CBS News poll: In Trump indictment, many see implications for democracy

CBS News poll finds after latest Trump indictment, many Americans see implications for democracy. For some, it’s personal

America’s response to this week’s indictment of Donald Trump is providing a window into more than just how Americans view his alleged actions per se — but also into what they think it means for democracy itself.

Half the nation believes Trump tried to stay in office beyond his term through illegal and unconstitutional means.

To most Americans, such an effort would mean undermining democracy.

For them and for a majority of Americans overall, the series of indictments and ongoing investigations against Trump are seen as “defending democracy” and “upholding the rule of law.”

Just under a third of the country thinks Trump was trying to stay in office through legal, constitutional means — legal, in part because most of them (and including most Republicans) believe Trump’s claim that the election was illegitimate in the first place.

For most Republicans, the series of indictments are also personal, seeing them as “an attack” on people like them — echoing some of Trump’s rhetoric on the campaign trail.

And big majorities of Republicans think the indictments are an attempt to stop Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign.

Most Americans generally describe the multiple indictments Trump is now facing as “upholding the rule of law” and “defending democracy.”

Most also think they are an effort to stop Trump’s 2024 campaign, boosted by Republicans who are very likely to think so (but this group actually includes some Democrats, too, perhaps seeing that campaign as a threat to democracy in the same way they see Trump’s actions.)

A closer look at partisan differences

There are more strong party splits over what all these indictments mean. Democrats see it as upholding the law. Republicans see it as a political move, and most Republicans see it personally as an attack on people like them, channeling some of Trump’s campaign points.

There are some differences within the GOP, though: it’s MAGA-identifiers who see the indictments as an attack on people like them. But nearly all Republicans feel the indictments are an attempt to stop the Trump campaign.

Most independents, along with large numbers of Democrats, say that if in fact Trump was trying to overturn an election, that would be undermining democracy.

Opinion here seems related to what people believe about the 2020 election. Those who think Joe Biden was not legitimately elected — mostly Republicans — tend to think Trump planned to stay in office through legal processes, and some of them think he was upholding democracy.

As has been the case since he took office, most Republicans have said they don’t think Mr. Biden was legitimately elected.

Where might this go next?

Concern about an attempted overturn, and concern about political motivations, aren’t mutually exclusive. Many Americans are concerned about both when asked to weigh them.

But for Republicans, we see overwhelming concern more about the perceived politics, just as we did when we asked about the charges and politics after the classified documents indictment.

There’s a group, about a fifth of the country, who aren’t entirely taking party lines in either direction, who do think Mr. Biden won legitimately, and also that Trump didn’t act illegally. Some voice concern the charges are political, but four in 10 of them say that if Trump did try to overturn the election, it would be undermining democracy. So, this would be the group to watch if, in fact, a trial gets underway, but right now, they aren’t paying as much attention to the events.

This CBS News/YouGov survey was conducted with a nationally representative sample of 2,145 U.S. adult residents interviewed between August 2-4, 2023. The sample was weighted according to gender, age, race, and education based on the U.S. Census American Community Survey and Current Population Survey, as well as past vote. The margin of error is ±2.9 points.

Toplines

Anthony Salvanto

Anthony Salvanto, Ph.D., is CBS News’ director of elections and surveys. He oversees all polling across the nation, states and congressional races, and heads the CBS News Decision Desk that estimates outcomes on election nights. He is the author of “Where Did You Get This Number: A Pollster’s Guide to Making Sense of the World,” from Simon & Schuster (a division of Paramount Global), and appears regularly across all CBS News platforms. His scholarly research and writings cover topics on polling methodology, voting behavior, and sampling techniques.

Source link

CBS News poll: In Trump indictment, many see implications for democracy

CBS News poll: In Trump indictment, many see implications for democracy – CBS News

Watch CBS News

America’s response to this week’s indictment of Donald Trump is providing a window into more than just how Americans view his alleged actions, but also into what they think it means for democracy itself. CBS News Elections and Surveys Director Anthony Salvanto has more.

