents someone who benefits from the state. According to Trump, the state is only good when it optimizes conditions for capital movement. However, politics is a function of the state, not the free market. And Trump knows very well that he can win if he convinces upper middle-class white Americans that the current government is putting their interests at significant risk. That is why he continues to repeat the slogan “America First” at every opportunity. At the same time, Trump must also win the votes of the new middle class made up of Latinos and African Americans, so he must express this threat within the consensus of American values. He seems to have found the solution in the politics of fear. Trump’s politics are largely based on fear, the potential use of (military) power, and the money power that comes with it. He physically embodies this fear and appeal by keeping his eyes very small and his mouth as round and closed as possible. These expressions symbolize that Trump is both a fearsome politician, who would not hesitate to use America’s nuclear arsenal if necessary, and that he will protect the interests of the groups mentioned above to the fullest extent. However, the individual Donald J. Trump has been accused of many things, charged with some, and convicted of a few. So, if we continue on the path of ideas rather than interests, the first question is: Would you withhold your vote from a politician even if they had been convicted by a politically biased court?
Most people would answer this question negatively. We know that many innocent people have been convicted by corrupt judges and/or justice systems. The most famous example of this is Nelson Mandela. In this regard, the relationship between being convicted and becoming president appears unproblematic when considered alongside the higher principle of the judge’s and judiciary’s independence. Moreover, given the fact that unjust regimes like those of A. Hitler and J. Stalin sentenced many people to death through legal means, i.e., based on the country’s existing laws, and these practices did not align with the legal understanding of a freely acting person, one can comfortably answer positively to the question of whether a convicted citizen could be a good president. At least from a sociological-historical perspective.
Legality and Legitimacy: This certainty also gains a sense of security the moment we move from the philosophical legitimacy perspective to the sociological-historical and legality perspective. Because while legality primarily means compliance with existing laws, legitimacy goes beyond this. It asks whether the current legal system aligns with higher values like freedom, equality, justice, human dignity, and human rights. The fact that a person was sentenced to prison during a military dictatorship does not, from the logic of legality, imply that this person was unjustly convicted. However, according to the logic of legitimacy, every decision of a military dictatorship should be rightly questioned because the legal system contradicts the sense of justice of every freely acting individual.
The real question is whether you would vote for a person who has been justly convicted by a judiciary with high legitimacy. Would you vote for a presidential candidate even knowing they had been convicted by courts in a democratic country that meets both legality and legitimacy criteria? Yet here, we are not talking about a person who is only theoretically possible but about a real person, namely Donald J. Trump. We are not talking about a man who was convicted by a political court due to his religious or freedom views. We are talking about a man who made investments through bribery, who put his private interests above those of his country and people. We are talking about a man who is simple-minded, who says whatever comes to mind, who holds misogynistic and racist views. We are talking about a man who does not accept the results of democratic elections, who turns defeat into hatred, political actions, and tries to destroy the established democratic rule of law.
We could dramatize this even further. The fact is: It seems that some assumptions that are difficult to verify have been made in this matter. We do not know whether Trump’s religious, cultural, and educational upbringing makes him prone to such actions. In any case, we can assume that Trump’s actions could be excused by people with a fundamentalist worldview. They may see such behavior as part of superiority, charisma, being chosen, and the naturally corrupting power in this mortal world. We also do not know whether Trump’s political views played a role in the judicial decisions given. In a judicial system where judges are allowed to be influenced by politics, there can be no complete separation between politics and law. As a result, the question of whether the political views of the relevant actors played a role in the decisions cannot be answered with absolute certainty. On the contrary, in light of the images and analytical insights from the Black Lives Matter and Me Too movements, we are told that we should assume the U.S. justice system is not free from possible suspicions.
Two Types of Democracy Understanding
The fact is, we tend to see Donald Trump as a good and/or guilty presidential candidate depending on our political views. This is where the tension lies: political people also have political views on legal, ethical, and moral issues. The decisive factor is not whether we have a normative understanding of politics but whether we are ready to subject our political categories to abstract legal and moral principles. In this second case, we may reach a different conclusion than our initial judgment. This situation also applies to political, ideological perspectives, and especially our understanding of democracy. This is the origin of the idea of tolerance. Would the system that Trump created and designed make it possible for people like him to come to power? Trump has a functionalist understanding of democracy.
Functionalist Understanding of Democracy: According to the functionalist understanding of democracy, we live in a society with functionally differentiated subsystems such as law, education, economy, science, politics, relationships based on close gender, etc. Each of these subsystems operates according to a specific type of circulation medium that is essentially valid there: in the economy, it is money; in science, it is knowledge; in education, it is talent/diploma; in politics, it is power. Just as there can be no communication, that is, trade, in the economy without money, politics is also about power; actors either have power and can make decisions, or they don’t and therefore must resort to protest, moral lessons, networking, mobilizing, etc. The whole system is structured so that one subsystem cannot interfere with the “will” of another subsystem.
According to Trump’s view of democracy, democracy expresses citizens’ participation in the state, and this mostly takes place in elections. Participation in the state does not mean participation in the economy, education, or law. However, since politics is a function of the state, what needs to be done is to convert the demands of inclusivity and participation of the electorate into communication. This is done by politics, for example, promising the system to those who are practically excluded due to a lack of economic and educational competence. It seems that Trump won the 2016 election because he managed to convert the unpoliticized, religious, economically struggling, excluded, and cynical voters into communication by promising them political power. Trump did not want to convince them that he was telling the truth or good; he told them what they wanted to hear.
However, what Trump does is not simply politics. Those who followed closely noticed that he shifted these demands into the existing legal system. He turned them into a legal, educational, and economic demand. However, these are not political demands; they are demands of subsystems. This means a struggle against the functionalist understanding of democracy. This is because he ignored the rule that, according to functional differentiation, political communication should only influence the political system. It became evident in Trump’s discourse on education that he tried to mobilize parts of society against the education system and increase his influence on the system through indirect threats. Therefore, in my opinion, Trump’s functionalist understanding of democracy only works in theory, not in practice. Here we are talking about the second type of democracy.
Normative Understanding of Democracy: Normative democracy focuses more on the practical implementation of democratic ideals. It insists that politics is responsible for the will and well-being of society, but this does not mean that politics is isolated from other subsystems. Instead, the normative understanding of democracy emphasizes that politics should be balanced with other subsystems and the distribution of power within these subsystems. For example, the education system should be fair and inclusive, the legal system should be just and transparent, and the economy should be regulated to prevent excessive inequalities.
According to this understanding, Trump’s efforts to influence other subsystems through political means can be seen as problematic because it disrupts the balance between different societal functions. Normative democracy seeks to protect this balance by ensuring that political power does not overstep its boundaries and that other subsystems can operate independently and fairly. In this view, the judiciary, education, and economy should not be tools of political power but rather function according to their principles and values, aligned with democratic ideals.
In conclusion, the tension between these two democracy understandings – functionalist and normative – reflects broader debates about the role of politics in society and the limits of political power. Trump’s approach, which leans towards a functionalist view, raises concerns about the potential overreach of political influence into other areas of society. In contrast, the normative perspective emphasizes the need for balance, fairness, and the protection of democratic principles across all subsystems. This ongoing debate is crucial for understanding the challenges facing modern democratic systems and the future of democratic governance in America.
*Dr. Ali Demir is a political scientist from Turkey.
*This article was originally published in Birikim Magazine and translated into English by Politurco.
