Podcast: The Democracy in the United States and the United Kingdom

Host = Nicholas CarlieEB = Eirik Bergesen

Host: Hello. My name is Nicholas Carlie. I'm a former journalist for Norwegian Broadcasting and work as a schoolteacher. In this podcast series, we will explore democracy in several English-speaking countries to try to get a better understanding of how they work and what, if any, threats they face.

Eirik Bergesen, a – what do you say – an ‘America-file’?

EB: I was called an ‘American expert’ and to begin with I said ‘No, I'm just knowledgeable’. But then after I listened to a lot of the people who call themselves experts, I was like; ‘yeah, I'm an expert’.

Host: All right, good. Cool.

EB: Well, in the sense that I grew up in America, so I got to see what American society is all about, not just the political side of it all. And then I worked at the Norwegian Embassy in Washington, I've edited a book about the American Constitution and the Norwegian, compared the two. So, all in all, I'd say that that's parts of the American society and politics I'm more or less an expert in. But it's a big picture.

Host: Thank you for being here. I know this is huge. And we're also going to drag the UK into this, just because we're ‘biting big’ here today. These are mature democracies. They've been around for a while. Especially the Americans have been very conscious about how they're forming their constitution. Everybody who moved there was running away from something. And then they decided: ‘Ok, let’s make a place where nobody can persecute us for being weird, or different, or religious, or wanting to have a gun, or wanting to be a billionaire.’ How's that working out for them?

EB: Well, actually, that’s a good question, because that's the one thing I think that a lot of people living in Norway, however much they follow America in the news, miss out on. A lot of Americans fled from Europe, from Norway, from the type of government we had back in the day, the role of the church, the role of aristocrats and so on, and to sort of live their own lives, make up their own minds and be left alone by a state. I think that's part of the reason that America has become as populist as it is now. And a lot of the reason that they've chosen the different path when it comes to even the COVID 19 and policies. I think that's the first thing that's important to understand, and obviously, that's a continuous challenge towards any government – that people don't want to be ruled that closely by the government.

Host: They've invented a government which they hope will never take over their day-to-day choices again, which as we speak is actually not working with the Roe v. Wade-case and stuff like that. Is this mature and very idealised form of democracy? Is it even actually what it appears to be?

EB: Well, I think the whole reason that I edited the book with comparing American and Norwegian constitutions, is that those are the two oldest functioning constitutions in the world. And I think there's a lot to say about things that should be improved in both constitutions. But the fact that they are, as you say, old, mature political systems means that there's been a lot of hits and misses. So even though the misses still continue, we can look back and say; ‘hey, wait, wait a second, we're about to make the same mistake as we did 5 years ago, 50 years ago’.

Host: You have reference points in history?

EB: Yeah, definitely. And a lot of the troubles with populism we've seen in America before. And again, history repeats itself. But it also means that we're not going to go down some of the paths we see with new democracies that haven't experienced that before. They don't have the forces that remind them what's at stake. And I think that the good thing about the fact that we've had conservative governments, even though they've caused a lot of trouble with populism, is that they also within the system are traditionalists. So, they will tend to not want to change things too much. And they will want to uphold rules, regulations, constitutions that don't function as well anymore, but still have a stability to them that sort of anchors society.

Host: There's a status quo, not rocking the boat, right? Because things are kind of okay. When a country like the United States, when they do this, they tear themselves away from what they see as an oppressive King and monarchy hanging over them. They sit down very consciously, and they write these words extremely carefully, and they go back and forth. Does that automatically make it an improvement on the former system, do you think?

EB: Well, when the Americans wrote their constitution, they talked about, it’s in the constitution: ‘a more perfect union’. That means that they're always striving for something more perfect, which also means that it is not perfect, what they have today. And that's the reason I think it's fascinating to follow American politics, it's sort of like a dinner party and you're sort of allowed to watch people discussing and quarrelling, and they're open about it. They'll agree to disagree, so that's a good thing. I mean, they understand that the world is watching, they understand that the world is a bit overwhelmed and sometimes a bit scared by what's going on. But they've chosen to have that type of system, and all the books that we can read, all the reports that we can read about what's going on, you don't have that in Norway. You don't have that openness. You don't have people speaking out either on background or by name. That's the system they've chosen, and it becomes quite a spectacle. Dictatorships can point to the United States and to a certain degree the UK and say ‘hey, look, this is what democracy gets you. Do we really want this, or do we want stability?’, and so on. It's only now, when you have Putin acting as he does now, that other dictatorships are saying ‘wait a second, Russia, don't do this, you're giving dictatorships a bad name’.

