Xi and Putin say democracy is failing — our representatives in Congress are proving them right 

The world’s two most powerful dictators, Xi Jinping of China and Russia’s Vladimir Putin, have long said the United States is a rapidly declining power and they plan to take advantage of that decline to establish a new international order. They attribute America’s presumed downfall to fundamental flaws in its governing system. 

A 2021 article in the People’s Daily, the Chinese Communist Party’s mouthpiece organ, proclaimed, “America’s Main Opponent is Itself.” It argued, “The United States has arrived at its current situation because the design and operation of its political and economic system has gone awry, the inevitable result.” 

Moscow in 2022 joined Beijing in denouncing America’s claim to represent a superior way of governing. “After declaring victory in the Cold War, the United States proclaimed itself to be God’s messenger on Earth,” Putin said. “[T]he ruling elite … seem to believe that the dominance of the West in global politics and the economy is an unchanging, eternal value. …They crudely and shamelessly impose their ethics. They consider themselves exceptional. If they are exceptional, that means everyone else is second rate.” 

Just weeks before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Xi and Putin issued a Joint Statement of “no- limits strategic partnership” and offered their shared view of democratic governance. “There is no one-size-fits-all template to guide countries in establishing democracy. A nation can choose such forms and methods of implementing democracy that would best suit its particular state. … It is only up to the people of the country to decide whether their State is a democratic one.” 

The two contend that America’s model of dispersed, consent-driven politics is deeply flawed and that centralized authoritarian systems are the most competent and efficient at managing modern societies. Unfortunately, as a recent Pew poll found, a growing number of Americans are becoming disillusioned with the way America’s democracy is functioning: 

“Just 4% of U.S. adults say the political system is working extremely or very well; another 23% say it is working somewhat well. About six-in-ten (63%) express not too much or no confidence at all in the future of the U.S. political system.” 

The United States Congress seems determined to validate the negative views of U.S. politics from both foreign dictators and the American public itself. One-half of the third branch of government is not functioning at all, with the House of Representatives lacking a Speaker after the removal of Kevin McCarthy two weeks ago. 

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) carried out his threat to file a motion to vacate the chair after Speaker McCarthy reached an agreement with House Democrats to keep the government running. Gaetz and seven GOP colleagues abandoned their party and voted with all the Democrats to depose McCarthy. 

Since then, Republicans have been unable to unite behind a successor; the House paralysis continues even as the murderous Hamas attack on Israel and Israel’s response in Gaza threaten to envelop the Mideast in a major regional war that could also erupt into a conflict between Iran and Israel — and potentially the United States. Ukraine must defeat Russia’s aggression and America must close its Southern border.

The celebration by Russia and China at the U.S. predicament is matched only by that of congressional Democrats who gloat over GOP “disarray,” “paralysis” and “inability to govern.”  

Republicans deserve all the ridicule and blame they are receiving for their disunity, even though 96 percent of them voted against the motion to remove McCarthy while 100 percent of Democrats joined the 4 percent of insurgent Republicans.  

Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries’s had stated earlier that “A handful of House Republicans are undermining the interests of the American people”; he pledged that Democrats would not play a role in the House Speaker battle by intervening in the GOP’s internal affairs. Yet, every Democrat followed his closed-door directive to intervene and vote with that “handful” of unpatriotic Republicans. 

In order to have kept the House running and prevent the national damage they now say they deplore, only eight Democrats needed simply to abstain — not even to oppose the motion to vacate the chair. But, following the pattern of a monolithic partisan bloc established under Speaker Nancy Pelosi, every Democrat voted in lockstep in compliance with their leader’s command. 

The partisan obedience was particularly striking among the members of the Problem-Solvers Caucus, an equally divided group of Republicans and Democrats that was formed in 2017.  

Its website declares: “It is a group united in the idea that there are commonsense solutions to many of the country’s toughest challenges. Only when we work together as Americans can we successfully break through the gridlock of today’s politics.” But when the fate of the House itself was at stake, not one of the 32 Democratic members would abstain from the destructive vote; all obeyed the leader’s fiat to join the Gaetz insurgency against the Republican Speaker. 

“This was supposed to be a time when Problem Solvers were supposed to drop their partisanship and do what’s right for America,” Rep. Nick LaLota (R-N.Y.) said. “I’m tremendously disappointed that nobody — no Democrat Problem Solver — stepped up to do so.” 

The destructive power of the four GOP mavericks to unseat the Speaker was extracted from McCarthy in January when he was under duress to secure the gavel after 15 ballots. That time, it would only have taken a single Democratic abstention to break the Gaetz stranglehold and proceed with a routine Speaker election. But, again, no Problem-Solver or other Democrat broke partisan ranks; instead, they willingly helped set the trap that was sprung two weeks ago. 

Having empowered the insurgents to disrupt the Republican majority, Jeffries and his Democratic colleagues now call for “bipartisanship” in the national interest. They define it as meaning the duly elected Republican majority must make an unprecedented concession by surrendering some of its governing power to the minority party as a reward for its extreme partisanship. 

One of America’s major parties is being undermined by the influence of a former U.S. president who openly admires authoritarian leaders. The other is following the model of centralized top-down rule and rigid party discipline as the most effective system of gaining and holding on to power. 

Neither a Donald Trump-anointed Speaker, especially combined with another Trump presidency, nor an enfeebled Republican Speaker hamstrung by Democrats from pursuing a moderate conservative agenda will serve the national interest.  

Both possibilities bring cheer to Xi and Putin and their allies. 

Joseph Bosco served as China country director for the secretary of Defense from 2005 to 2006 and as Asia-Pacific director of humanitarian assistance and disaster relief from 2009 to 2010. He served in the Pentagon when Vladimir Putin invaded Georgia and was involved in Department of Defense discussions about the U.S. response. Follow him on Twitter @BoscoJosephA.