Source link

How Taiwan is facing China’s threat to its democracy

How Taiwan is facing China’s threat to its democracy – CBS News

Watch CBS News

Decades after Chinese nationalists fled the rise of Communism on the mainland, the people of Taiwan see their island as an independent nation. But China’s President Xi Jinping insists otherwise, and is threatening to impose Beijing’s rule by force. CBS News correspondent Elizabeth Palmer reports on how Taiwanese view their neighbor’s designs on their bustling and prosperous democratic society.

Source link

Israel has its own crisis of democracy, and it’s reaching a boiling point.

Authoritarianism can be defined in many ways. A judiciary subservient to the ruling regime is one of them.

No one would expect a court in Russia, China, Turkey, Iran or North Korea to mete out true, unbiased justice. In those countries, rule of law is an empty promise. Israel isn’t in the same category, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s push to weaken his nation’s Supreme Court represents the most ominous threat to Israel’s democracy in its 75-year history.

Can Israel save itself from its anti-democratic backslide? Yes it can, provided that a majority of Israelis join forces with civil society and the high court itself to turn back Netanyahu’s reckless, politically expedient gambit.

It won’t be easy, but legions of Israelis have already shown they can send a strong message warning Netanyahu how far he has dangerously strayed from Israel’s founding ideals. For months, throngs of demonstrators have taken to the streets in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem to protest their prime minister’s actions. Many reservists in Israel’s military forces expressed their opposition to the judicial overhaul by resigning or threatening to resign. A growing number of Israelis, including high-tech workers, scientists and doctors, have said they arelooking into leaving the country.

Netanyahu put himself in this position by aligning himself with Israel’s far-right Zionist leaders obsessed with settlement expansion in the West Bank and bent on moving the nation away from a pluralistic society at all costs. Netanyahu may be the face of the judicial overhaul, but his far-right allies are the engine behind it.

Netanyahu’s stated rationale for the overhaul is that Israel’s high court has far too much power over the Knesset, the country’s sole legislative chamber. However, a weakened Supreme Court suits Netanyahu perfectly, it gives him a better chance at eluding a potential prison term on pending charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust. A majority of Israelis believe Netanyahu’s bid to avoid justice is the real driver behind the judicial overhaul; a recent poll by an Israeli television channel found that nearly 60% of Israelis think that the prime minister is motivated by his personal agenda.

A core element of Netanyahu’s high court overhaul is a law passed late last month that prevents the Supreme Court from overturning government initiatives on the grounds that those measures lack “reasonableness.” That standard is a crucial tenet of judicial oversight, since Israel lacks a formal constitution to serve as a check against legislative overreach. Without it, Netanyahu’s far-right coalition can carry out its hard-line agenda as it pleases. Netanyahu wins, but it’s a monumental loss for a nation that for so long has made democracy an integral part of its identity.

The Biden administration has tried to carefully navigate the Israeli crisis — warning Netanyahu about the pitfalls of forging ahead with the overhaul, while at the same time avoiding the potential for a rift in its relationship with its biggest ally in the Middle East. Though it makes sense for President Joe Biden to keep up the pressure on Netanyahu, ultimately it’s Israel that will have to pull itself away from the precipice. Ironically, the crisis is now squarely in the hands of the Israeli Supreme Court, which must decide whether the law the Knesset passed limiting its power should stand or be overturned.

Both options come with risk for the court and the country. Acquiescence essentially green-lights Netanyahu’s government to do as it wishes, which likely would lead to Israel becoming a Potemkin democracy. Arab minority rights would erode even faster than they have before, and settlements in the West Bank would proliferate in alarmingly greater numbers. Rejecting the law could set up a showdown between the high court and Netanyahu that puts the nation’s military, police and lower courts in the middle, not knowing which side to obey.

In the end, the court really has no option but to strike down Netanyahu’s new law. It’s less about the court’s self-preservation and more about taking a firm stand in defense of Israeli democracy, which surely will wither if the ideal of checks and balances isn’t safeguarded.

