The Democratic Party is indulging in undemocratic and destructive behavior and rhetoric. In an ignominious stroke of irony, the party whose leadership lectures and criticizes Arab countries about democratic deficiencies is now emulating them.

To maintain its hold on the highest office in the land, the country’s oldest political party has demonstrated contempt for the American people, ignored processes, rubber stamped a candidate, and extended its embrace of identity politics. None of these developments bode well for the maintenance of or confidence in the democratic practices and principles of the party and the country.  

The prospect of a second term for former President Donald Trump terrifies  Democratic elites. Witness their words: Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi believes Trump is on a mission to “dismantle democracy.” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer claims a Trump presidency is “dangerous to democracy.” Vice President Kamala Harris has said: “Donald Trump is a threat to our democracy, and we all know it.”

The fear of a Trump presidency and the desire to maintain the party’s grip on power have driven the Democrats to distraction. The party’s credibility is being corroded by an unwillingness to be transparent. The legitimacy of political outcomes ring hollow because processes are negated. Tactics are employed that enflame division and accelerate dissolution. The party of Kennedy, Clinton, and Obama is beginning to resemble the regimes of Abdelaziz Bouteflika (Algeria), Abdel Fattah el-Sisi (Egypt), and the dysfunctional states and societies of Lebanon and Iraq.  

Take for example the significance of transparency.

Healthy democracies thrive on transparency. Transparency allows the electorate to make informed decisions about its representatives. It gives them the opportunity to scrutinize government officials, processes, and policies. Transparency also builds trust between citizens and elected officials.

The Democratic Party has failed to be transparent. Since Joe Biden’s nomination in 2020, the party and elites have obfuscated, misled the public about, or denied Biden’s deteriorating and diminishing faculties. They have insisted he still has the capacity to effectively lead and govern. Biden was protected from the media. He performed the fewest number of media interviews of any president since Reagan. His limited news conferences and many of his interactions with the press appeared to have been scripted.

Vice President Harris referred to a Department of Justice report characterizing Biden as an “elderly man with a poor memory” as “politically motivated” and “inaccurate.” In the wake of the report, Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen stated that Biden remains “the right person to lead the country for another four years.” Senator Chris Coons challenged a Wall Street Journal article about the president’s cognitive decline by telling us that Biden was “sharp.” Even following Biden’s disastrous June 27 presidential debate, Nancy Pelosi used the fear of Trump to obscure the fallout from the debate. She stated: “Let us not make a judgment about a presidency on one debate … the difference between Joe Biden and the former president is so clear.”      

The Democrats elite’s disdain for transparency provides striking parallels to the actions and measures of the Algerian regime. In 2013, Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika suffered a “minor” stroke. He would serve for another six years despite rarely being seen or heard. Algerians were “reassured” of his competency to lead and govern by the apparatchik. The secretary general of Bouteflika’s party, Front de Liberation Nationale, asserted in 2014: “The president is in good health and can perform his duties … He spoke to citizens and took an oath. He is in possession of all of his physical and mental faculties.”

The Democratic Party’s deception also raises questions about its political legitimacy.

Democracy requires this feature to survive. The failure to adhere to elections, processes, and systems makes “democracy” little more than kabuki theater. A citizen’s participation becomes meaningless because outcomes are ignored, negated, or predetermined by a select few.       

The withdrawal of President Biden’s candidacy and the anointing of Vice President Harris as the party’s presidential candidate demonstrate an indifference to legitimate procedures. After a poor debate performance, elites pressured Biden to abandon his campaign despite winning the party’s primary. To add insult to injury, they anointed Harris as his replacement without a primary.

The Democratic National Convention (DNC) became a dog and pony show. Kamala Harris described her campaign as driven by “people power” when the people had no role in legitimizing her candidacy. The theater continued after the DNC when Pelosi stated that Harris won an open primary. Pelosi claims that no one challenged a vice president with abysmal approval rating because she is politically astute strains credulity. 

Pelosi’s comment is something you would hear in the Arab world—self-proclaimed democrats who feign democratic processes. The absence of legitimacy in the Harris candidacy is reminiscent of practices observed in Egypt. The “elections” of Abd el-Fattah el-Sisi in Egypt are exercises in rubber stamping predetermined outcomes. El Sisi has run three times relatively unopposed, most recently in 2023. This is a man who in 2015 told the BBC that Egypt has fair elections while Egypt’s democracy is a work in progress.     

The Democrats’ cultivation of identity politics is also something vaguely reminiscent of Arab states.

Such politics is yet another corrosive phenomenon that incapacitates democracies. The emphasis on ethnic, gender, racial, religious, or sexual identity inflicts harm on a country’s unity and its ability to formulate and implement policy. Communal identities compete with one another at the expense of the greater group. As a result, politics becomes more about the maintenance of communal power, not propounding and employing effective and efficient policy for a party or country.   

To the detriment of the Democratic Party and the country, an emphasis on identity politics has become all too apparent. Within a week of the rubber stamping of Harris’s candidacy, Democrats found themselves being encouraged to join groups segregated by race, religion, and gender. Organizers promote groupings and zoom calls entitled “White Women for Kamala Harris,” “South Asian Women for Harris,” “White Dudes for Harris,” and “Jewish Americans for Kamala Harris.”    

Lebanon and Iraq provide ample evidence of the harm inflicted on a state and society when democratic political systems celebrate identity politics. The ethnic and religious communities of Lebanon and Iraq have placed their interests and power ahead of their respective nations. This has resulted in the extended absence of the Lebanese and Iraqi governments, policy paralysis, acute corruption, and violent communal conflict.

The hysteria in the Democratic Party surrounding a possible second Trump presidential term has seemingly justified divisive, manipulative, and illiberal tendencies in the name of “protecting democracy.” It is a troubling development that sets a dangerous precedent. If the party can show contempt for its members, divide society, and disregard processes in 2024, what prevents them from doing the same thing or something worse in another four years?

The elites and other members of the Democratic Party have chosen to ignore democratic practices for the sake of a desired outcome. This behavior comes at a cost to the party and the country. The Democratic Party should stop lecturing and admonishing the Arab world about democracy and look in the mirror. It is becoming what it finds offensive in others.