On Democracy, We Should Practice at Home What We Preach Abroad | Opinion

Both of us spent many decades of our Foreign Service careers in authoritarian states where open debate, fair elections, and the rule of law were unknown. In places like Saudi Arabia, the Soviet Union, Syria, and Eastern Europe we promoted democracy, freedom of conscience, and legal reform. Under both Republican and Democratic administrations, we worked with the American labor movement, numerous NGOs, and institutes of both parties. We distributed literature promoting free societies and market economies. We helped monitor elections. We helped train judges and newly elected officials. We spoke out for human rights and religious freedom.

We had some success. Former communist nations held free elections and wrote democratic constitutions. Saudi Arabia held municipal elections and began to allow non-Muslim religious services. Yet to our surprise, when we returned to the United States, we found that some of the values and institutions we had promoted abroad were now threatened at home.

In many places where we served, commissars and mullahs dictated the acceptable limits of discussion. Some thoughts were deemed too dangerous to the existing order to be tolerated. Expressing such controversial views could result in being branded an enemy of the people or an enemy of God. We supported those who opposed this sort of censorship; people like Soviet dissident Andre Sakharov, who argued that freedom of conscience was the fundamental freedom from which all other freedoms derive. Sakharov recognized that if you were not free to think what you wanted, freedoms of speech, assembly, or religion were meaningless.

Back in the United States we found that many views on topics ranging from climate change to gender identity had become too toxic to discuss. Cancel culture and online witch hunts were something new for us. As in George Orwell's dystopian novel 1984, people were self-censoring for fear of social stigma or financial loss. Yet as Orwell himself wrote, "If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear".

When we advised foreign governments on how to conduct fair and transparent elections, we used a specific set of guidelines set out by the U.S. government. These explicitly called for voter IDs, a single day of voting, paper ballots counted with observers from all parties present and no effort to control the list of candidates. These same criteria are still followed in most European democracies. When we tell our European friends that some American states want to allow voting without an ID, they do not believe us. A failure to follow at home the advice we once offered abroad has led many to doubt the integrity of our own election.

Above all we encouraged respect for the rule of law. Without confidence that laws will be enforced fairly, principled statements about liberty and equality have little value. In working with judges and attorneys abroad we emphasized the importance of vigorous and impartial law enforcement by disinterested prosecutors and judges who treated all citizens equally.

Back in the United States we found these values eroding. We found controversial and highly politicized judicial appointments. We found shoplifters who were not being prosecuted and law enforcement officials giving sanctuary to those who had openly broken immigration laws. On the other hand, we found district attorneys running for election on the promise to prosecute citizens who had not yet been charged with any crime. As in the Soviet Union, we found the State attempting to impose equality by fiat.

We are not legal scholars and make no judgement about the legality of these events. We do understand how the appearance in impropriety can damage public confidence in government just as much as impropriety itself. We also recognize that disorder at home weakens our standing with friends as well as adversaries abroad.

After spending our careers analyzing political trends abroad, we were troubled by what we found back home. We found a nation deeply divided, with many Americans having lost pride in our history and confidence in our civic institutions. Such a malaise is not easily reversed.

Yet we were also encouraged to find widespread agreement among our fellow citizens on some fundamental points. Most do not view the constitution as an outdated 18th century document in need of dramatic reinterpretation. Most support term limits for Congress and some sort of campaign finance reform that prevents billionaires from buying excessive election influence. Perhaps what surprised us most was how seldom candidates running for office raise these important points of agreement.

David H. Rundell is a former chief of mission at the American Embassy in Saudi Arabia and the author of Vision or Mirage, Saudi Arabia at the Crossroads. Ambassador Michael Gfoeller spent 15 years working Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union and former Soviet Union.

The views expressed in this article are the writers' own.