It’s also vital that the high court doesn’t take this stand alone. Citizens and Israel’s civil society must stand alongside the Supreme Court in this moment of crisis. The best way to get Netanyahu and his far-right allies to abandon their assault on Israel democracy is to put up a united front.

Like Americans, Israelis hold dear their country’s adherence to democracy. They must continue defending it.

Join the discussion on Twitter @chitribopinions and on Facebook.

Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com.

Source link

Israeli protesters are calling for democracy. But what about the occupation of Palestinians?

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel is being rocked by a wave of mass protests calling for the country’s democracy to be upheld. But the pro-democracy movement lacks any clear message of opposition to Israel’s open-ended military rule over millions of Palestinians.

This contradiction reflects a widely held belief among Jewish Israelis that the conflict with the Palestinians is both intractable and somehow separate from Israel’s internal strife.

Critics of the protest movement, including Palestinians, say this is a significant blind spot and that such selective advocacy of democratic ideals shows how disconnected Israelis are from the harsh reality of those living under Israel’s occupation.

“It’s so ironic that they’re talking and protesting for democracy while at the same time it’s been a dictatorship for Palestinians for 75 years,” said Diana Buttu, a Palestinian commentator. “They’re afraid that their own privileges and rights are going to somehow be affected, but they won’t make the connection” with the occupation.

The protesters are demonstrating against the drive of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to weaken the judiciary by limiting judicial oversight on official decision-making and legislation.

The protest movement says its limited message against the judicial overhaul is holding together one of the largest and most sustained protest movements Israel has ever seen, bringing tens of thousands of people to the streets for the last 30 weeks.

Netanyahu’s government, made up of ultranationalist and ultra-religious parties with close ties to the West Bank settler movement, says the overhaul will restore power to elected lawmakers and rein in what it says is an overly interventionist judicial system.

Critics see the legislative push, especially because it’s driven by far-right and conservative religious parties, as an assault on Israel’s democratic fundamentals and its weak system of checks and balances. They say it will open the door to serious infringements on personal liberties and the rights of women, the LGBTQ+ community and minorities that will set Israel on a path toward autocracy.

The protesters come from a wide swath of Israeli society. They chant “democracy or rebellion!” carry signs reading “Israel will remain a democracy,” and have unfurled a giant copy of the country’s declaration of independence, which serves as an unofficial bill of rights, at various events.

But largely missing from the raucous protests is any meaningful reference to Israel’s 56-year occupation of lands the Palestinians seek for their future state. A small contingent of activists waving Palestinian flags have taken part, but remain mostly on the fringe.

In some cases, they have even been ostracized by organizers who feared that mentioning the occupation would somehow undercut the protest movement. Israel’s Palestinian citizens, who make up a fifth of the population, have sat out the protests in part because the demonstrations are ignoring the occupation.

“The protest is against the reduction of the democratic space for Jews. Most Jews in Israel don’t have a problem with Israel enforcing an apartheid regime in the West Bank,” said Dror Etkes, a veteran anti-occupation activist.

Despite his concerns, Etkes has made a point of participating in the protests. He sees the absence of occupation-related themes as a strategy meant to unite disparate groups against a more imminent threat. He said that if the government has its way, “people like me won’t be able to protest” against the occupation.

The Associated Press contacted several protest leaders who either declined to comment or did not respond to questions about the contradictions.

Israel captured the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, territories the Palestinians seek for their hoped-for independent state, in the 1967 Mideast war. Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip in 2005 and, along with Egypt, enforces a blockade on the territory. More than 700,000 settlers now live in the West Bank and east Jerusalem.

Palestinians in the West Bank live under limited autonomous self-rule, but Israel controls major parts of their lives, including movement and travel, construction permits in certain areas and significant parts of the economy. Israel’s military also frequently targets Palestinian areas in what it says is a bid to thwart militancy.

