美国民主在何处“坠落”？
Editor's note: The United States of America claims to be the defender of democratic values and human rights. It also dictates what those are for the world. But the truth lies in facts. To help our readers get answers to some of the most heated questions about U.S. democracy, CGTN's "Facts Tell" series lets the facts speak for themselves.
On Monday, a new report released by Chinese think tank Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, Renmin University of China, citing U.S.-based scholars and organizations, pointed out the stark failures of American democracy in the form of 10 questions.
But among all the issues raised, money politics, foreign wars, gun violence, racism, etc., a simple question to ask is perhaps this: What exactly has American democracy done for the American people?
People's lives got worse
美国的中产阶级占总人口的比例在过去的几十年中持续降低，从1971年的61%减少到2019年的51%，而同期低收入阶层的比例从25%增加到29%。 到2020年底，超过5000万美国人面临粮食不安全，比2019年增加了近50%。
1%最富有的美国人掌握着约43.27万亿美元的财富，是最底层50%的美国人财富总和(3.03万亿美元)的14.3倍。著名经济学家施蒂格利茨指出：“美国议员依赖1%的钱连任，为1%的人服务，甚至离任时再靠1%的人赏赐。”
Even for a country where inequalities between the haves and have-nots are granted, the COVID-19 pandemic became the moment of truth that this gap might as well be a canyon.
The U.S. has the most infection cases and deaths from COVID-19 in the world, with vulnerable and disadvantaged groups bearing the brunt of it. Despite warnings from medical experts and the World Health Organization, the previous U.S. administration downplayed the danger of the coronavirus while leaving medical workers, nursing home residents and low-income communities across the country to fend for themselves.
But the report also shows that many of the glaring defects laid bare by the health crisis have been in the making for decades and worsened after it. While the American middle-class shrank from 61 percent of the population in 1971 to 51 percent in 2019, the low-income class increased from 25 percent to 29 percent during the same period. By the end of 2020, more than 50 million Americans faced food insecurity, a nearly 50 percent increase from 2019.
The wealthiest one percent of Americans now hold $43.27 trillion, exceeding the bottom 90 percent and 14.3 times the bottom 50 percent of Americans ($3.03 trillion). Yet that doesn't stop U.S. lawmakers from serving the wealthiest one percent, who they rely on for re-elections.
The 'freedom' to cause harm
许多美国人一向自豪于自诩“自由典范”。但事实上，“超载自由”正在导致牵扯精力、浪费资源的文化战争，“可能导致民主幻灭”，也“耽误了美国防疫，正在杀死美国人”。虚伪的言论自由加上社交媒体形成的信息茧房，加速了虚假信息的传播，放大仇恨和极端情绪。皮尤研究中心的一项调查显示，64%的美国人认为，社交媒体对美国走向有负面作用。
报告指出，《独立宣言》所体现的“自由”不应包括导致他人生病甚至死亡的“自由”。
The U.S. has long prided itself in being an exemplar of freedom. But thanks to a misguided view of personal freedom and the information echo chambers created by social media, fewer and fewer Americans believe freedom is what it was or that they still have it.
Currently, a cultural war is being waged among Americans unable to agree with each other on the basics, with a considerable number of people in the country believing that not wearing masks, opposing stay-at-home orders and refusing to get vaccinated against COVID-19 are matters of personal freedom.
Protesters gather next to City Hall in opposition to the COVID-19 mask and vaccination requirements in Manhattan, New York, August 16, 2021. /CFP
The "liberty" enshrined by the Declaration of Independence should not include "freedom" that causes others to get sick or even die, the report noted.
Similarly, the First Amendment is too often used as a fit-all shield for rampant fake news and hate speech, all of which is turbocharged by social media algorithm.
A majority of 64 percent of Americans believe that social media has a negative effect on the direction of their country.
