Albanians, who endured a halfcentury of tyranny, are giving Americans a lesson in democracy. Hundreds of thousands of Albanians have been pouring into the streets
every day for two months to express their vehement rejection of Trumpism. The “Flamingo Revolution” was sparked when pro-Trump Prime Minister Edi Rama and his oligarch allies gave Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner, and the couple’s Saudi and Qatari partners approval to develop an ultra-luxurious resort on a large public island, Sazan. The island is now a cherished nature preserve, adjacent to a river delta and lagoon teeming with wildlife (including flamingos). In Albania and throughout Europe, says Isaac Stanley-Becker this week in The
Atlantic, people are puzzled that Americans aren’t standing up more forcefully to Trump’s grotesque corruption; his self-serving alliance with tech oligarchs and crypto crooks; his ethnic-cleansing campaign and state-sanctioned brutality and killings; his assaults on free speech, elections, science, and the rule of law; and his disastrous war in Iran. “Even pro-American Europeans want to know: Why aren’t people in the streets every day?” says Stanley-Becker.
A good question. Trump is not a dictator, but he clearly aspires to be one, and his flagrant abuses of power are
disqualifying, or would be in any era of U.S. history except this one. Now he’s openly laying the groundwork to reverse the will of the voters in November if they elect a Democratic majority in the House. If the election results are close, a constitutional crisis unlike any since the Civil War could be just a few months away. (See Best U.S. Columns, p.12.)
Perhaps Americans are too complacent after 250 years of fitful but unbroken democracy to believe it could be taken from us. Perhaps we’re too well-fed and too distracted by our devices, our games, and an endless tsunami of “content.” Perhaps too many of us are indifferent and disconnected. Perhaps too many of us are afraid. Or all of the above. But at this fraught moment, Albanians seem to care more about their country than we do ours.