NH Republican Primary Showdown; The State of Global Democracy in 2024

I'm Aisha Roscoe.

And this is Up First from NPR News.

after losing the 2020 election, Trump continues to shore up his support among the GOP.

anti-democratic forces a lifeline.

Dozens of countries hold elections this year with billions of voters.

as we take a step back to consider the state of global democracy.

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a government under biblical rule.

If they gain more power, it could mean fewer rights for you.

I'm Heath Drusen, and on the new season of Extremely American,

I'll take you inside the movement.

Listen to Extremely American from Boise State Public Radio, part of the NPR network.

He's a senator from South Carolina.

South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, a former Republican candidate for president,

officially endorsed.

Former President Donald Trump.

namely Nikki Haley.

He's leading in the polls, but she is closing in on him there.

that Tim Scott might become Trump's choice for running mate.

Good morning.

Why is Tim Scott's endorsement so significant?

You mentioned one, him potentially being a running mate.

You know, he dropped his own bid for the White House in November.

At the time, he said he had no plans to endorse a candidate.

Trump was courting him.

Haley was courting him.

So was DeSantis, a source told me.

I mean, Scott is popular.

He's influential.

And he's the only black Republican in the Senate.

Nikki Haley appointed Scott to the Senate when she was governor of South Carolina.

And Scott also enjoys more support in their shared homestay,

which is an important one in the primary calendar.

It's really a big win for Trump.

And I'll just note one more little thing that Elise Stefanik of New York,

she was also in New Hampshire yesterday, kind of warming up the crowd.

She's also in the running as potential running mate for Trump.

but she has her best prospects for a win in New Hampshire.

Why is that?

They're more traditional, fiscally conscious.

But perhaps a bigger reason is those independent voters who

here can pick what party's primary they want to vote in.

And they're expected to vote in the Republican primary because that's where the action is.

Plus, it is the first in the nation primary,

and they really don't kid around about that in New Hampshire.

Here's how the state's former attorney general, Tom Rath, explained it to me.

And we take our role very, very serious.

But again, it's hard to predict how many of those

independent voters are going to show up on Tuesday.

but I mean, isn't there somebody else in the race like DeSantis?

Like he did beat Haley in Iowa.

I mean, DeSantis spent so much time in Iowa, so much energy, so much money,

but he didn't really pay much attention to the Granite State.

I mean, he's not even in the state this weekend.

He's making appearances across South Carolina.

Therefore, he's polling in the single digits in the Granite State,

while Haley has invested so much in New Hampshire and is polling around 30%.

I mean, this is really a two-person race now.

something that she had been reluctant to do for much of the campaign, right?

and she really has to kind of turn up the heat.

I wouldn't say that it's been red-hot, though, but her attacks have been stronger.

You know, saying Trump's throwing a temper tantrum,

that he's lying about her supporters.

I mean, Ayesha, this is really the best chance for Haley to stop his campaign

from basically running away with the nomination.

The next two states are South Carolina and Nevada,

where there are more Trump-style voters.

So if someone's gonna rise from Trump's shadow, it really has to be here.

Thank you so much for joining us, Franco.

A huge swath of the globe will vote in national elections this year.

What might these elections say about the strength or the frailty of democracy?

Ada Peralta in Mexico City, Dia Hadid in Mumbai, India, and Frank Langfitt,

NPR's global democracy correspondent who's based in Washington, D.C.

Thank you all very much for being with us.

Great to be here, Scott.

and some of what you'll be alert for.

it's the biggest one for elections that anybody can remember.

It's at least 70 countries, billions of voters eligible.

And it's not just the numbers, Scott, it's the context.

This is coming when democracy has been in decline for the last 17 years.

That's according to Freedom House, a think tank here in D.C.

You're seeing more and more disinformation campaigns, the specter of AI.

And I think what you hear is people are very nervous about the integrity of elections.

And there's also a concern that parties may win democratically and then turn around

and actually try to undermine the democratic systems

and the checks and balances in those countries.

So I think people are going to be watching this year incredibly closely.

How do you see these issues in the part of the world you cover?

has moved on from the mechanics of elections.

First, because the bad guys have become super sophisticated.

They've gotten really good at playing the democracy game,

at rigging elections through legal maneuvers or with lots of money.

And the U.S. and the international community have often gone along,

said those elections were good enough.

But people have also grown disillusioned with the democratic process

because it hasn't fixed some of the most pressing problems in Latin America.

And this is among the most unequal regions in the world.

And so many countries in Latin America are facing awful insecurity.

And I think that's when leaders like the president of El Salvador emerge.

Nayib Bukele doesn't pretend to be a Democrat.

He's running for re-election in February,

despite the fact that the Constitution clearly doesn't allow re-election.

But the latest polls show that Salvadorans don't care.

You know, why is that?

Because he solved, during his first term,

he solved one of the biggest problems they had.

He threw nearly 70,000 people in jail

with either no legal process or an inadequate legal process.

And that meant that Salvadorans were no longer being extorted

and they're no longer being killed by gangs on the streets.

So, you know, there's a saying that I keep hearing here in Central America.

And they say, we can't eat democracy.

And so those democratic norms that the West obsesses over

doesn't mean much in people's regular lives.

This is the world's most populous region.

And it's largely on paper democratic.

It has institutions bequeathed to it by the British who once colonized this region.

And here we've got three giants voting or having voted this year,

Bangladesh, Pakistan and India.

And what we see is each country is upholding elections,

but there's an erosion of democratic standards.

And it kind of echoes what Ada is saying in the sense of

the mechanics might be all right,

but what happens in between those elections is key.