A two-tier legal system is also in place in the West Bank, where large parts of Israeli law apply to Jewish settlers and Palestinians are subject to Israeli military law. Palestinians cannot vote in Israeli elections. Their own leadership, established as part of interim peace agreements in the 1990s, has repeatedly delayed Palestinian elections.

While Palestinians in east Jerusalem hold Israeli residency and have access to certain social benefits, they face widespread discrimination. They can apply for citizenship but many choose not to, either on ideological grounds or because the process is too bureaucratic.

Those contrasting realities have prompted rights groups to say an apartheid system has taken root. Israel vehemently denies such claims. It says the West Bank is disputed territory whose fate should be determined through negotiations, which are long moribund.

After years of deadly conflict with the Palestinians, many Jewish Israelis see the occupation as the inevitable by-product of a hopeless security situation. Others accuse the Palestinians of rejecting generous peace offers — a claim the Palestinians reject.

That frame of mind has prevented many Israeli demonstrators from grasping the contradiction in their struggle, said Amichai Cohen, a senior fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute, a Jerusalem think tank.

But he and others say the occupation is seeping into the protests, presenting a potential opening for an awakening. For one, the main backers of the legal overhaul are firebrand West Bank settlers who seek to expand and solidify Israel’s domination over the Palestinian territories in part by weakening the court’s oversight over its moves.

The protests have also coincided with a spike in Israeli-Palestinian fighting, during which radical settlers have attacked Palestinian towns, most notably Hawara, setting cars and homes ablaze with a paltry response from Israeli security forces. The prominent protest chant “Where were you in Hawara?” emerged as a cry against perceived police brutality against protesters.

Avner Gvaryahu, who heads Breaking the Silence, a whistleblower group of former soldiers, is a constant presence at the protests.

He has watched in frustration as military reservists have refused to continue serving to protest what they say is the disintegration of Israel’s democracy, but kept silent over the occupation.

Still, the reservist protest has shattered a taboo against military refusal, a tool he said might be used in the future by soldiers against the occupation.

“The mainstream is waking up,” he said.

Palestinians remain skeptical.

Shawan Jabarin, head of the Palestinian rights group Al-Haq, said he considers the protests an internal Israeli struggle to maintain a status quo that has only cemented the occupation.

“What democracy are you speaking about?’” he said. “Democracy doesn’t go in the same time with occupation.”

Source link

A litmus test for democracy in West Africa

NIgeria's President Bola Tinubu at his inauguration - 29 May 2023 — NIgeria’s President Bola Tinubu at his inauguration – 29 May 2023

President Bola Tinubu, who is at the helm of regional superpower Nigeria, regards the coup across the border in Niger as a litmus test for democracy in West Africa.

Having assumed the chairmanship of regional bloc Ecowas a mere three weeks ago, he was confronted with a major foreign policy challenge when the military seized power in neighbouring Niger – a strategic ally in the fight against militant Islamists wreaking havoc across much of West Africa.

Mr Tinubu had raised concerns about the coups in Burkina Faso, Mali and Guinea when he rose to Nigeria’s presidency in May, saying Ecowas needed to strengthen its regional force to prevent further coups, and to fight the militants.

So when Niger’s President Mohamed Bazoum was overthrown by his presidential guards last week, he responded swiftly by convening a summit of West African leaders at his presidential villa on Sunday.

The regional bloc gave an ultimatum to Niger’s junta – hand back power to the elected president within a week or Ecowas would take “all measures necessary to restore constitutional order”.

“Such measures may include the use of force” and military chiefs were to meet “immediately”, their statement added.

Though Mr Tinubu’s own victory in last year’s presidential election is being challenged in the courts by opposition candidates who claim the result was rigged, he styles himself as a democrat who took part in the campaign against military rule in Nigeria in the 1980s.

“I think he sees this [coup] as an affront to his democratic credentials, particularly at a time that he is holding the chairmanship of Ecowas,” said Wole Ojewale, a Nigerian analyst with the Institute for Security Studies (ISS).