Host: We were talking a little bit about improving democracies and tweaking them and kind of growing and learning ...

EB: There are obvious reasons to improve the electoral system, both in America and in the UK. I think we haven't really met the main challenges in full. I think it's still a huge question if people are actually being represented.

Host: You used the word ‘populists’ earlier. Could you tell me a little more what you mean by that? Because both Johnson and the UK (and let's go back to Trump because Biden's just kind of boring, let's be honest), have been accused of being populist. What does that mean and why is that necessarily a bad thing?

EB: It's a good question, because it's not necessarily a bad thing. It could be a good thing in the sense that it's obviously a symptom of a system not working. If you look back at an American recent history, you had the Iraqi war where the government more or less lied to their people, said that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, said that they had something to do with 9/11, which was a national trauma at the time, and invaded on false premises. Media took part in the sense that they were not only spreading some of these lies but were also not challenging as critically as they should have. So, when Donald Trump said to people; ‘the media are against you, the media are lying, government has been lying to you’, in a certain way he was right about that. Then obviously his solution to it all, which was to lie even more, was a bad solution.

Host: Yeah.

EB: He pretty much played on the grievance that people had towards that society that they had been robbed of. But in America, there has never really existed a place in time where everybody was represented fully, rather the opposite. I think a lot has actually changed to the better in America. Either you're part of the black community, or you're a woman, or you're young. I think that America has become less elitist. So that's contradictory to what Trump says. While in Great Britain, part of the problem is that this society is very elitist, and you have ...

Host: ... A long history of class system?

EB: Class definitely remains in Great Britain. There is more to play upon when it comes to populism, and we've seen that Boris Johnson utilised populism as a negative tool in the sense that people are being if not lied to (because he's not as blatant as a Trump), he is still avoiding addressing a lot of the the main challenges. We have to remember that while Donald Trump in many ways was a reality TV-star before he became president and had no political experience whatsoever. Boris Johnson did have political experience, but he also came from the media-side. He was even a part of the ‘Mock the News’ crew, which was political satirists. So, he knows very well how to sort of create a show – and media likes a show. I've been part of a show called ‘Trump's World’, and there's a reason why we call it that, because although we did try to convey a nuanced picture of American politics, we also, as well as many others, use that Trump phenomena to get people to glue in on what we were trying to say.

Host: Do you think that the last few years have, exposed a fragility within democracy, or is it proving to be more robust than we thought? Everything that happened, what's it teaching us?

EB: That's a good question. I think you've seen evidence of both. Churchill once said that democracy was the best of a lot of horrible options. And we've sort of seen the fragility up close. We've seen that not only can a dictator such as Putin get away with lies, but also a democratic president such as Trump can get away with lies.

Host: I won't ask you to, you know, get into conspiracy theories, but can Russia or North Korea actually go online on Facebook and Instagram and change the way people vote in democracies across the ocean?

EB: Yes, I think that there is definitely a lot that dictatorships can do to disrupt democracies. I think that what happened in America was not only that, that Trump wanted to make America great again, whatever that was all about. Putin wanted to make Russia great again. And his main goal is very, very easy, is to just create a little trouble in democracies, to delegitimise them in every which way.

Host: Politics is so not boring, even though it can give that impression sometimes.

EB: Which is actually a bad thing – and a fact.

Host: Maybe it should be boring.

EB: That is a very good point, and I believe that politics should be much more boring than it is. Nerds like me should be the few people who follow it hour by hour. And other people should read up, obviously, before they vote – and they should definitely vote. But we shouldn't be scared shitless around every corner in politics and certainly not in Western democracies. That's the order of the day these days, and that's a bad thing.

Host: There are systems in place. They are designed to make sure that those who do come to power in a democracy actually do what they say and don't steal all the money and run away. Are they working, these systems?

EB: You have the system of checks and balances in America. In many ways you can put forward the argument that even though America voted for and elected a reality star – with no political experience and the most populist agenda ever, and also lying all throughout the post-election, saying that he had won the election and even supported the people who storm Congress – all those things put together, it’s still working. The clock is still ticking, and America is still a functioning democracy. So, you can argue that that means that America is a robust democracy, they withstood this challenge.

Host: I know this is not the last time somebody is going to ask you about American or UK politics, but I will put an end to it for today. Thank you so much for your time.

EB: Thank you.