Democracy in Disarray

Abstract

K en Fisher aka "Ruben Bolling" (winner of the 2017 Herblock Prize, 2018 Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, and a finalist for a 2019 Pulitzer Prize) generously offered Polity permission to use any of his wonderfully poignant cartoons for our Spring cover. He worried that the image we ultimately selected, "Busy, Busy Day in Trump's America" from September of 2020, would be dated by the time the issue appeared in print in April of 2021. Wishful thinking, we suspect. Among the many aspects of life disrupted by COVID-19, the loss of temporality ranks high on the list. It is not so much that what is old is new again, but that we are trapped in an eternal recurrence, or an indefinite prolongation of the present.Drawn in the style of Richard Scarry's classic "busy, busy people" children's books, the graphic captures some of the tropes that dominated our political discourse in the final year of the Trump Administration. It vividly illustrates a democracy in disarray, where this refers not to party polarization, but state repression at all levels, the mobilization of far-right forces, the destructive denial of climate science, the gross mismanagement of the pandemic response, and a looming economic disaster that is already being felt by the poor and working class.That this chaos is depicted in images associated with childhood allows us to laugh momentarily at the sources of real anxiety for many in Trump's America. Can humor serve a critical and pedagogical purpose? Trump's brazen disregard for norms has left even those critical of the disciplinary effects of various forms of normativity almost eager for their return. His neglect extends well beyond the norms and institutions of American society to the American people, including his own supporters. As we write this editors' note, COVID-19 has killed 333,000 Americans and more than 1.7 million people worldwide, with hundreds of thousands