More crucially, the coup has a direct bearing on Nigeria. The two countries share a border which stretches for more than 1,500km (930 miles), and they have strong cultural and trade ties that date back to the pre-colonial era when a chunk of both were part of the Sokoto caliphate.

Their security is also intertwined. Militant Islamist group Boko Haram has carried out attacks in both countries, with a military force – made up of troops from Nigeria, Niger, Chad and Cameroon – fighting them. The force’s “strategic and technical partners” include the UK, US and France, with the latter two having military bases in Niger.

While Niger accounted for about 4% of global uranium output in 2022, it is the world’s seventh largest producer of uranium and has the highest-grade uranium ore in Africa.

Neither Ecowas nor its Western partners would want the radioactive material – used in both civilian and military settings – to fall into the wrong hands in a region where militant Islamists are active and Russia and the Wagner mercenary group are expanding their influence.

A supporter holds a picture of Niger General Abdourahamane Tiani, the chief of the powerful presidential guard, as with others rally in support of Niger's junta in Niamey on July 30, 2023 — Thousands of people have rallied in support of the coup in Niger’s capital Niamey

After their coups, Mali and Burkina Faso pivoted towards Russia, with the junta in Niger giving the impression that it could move in the same direction.

Chad’s leader Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno – who was put in power by his own army after his father was killed by rebel forces in 2021 – went to Niger on Sunday to urge the junta to heed Ecowas’ ultimatum.

Chad is not a member of the regional bloc, but Mr Déby attended its meeting earlier on Sunday. As a military strongman, he was seen as ideally placed to strike a rapport with the coup leaders and to urge them to step down.

But the junta has so far refused.

Instead, it has stepped up its rhetoric against both the West and Ecowas, and thousands of its supporters took to the streets of Niger’s capital, Niamey, on Sunday to back the coup. Some of them attacked the French embassy and waved pro-Russian flags.

But it is unclear whether the military takeover has majority support in Niger – more than half of its citizens were satisfied with the way democracy worked in their country, according to a 2022 survey by respected research group Afrobarometer.

Only Tanzania, Zambia, Sierra Leone and Mauritania had a better democratic approval of the 36 African countries surveyed.

However, two-thirds of those surveyed said that military men could intervene when elected leaders abused power. This is an argument that those who mount coups, as well as their supporters, often make in order to justify their actions.

The juntas in Mali and Burkina Faso have warned Ecowas against military intervention in Niger, saying it would be a “declaration of war” and they would go to defend their fellow coup leaders. So military intervention risks snowballing into a full-scale conflict.

However, Ecowas has previously sent troops to numerous countries – including Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea-Bissau and The Gambia – either to help end civil wars, reinstate deposed presidents or to force out leaders who refused to accept electoral defeat.

These interventions were in accordance with its mandate to maintain “peace, stability and security within the region”, though its troops were also accused in some instances of human rights abuses.

Mr Ojewale is not sure whether the bloc has the military capability to intervene in Niger – a vast arid country on the edge of the Sahara Desert – especially when many of the countries that make it up, including Nigeria, are facing their own security challenges.

“The little resources they have may be stretched lean,” he said.

Niger Army soldier takes a breather during security patrol near the Nigerian border in Maradi State — Niger’s troops are part of a regional force trying to weaken Islamist insurgents in the region

The analyst believes that conflict between two sides could become a “zero-sum game”, and worsen the humanitarian crisis in the region.

“There would be casualties as there would be people caught in the crossfire,” he said, adding that a diplomatic resolution to the crisis would be better.

There are also questions about the safety of the ousted president, who is being held captive by the junta. Another analyst, Jaafar Abubakar, argues that he could become a “bargaining chip” in the event of military confrontation between Ecowas and the junta.

“It’s in [the junta’s] best interest to keep [Mr Bazoum] alive and well,” he said. “If they kill him, they become all-out rebels with no form of legitimacy.”

Source link