Forget for a moment all the potential foreign-policy implications of a second Donald Trump presidency. What are the implications for U.S. foreign policy if Trump loses the election, denies its outcome, and tries to overturn it? How would the United States, longtime champion of democracy promotion abroad, be able to continue doing so when it has become clear that so much of the country has so little support for the actual exercise of democracy?
If Trump performs as he did in 2020 and narrowly loses the upcoming election—and polls suggest the race remains a toss-up—the likelihood of a repeat of the “Stop the Steal” campaign and a concerted effort to subvert the outcome again appears high.
Forget for a moment all the potential foreign-policy implications of a second Donald Trump presidency. What are the implications for U.S. foreign policy if Trump loses the election, denies its outcome, and tries to overturn it? How would the United States, longtime champion of democracy promotion abroad, be able to continue doing so when it has become clear that so much of the country has so little support for the actual exercise of democracy?
If Trump performs as he did in 2020 and narrowly loses the upcoming election—and polls suggest the race remains a toss-up—the likelihood of a repeat of the “Stop the Steal” campaign and a concerted effort to subvert the outcome again appears high.
Both Trump and his running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, have repeatedly refused to say whether they’ll accept the outcome of the election (unless they win). The mechanics for a similar challenge to the election’s outcome, focusing on replacing legitimate state electors with fraudulent electors, which was invented on the fly in late 2020, has been significantly built up. Election experts fear Trump has a more robust plan to overturn the election than his ultimately failed bid after the 2020 vote. And he’s already saying as much, launching broadsides in late October against allegedly fraudulent ballots in Pennsylvania, a critical state for both candidates.
His first effort to subvert a presidential election, culminating in the deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, was harmful enough to the image of the United States as a bastion of democracy.
“Our soft power, our ability to attract and inspire, has already been damaged by all this—by the threats that Trump made in 2016 that he wouldn’t accept the election unless it went his way, and then what he did in 2020,” said Larry Diamond, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.
But the Biden administration nevertheless made democracies-versus-authoritarians a guiding principle of its foreign policy during its first years in office, even convening a handful of democracy summits. It seems to be a losing battle. Illiberal and authoritarian regimes are growing in number (most recently in the republic of Georgia), while democracies and freedom are in retreat. Those regimes are banding together, whether through bilateral ties (such as Russia and North Korea), multilateral groupings (the expanded BRICS is taking an anti-Western tilt), or even inside the European Union (Hungary’s prime minister has become Russia’s new Vyacheslav Molotov).
If Trump wins the election outright, fears of another Jan. 6 are moot, and major concerns can revert to issues such as the future of NATO, the fate of Ukraine, and the promised global trade war. But a Trump victory would also severely diminish U.S. democratic credentials, Diamond argued.
“If Trump wins, particularly after the campaign of racism, misogyny, authoritarian threats and intimidation, xenophobia, and so on, if he wins after that, the damage from that compared to the fallout from a contested election will be far greater,” he said.
If Vice President Kamala Harris wins the vote—and takes office next January after a prolonged campaign to delegitimize the election—how much could U.S. democratic credentials suffer on the global stage?
“It’s a very plausible outcome, another period where we look like the problem when it comes to democratic practice,” said Richard Fontaine, chief executive of the Center for a New American Security, a D.C.-based think tank. Fontaine recently published a joint call for the next administration to revitalize democracy promotion to bolster U.S. national security.
“It would make it harder and be a major distraction. The world has become less democratic over the last 15 or so years, and I think that is a more dangerous world than otherwise,” he said. “The degree to which U.S. policy and leadership can influence that direction one way or the other is important for the world, and for our own security.”
For some 80 years, Washington has sought to promote democracy abroad as a way to boost its security and prosperity at home. More democracies generally means a more stable international order, with fewer threats to U.S. prosperity or core interests. The issue has become especially acute as illiberal and authoritarian states attempt to promote an alternative vision of the international order that would have both as its goal and its consequence a weaker United States. Democracy in disarray at home would only blunt that longtime fixture of U.S. diplomacy.
Democracy promotion “is in our DNA, so it should be part of our toolbox and a natural component because of who we are,” said Derek Mitchell, president of Center for Strategic and International Studies and former president of the National Democratic Institute, a nongovernmental organization that promotes democracy globally. Mitchell also just wrote a piece underscoring the importance of democracy promotion.
“More than that, it is, I think, our comparative advantage right now in the defining question of the 21st century: What norms will guide the world in the decades ahead? The question is, are we going to be reaffirming those democratic norms both at home and abroad as something in our interest?” Mitchell said.
That’s why the risk of a repeat of a contested election, coming in a deeply polarized and paralyzed American society, would be problematic in that bigger contest.
“Obviously the brand is degraded, and the autocrats will be able to use what is happening in the United States as a cudgel against America’s pretension—I think real support—for democracy,” Mitchell said.
The other risk from a contested election and a repeat of January 2021 is the power of example. Diamond noted that former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s effort to stay in office after losing in Brazil’s October 2022 election “was completely inspired by what Trump did and even the methods. So it’s not just that our soft power will be damaged by another post-election crisis, it will also have demonstration effects.”
Perhaps concerns over the tarnish left by another messy election are overblown. After all, Woodrow Wilson pledged to make the world “safe for democracy” while championing segregation, and before women’s suffrage was real. Succeeding presidents, including Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, and Trump officials all championed democracy abroad while grappling with democratic deficits at home.
“The United States has always had flaws in its democracy even while maximally promoting democracy and human rights,” Fontaine said.
History suggests that not even overt shows of support for authoritarianism and disdain for democracy can derail that train. Just two years after the first mass Nazi rally in New York City in 1939, Freedom House was created to promote democracy around the globe—the start of a decade that culminated with Roosevelt’s “arsenal of democracy,” the creation of the United Nations, and the birth of the Marshall Plan.
The United States’ own travails with democracy could, in the event of an eventual Harris win and successful inauguration, even give Washington the ability to more effectively promote democracy abroad tempered by the experience. That could make it better able to relate to fragile democracies that struggle against the seemingly never-ending attacks they face, Mitchell said.
“The U.S. struggle only points to how difficult it is,” he said. “Institutions are vitally important—that was the lesson of 2020, and maybe of 2024.”
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