US election deniers promoting democracy abroad defies reason

The power of the more than 200-year-old American model of democracy has encouraged people across the globe to fight for their rights and freedoms, often in the face of brutal authoritarians. We have personally seen the impact of U.S. influence through the more than 100 projects that we have helped design to ensure credible and legitimate elections are conducted in countries around the world. 

Given this experience, we are concerned that efforts to advance democracy abroad may be compromised by board members of publicly-funded U.S. democracy promotion organizations who deny the legitimacy of the 2020 elections. This concern is exacerbated by the presence of an active promoter of the Big Lie sitting on the board of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). 

Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) not only voted against the certification of the Electoral College votes for President Biden but has also become a leading promoter of debunked conspiracy theories surrounding the 2020 election. Concerned NED staff raised the seeming incompatibility of Stefanik serving as a democracy promoter abroad while being associated with the Big Lie at home. Yet this year, the NED board renewed Stefanik for another term.

Forty years ago in a speech to the British parliament, President Reagan heralded the role that established democracies should play in assisting countries moving from authoritarianism toward democracy. Critics questioned the sincerity of this appeal given U.S. support to dictators simply because they identified as anti-communists. Nonetheless, there was no doubt that Reagan accepted the fundamental premise of U.S. democracy: Political power flows through elections and the loser must accept the results if the system is to be sustained.

Following Reagan’s speech, Congress funded the creation of several institutions, including the National Endowment for Democracy, to support efforts to establish democracy. Representatives of these organizations, in their work overseas, have often found themselves having to explain idiosyncrasies of the U.S. system such as the Electoral College, gerrymandering, the oversized role of money in U.S. electoral politics and the fact that chief election officers themselves are selected through partisan elections. 

Nonetheless, drawing on more than 200 years of peaceful transitions from George Washington onward, democracy promoters could cite the reality that election losers always accepted the results, no matter how disappointing.

Indeed, the concession speech became an integral part of the U.S. election cycle. The powerful image of Vice President Al Gore acknowledging the legitimacy of the Supreme Court decision awarding the presidency to George Bush is an eloquent example. Similarly, while working with Jimmy Carter, we have heard him share his personal experience of having been on the short end of a presidential election and stress the importance of the loser accepting the results.

Unfortunately, the U.S. 2020 election represents a watershed. Former President Trump not only refused to accept the result, even after his court challenges were repeatedly rejected, but sought to fabricate a narrative of fraud, convince state legislatures to falsify election results and call supporters into the streets to prevent the vice president and members of Congress from performing their constitutional duties. If Trump’s actions had taken place in another country, democracy promotion organizations would have denounced them as violating fundamental and commonly accepted international norms of democratic practice.

The arguments in favor of keeping supporters of the Big Lie involved in democracy promotion organizations are varied. Some suggest board members are capable of separating their partisan perspectives from their commitment to support democracy abroad. Others say organizations need individuals from across the political spectrum to project bipartisan support for their work. Taking action against board members based on their political orientations would torpedo their carefully cultivated bipartisan image and, if budget cuts are made, could undermine global pro-democracy efforts.

The problem is most of these arguments reflect a business-as-usual approach at a time when supporters of President Trump have chosen to step outside the country’s democratic political culture. U.S. democracy is in a crisis right now and, as John Stuart Mill said in 1867, “Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends than that good men should look on and do nothing.”

We recognize that drawing lines for board members’ actions is complicated. Thirty-one Democratic members of the House voted against accepting Ohio’s electors in the 2004 election, as did several in 2016, who sought to contest Trump’s election.

These instances, however, are distinguishable by their scale and their continuous insertion into the political discourse. The current electoral denialism features an ongoing embrace by a large part of the Republican Party’s electorate and is now a central focus of GOP electoral campaigns and legislative efforts at all levels of government. Certainly, everyone should agree that former national security advisor Michael Flynn’s refusal to answer whether he supported the “peaceful transfer of power” reflects a fundamentally anti-democratic viewpoint.

While it is unfortunate that this even needs to be said, board members of organizations committed to promoting democracy abroad should act in a manner that is consistent with adherence to core democratic principles. A range of partisan perspectives is important, but board members should be required to commit to the following principles: not fomenting violence in response to an adverse election outcome; accepting the peaceful transfer of power based on the outcome of an election after judicial remedies have been exhausted and not plotting to undermine the outcome of an election by promoting unfounded conspiracies and disinformation campaigns.

Big Lie proponents have presented us with an ethical dilemma: Do we have a right to support democracy abroad when we don’t react to those who are seeking to suffocate it here at home? By insisting on adherence to core principles, we would revive the Reagan-era bipartisan consensus for the work of democracy activists in this country and overseas.  

Larry Garber has worked on democracy promotion efforts since 1983 at the U.S. Agency for International Development and with several non-governmental organizations. He is the author of “Guidelines for International Election Observing.” Edward McMahon has taught as an associate professor of political science and international development at the University of Vermont, Middlebury College and Binghamton University. He has consulted for the U.S. Agency for International Development, the U.N. Development Program, the Carter Center and other organizations on global democracy and governance issues.