Is the United States sliding towards autocracy? Can the 2020 elections turn out in a way that threatens the longest standing democracy in the world?
“We are living in very dramatic, tense times and quite a lot is hanging in the air,” says Mika Aaltola, Director of the Finnish Institute of International Affairs and the guest of the first episode of the US Elections Untangled podcast.
Aaltola sees many red flags about the health of the American democracy. One alarming tendency is the dehumanization of political opponents that has led to chants of “Lock her up”, demands of investigations into the sitting president’s actions and even some Americans finding it acceptable for the president to ask foreign powers for help with his re-election.
When a political opponent “becomes more of an enemy than your geopolitical foe, then something big has happened,” Aaltola points out.