Is it the Americans or us who have misunderstood? Did Thomas Seltzer take too much cod liver oil? Is Medie-Norge exaggerating how divided the US is? Two years after the storming of Congress, it’s full fire on Capitol Hill again. This time among the Republican politicians. Still, it is hope that characterizes American society now. I am just back on Norwegian soil after a hectic mini-tour in the USA. It was a rock Viking expedition where we hunted for fame and hope in America, with my music in the suitcase and cameraman in tow. In classic gonzo style, we infiltrated Bernie Sanders on Capitol Hill, hung out with rock stars, jammed with preachers and talked to very ordinary people for a documentary we have in the works. All of them had in common that they disagree that American democracy is on the way to collapse, completely contrary to what Thomas Seltzer has helped news to establish as Norwegian truth. Seltzer goes a long way when he concludes the UXA series that “in the coming American Civil War, democracy will lose.” Unlike Seltzer, I have neither American citizenship nor close relatives across the pond, but I have worked and traveled in the USA for several decades, alone and together with snowboarding legend Terje Håkonsen. It has given me a large contact surface in the US. Terje Håkonsen still opens doors for me there, which are usually protected like the gold in Fort Knox. A crisis of confidence This is how it happened that at the end of November we were suddenly sitting there, Norwegian-American Danny Young (my drummer and bass player) and I, in Senator Bernie Sanders’ office on Capitol Hill, Washington DC. The columnist with Senator Bernie Sanders on Capitol Hill. Photo: Bård Gundersen A half-hour audience with one of the world’s most famous politicians, who agrees with Thomas Seltzer that the main challenge in the USA is the great differences. “The American people have been lied to. It has been deprived of basic rights. And that’s why they’ve lost trust in government,” said Bernie Sanders. Sanders and Seltzer also agree that American democracy was put to the test before the midterm elections in November. Here’s Seltzer at his best, as he takes on one of the insane candidates who ran his campaign solely on Trump’s claim that the 2020 presidential election was rigged. According to the New York Times, there were 100 such candidates in the mid-term elections this autumn. It would of course be a full crisis for American democracy if they won important positions. Seltzer is also good when he shows how conspiracy theories have been allowed to grow in American society. Sanders explains that ordinary people believe Trump’s lies precisely because they have lost trust in those in power. Then there is room for maneuver for a demagogue like Trump, and it doesn’t matter if he is telling the truth or lying. It goes up – it goes down But here Sanders and Seltzer separate teams. Sanders is crystal clear that there is more that unites Americans than there is that divides them. None of the people we spoke to recognized themselves in our Norwegian understanding of the polarization in the USA, which we confronted everyone with. This is interesting, because the Norwegian media coverage of the USA in recent years has been very negative, bordering on an echo chamber. Seltzer goes a long way when he concludes the UXA series by saying that “in the coming American civil war, democracy will lose”, writes the chronicler. Photo: Thomas Søbstad / news If our interviews are representative, then Norwegian editors and media houses should review their media coverage of the USA. No, there will not be a civil war in the United States. There are many Norwegians who believe Norwegian correspondents when they time and again hammer into their reports that “the Americans are polarised”. This picture should be balanced. Sanders pointed out that the young voters stood up for democracy in the mid-term elections this autumn. The young people gave the election deniers and liars the finger. What gives better hope for the future than the young taking up the fight? Sanders and others we interviewed for the documentary said that the United States is a large and leading country, where the high pressure means that trends change quickly. They admit that the country is in a valley of waves, but it has happened before. And then it is the 60s in particular with civil rights, the Vietnam War and youth rebellion, that are highlighted. We got out of it then, and we’re getting out of it now. How are you going to do it, I asked Sanders. “By working together on the big issues. If we help ordinary people with their economic everyday life and their basic rights, then they will regain trust in the authorities,” he replied. This is exactly what we heard from many of those we interviewed, and I couldn’t agree more myself. A decisive change in the law A sure sign that the Americans are now strengthening democracy is that the Republican Senator Susan Collins has just succeeded in changing the “Electoral Count Act” from 1887. It is this law that Trump used when he tried to get Vice President Pence to disapprove the election on January 6, 2021. To prevent similar coup attempts in the future, the vice president will henceforth only have a symbolic role in the election count in Congress, and the threshold for protesting the election results on Capitol Hill has been raised. When the matter was considered in the Senate this autumn, only one of 15 members of the committee voted against the changes to the law. It was Trump puppet Ted Cruz. The Texas senator was isolated and ridiculed. The same thing that Democrats hope will happen to the 20 ultra-conservative Republicans who are ravaging Capitol Hill this week. Well before the presidential election in 2024. While the rest of the country licks its Trump wounds, a political war is taking place in the Republican Party that could make the job easier for the Democrats in the next election. Like Seltzer, I unearth the tarot cards, but I declare that Trump, his lies and his insanity candidates will soon be history. American politics swings like a pendulum, often from one extreme to the other, in a short period of time. Who would have thought that George W. Bush would be succeeded by America’s first colored president? Or that Barack Obama would again be succeeded by a reindeer despot? It may not take more than the ancient and unpopular Biden to realize that he must release a young, smart and female presidential candidate before we all agree that the American hope is alive: It’s blowing in the wind.
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Hope refuses to die in America – Statement