Failure to protect basic human rights
与“过于自由”的言论一样会威胁到公民人身安全的，还有美国“过于自由”的枪支。
报告援引《小型武器调查》的话说，美国拥有3.93亿支枪支，是世界上枪支数量最多的国家，但枪支法律却最薄弱。统计数据显示，美国每年有3.8万余人的死亡与枪击有关，其中20%为1至17岁的儿童和青少年。美国仅占世界人口的4%，却占全球枪支自杀人数的35%。
The proliferation of guns threatens the fundamental human rights of every American, the report said.
The U.S. has the world's most guns, 393 million, and the weakest gun laws, the Beijing-based institute cited the Small Arms Survey as saying.
The U.S. records high gun-related incidents, and every time a major shooting incident happens, the debate about whether stricter gun control laws should be in place heats up.
America is a multi-ethnic country, and democracy should promote inter-ethnic unity. However, blatant racist attacks are not surprising in the United States.
Even though the "Black Lives Matter" movement has attracted global attention, Black men are still "about 2.5 times more likely to be killed by police over the life course than are white men," said the report, citing an article published on the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America website.
A protester holds a sign during a rally against racism following the death of George Floyd in the U.S. /CFP
White supremacy is now considered a systemic problem in American society. Its adherents may be found in law enforcement and even political arenas across the country.
Since 2020, anti-Asian violence in the U.S. has surged. According to a poll conducted by the Pew Research Center in April 2021, 81 percent of respondents agreed that atrocities against Asian Americans increased, and 32 percent of Asian adults were afraid of threats or personal attacks.
Ceaseless military interventions in the name of democracy
在国境线之外，今日的美国民主几乎可以与战争和破坏划上等号。
自建国以来短短245年的历史中，美国甚至从未有过20年以上没有战争的记录。根据中国人权研究会的报告，第二次世界大战后，从1945年到2001年，全球248起武装冲突中，由美国发起的有201起，占总数的81%。
以阿富汗为例。2001年，美国开始对塔利班进行轰炸，给阿富汗人民带来了无尽的噩梦。中国人权研究会的数据显示，美军造成了大量不必要的平民伤亡——3万多平民死亡，6万多人受伤——并造成了大约1100万难民。
根据美国布朗大学去年发布的一份研究报告，从2001年“9·11”事件以来，美军在全球发动的所谓“反恐战争”或者制造的军事冲突与混乱已至少造成了3700万难民流离失所。难民危机和负担在不断增加，成为世界性的难题。然而，在520余万名中东难民涌入欧盟国家的同时，美国却只接收了不到1.2万名难民。
Beyond its borders, American democracy today is almost synonymous with wars and destruction wherever it arrives. The U.S. has repeatedly waged aggressive wars and justified the invasions as "humanitarian intervention."
In the 245-year history of the country, the United States has never been war-free for a stretch of more than 20 years. After World War II, from 1945 to 2001, among the 248 armed conflicts worldwide, 201 were initiated by the United States, accounting for 81 percent of the total number, according to the China Society for Human Rights Studies (CSHRS) report.
Take Afghanistan as an example. The onset of the U.S. bombing campaign against the Taliban in 2001 triggered an endless nightmare for the Afghan people. The U.S. troops caused a large number of unnecessary civilian casualties – over 30,000 civilians died, more than 60,000 people injured – and created about 11 million refugees, according to CSHRS.
The bombing campaign dragged Afghanistan into turmoil, and the sudden withdrawal of the U.S. troops created more chaos in the calamitous country.
People struggle to cross the boundary wall of Hamid Karzai International Airport to flee the country, August 16, 2021. /Getty
At least 37 million people lost their homes becoming refugees due to the U.S. bombing campaign. The refugee crisis and burden have been accumulating, which the whole world has to deal with.
As about 5.2 million refugees from the Middle East have swamped the borders of European Union (EU) countries, the EU has had to shoulder more responsibility regarding the refugee problem compared to the U.S., which has only accepted 11,880 refugees, a minimal fraction of the group.