The Tribune

WHEN American President Donald Trump summarily fired the US Attorney General James Comey last week, it felt like a watershed moment. Or, perhaps, a Watergate moment.

In reporting on the firing on its front page, The New York Times ran a featured story comparing Trump’s action to Richard Nixon’s firing of, first, Attorney General Eliott Richardson and, then, deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus. Their offence was their unwillingness to fire Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox, whose aggressive investigation into the break-in at the Watergate Hotel offices of the Democratic National Committee was apparently getting too close to the president.

Faced with a similar presidential order to participate in the ousting of FBI Director James Comey, current Attorney General Jeff Sessions seems to have had no similar misgivings as he put his signature to a recommendation that Trump dismiss the nettlesome Comey.

Sessions cited Comey’s awkward revelation of a misleading development in the Hillary Clinton email fiasco as a primary pretext for the FBI director’s firing. No one believed this, and Trump had to swiftly acknowledge that he had been personally itching to get rid of Comey for some time.

Nixon’s 1973 firing of Richardson, Ruckelshaus and ultimately Cox precipitated the president’s resignation six months later.

What will be the consequence of Trump firing Comey, and why did he really do it? Theories abound, but a common thread in most attempts at explanation is that Comey’s FBI investigation of Russian meddling in the last US presidential election may have been getting to close to Trump himself.

Several things are becoming clear in the aftermath of the Comey firing.

The smoke around the issue of Trump’s Russian ties continues to roil. It is becoming hard to imagine that there is not a significant fire at the heart of it. Russia seems almost always to be part of the latest scandal. The president’s persistent refusal to disclose his tax returns adds more fuel to the presumed fire.

Polling indicates that Trump’s hard-core bedrock support among American voters is not significantly eroding. And just as most of them did during the 2016 presidential primary campaign after it became clear Trump would win their party’s nomination, Republican leaders still largely defer to him.

Perhaps most worrisome is a growing perceived threat to the American democratic system. Trump supporters and critics agree that his dismissal of Comey was within his authority. But many wonder what restraints on his executive authority the president actually acknowledges. Who will be next to go? Trump seems certain to test American constitutional checks and balances. Is American democracy entering an existential crisis? Perspective on this comes from Yale University political scientist Milan Slovik, who posits the theory that when democracies fail, they often, paradoxically, succumb to the manipulations of elected leaders who enjoy strong support among voters who support democracy. Turkish and Russian presidents have in recent times gained much power, backed by a majority of their constituents. But Slovik has focused his study on a much closer geographic subject.

He has concentrated on Venezuela. Quoted in an online university newsletter, Slovik says the more strongly partisanship is associated with one candidate, the more willing voters are to accept that candidate’s undemocratic behaviour. It follows that in polarised societies - like Venezuela, Turkey and perhaps the US - democracy is especially at risk.

Venezuela has been led for 15 years by Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro. Neither could be classified as a democrat. Journalists and citizens have been prosecuted and imprisoned for opposing the regime, and leading opponents of the regime have been banned from running for office.

In Venezuela, Slovik has found that “the masses can - but do not - serve as a check on undemocratic behaviour by incumbents when societies, while unified in the support of democracy, are divided along partisan lines.” A majority of Venezuelan voters sampled by Slovik “were unwilling to say that they would vote against an anti-democratic candidate when doing so would betray their economic interests”.

Slovik discounts direct comparisons of the Venezuelan findings and US political prospects. He and others will now focus more on American politics. But given the current state of partisan polarity in American political life, could any observer ignore with any assurance such comparisons?