In fact, though, if I jump to Bangladesh first,

where there are elections in early January,

there was a wide ranging crackdown on the opposition

before people went out to vote.

And in fact, citizens were treated to the specter

of the ruling party competing against itself and obviously winning.

In Pakistan, where critics say the military hold ultimate power,

there's also been a crackdown on what appears to be the most popular party,

which is led by the former Prime Minister Imran Khan.

But elections are still happening, you see.

and subsequent investigations still considered to be a

kind of living example of democracy across the globe?

People follow American politics extremely closely around the world,

but especially in Europe, where I last reported.

And with the majority of Republicans supporting Trump,

a man who lied about winning the election,

tried to overturn those legitimate results,

that would be sort of the definition of being anti-democratic.

And so I think people are watching this election

very, very closely to see what happens.

Will there be another attempt to try to overturn the results?

Or if Americans in the end vote for Donald Trump and he wins,

this is someone who's been pretty clear that

there are a number of democratic norms that he wants no part of.

I mean, the dysfunction of American democracy

has really given anti-democratic forces a lifeline,

but it's what's also happened after January 6.

And I'll take you back to El Salvador,

because El Salvador, it's a huge deal here in Latin America.

People look at it as a model.

And President Bukele in El Salvador consistently says,

look at the U.S. and look how human rights groups

and the United States criticize me for going after the opposition.

But right now, the United States is prosecuting a former president

and the leading presidential candidate for the Republican Party and Donald Trump.

And so President Bukele in El Salvador uses this to claim hypocrisy.

And it seems to carry weight with the population.

and also in much of Europe.

How does that figure into the elections this year?

which Americans won't usually focus on,

is European Union parliamentary elections.

27 members of the EU.

And I think the group to watch there is

there's this group called the Identity and Democracy Group.

It's a collection of right-wing populist parties.

Right now, it's the sixth largest in the parliament.

It's on track to become the third largest party.

Some of those parties are very friendly to Vladimir Putin.

And if they win big, there's a concern that they will

try to push for some kind of settlement, undermine support for Ukraine.

And I think the concern there is Putin could come out in some ways

doing relatively well after this bungled invasion.

And many people look at the Ukraine story as a democracy story.

It's a sovereign nation, a democracy that was attacked

by an authoritarian country.

And what a lot of people in Europe absolutely don't want to see

is that kind of behavior rewarded.

and a lot of pro-democracy advocates are really worried.

The president here, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, is a populist.

He can't run for re-election, but he's handpicked a successor.

And he is about to give another go right before leaving office

to what he calls reforms to the electoral commission.

Essentially, he wants to gut the commission.

And in his term, Lopez Obrador has said, forget these institutions.

The way I'm going to help the people is to take the money we spend

on fair elections or on transparency and give it to the people.

And his administration has actually cut checks to everyone,

single mothers, students, the elderly.

And right now, his handpicked successor,

Claudia Sheinbaum, is leading in the polls by a huge margin.

India, the world's largest democracy,

the most populist nation in the world.

I feel the need for a separate question.

What is the state of democracy and that part of democracy

that relies on freedom of expression under Prime Minister Modi?

of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his style of rule,

and yet they're unequivocal in that India remains a democracy

and a democracy where parties contest and run for elections

and really challenge each other at the ballot box.

That remains strong.

The issue is prominent critics aren't sure

how much of India's legacy as a secular state

with equal rights for all can survive

under a third term of Narendra Modi.

And that third term is almost inevitable.

He is a wildly popular figure

and he has certainly tapped into a yearning among many in India

to see something of their faith and identity

and religious practice reflected

in the most senior person in the country.

But I'm also meeting people

who are on the fringes of Hindu nationalism,

who are unhappy with Narendra Modi

and unhappy with the BJP because they think it's too soft.

They want a harder line against India's minorities,

Muslims, Christians, Jews and others.

They want to see Hindu rights being elevated

in a more robust and aggressive way.

And the critics that I'm speaking to just aren't sure

how much of India's sense of equality,

fairness before the law,

its institutions itself are going to survive another assault

Guatemala just inaugurated a pro-democratic reformist president

and just before elections last summer,

all I heard was desolation.

Everyone thought the game was rigged.

Everyone thought the same old people would win

and instead democracy won.

around the world these days and with good reason,

but there are very bright spots.

And one of the most obvious one is Taiwan.

We just saw recently an election in which the Taiwanese

defied the threats of mainland China

and gave the Democratic Progressive Party

a third straight term in the presidency.

And of course, Taiwan is probably the next big battleground

over democracy and sovereignty.

I covered the Arab Spring and I saw people demand the right

to decide their own leaders with their bodies.

People who are denied democracy and then given it

really don't take it for granted.

It's often the reverse.

I'm always struck by the apathy of people

who come from democratic countries

who don't quite understand what other people are fighting for.

Eder Peralta in Mexico City,

Dia Hadid in Mumbai,

Frank Langford,

Tenpears Global Democracy Correspondent.

Thanks so much.

I'm Aisha Roscoe.

Vincent Nee, Shannon Rhodes, and Melissa Gray.

Our technical director is Carly Strange

with technical assistance from Stacey Abbott,

Becky Brown, Zach Coleman, and Ted Meebane.

Sarah Lucy Oliver is our executive producer.

And Jim Kane is our deputy managing editor.

medical errors can lead to lawsuits and settlements,

but rarely do they lead to apologies.

Now, more patients, families, and even doctors

are calling for a new approach that acknowledges the harms

that come from failing to address medical mistakes.

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