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This week, Vice President Mike Pence is visiting Montenegro. His historic visit signals a new chapter not only in bilateral relations, but also strengthen the overall trans-Atlantic alliance.

Most importantly, the visit will celebrate just how far the Montenegrin economy has come due in large part to quiet American leadership and a growing Montenegrin commitment to Western values.

When 97 senators voted on March 28 to add Montenegro to NATO, a clear message was sent across the Atlantic. Senators made clear to this young multiparty parliamentary democracy, no bigger than a congressional district, that its years of painstaking judicial, economic, and military reforms were worth it.

NATO is a military alliance. Much has been written about the Montenegrin military and the overall future of NATO. Sen. Marco Rubio alluded to the forgotten benefit of NATO enlargement in a floor speech before the vote, saying the "alliance helps advance our economic interests." The vote, CODELs beforehand and, most certainly the VP's trip all advance American economic interests.

Indeed, the Preamble of the NATO Treaty articulates that the alliance was "founded on the principles of democracy, individual liberty and the rule of law." Furthermore, Article 2 makes clear that members "will seek to eliminate conflict in their international economic policies and will encourage economic collaboration." These NATO precepts are American values and have helped transform the American economy following World War II.

According to the Heritage Foundation's 2017 Index of Economic Freedom, Montenegro ranks significantly ahead of its neighbors, Croatia and Serbia. Indeed, the journey to NATO has fostered a commitment to free market and capitalist economic principles. In just 11 years of independence and only 25 years after the bloody breakup of Yugoslavia, Montenegrin officials have discovered the ingredients to a dynamic economy. These are a robust private sector engaged in international trade with a defined, but not burdensome, regulatory and legal framework. This is what Pence has championed throughout his entire career. The vice president will find a country that appreciates the importance of a strong private sector economy.

Visitors from Washington matter. In November 2014, perhaps not coincidentally one month after the visit of Sen. Chris Murphy, the Montenegrin Parliament passed legislation to reform the judicial sector, including the establishment of a special prosecutor's office for organized crime and an anti-corruption agency.

Currently, the Montenegrin government has welcomed investors from 107 different countries. The high point of foreign direct investment, 2009, included over $1.2 billion of capital coming into this country of less than 650,000 residents. Last year, Norway remained the largest investor in private sector projects with $189M. American companies invested $5.6M in the economy in 2016.

Surely, Pence's trip will prompt additional American investment and tourist visits.

The words of Prime Minister Dusko Markovic during his June visit to Washington ring true in the days leading up to the vice president's trip, "This is a small day for the United States and its allies, but a great day for Montenegro." It was American leadership which ended two ethnic wars in the region. It will be continued American government leadership and fostering of American values which will continue this positive momentum.

In 1979, my family fled the brutality of Soviet Communism to celebrate our Jewish faith and embrace the freedoms of America. America has only grown stronger since the height of the Cold War by embracing the freedoms articulated by our Founding Fathers and the principles outlined by NATO.

So too, can Montenegro grow stronger, as it aligns with America and shuns a past defined by despotism and government bureaucracy.

Neil Emilfarb, a native of West Hartford, Connecticut, has lived and worked in Montenegro since 2006. He is CEO of Stratex Group which has developed and managed properties throughout Montenegro.

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America is helping Montenegro's democracy mature - Washington Examiner

On Tuesday, my colleagueJosh Rogins reportthat the State Department was considering excising democratic and just (as in a just society) from its mission and purpose statements induced abacklash in foreign policy circles. The State Departments faulty reasoning was revealed before the day was out by both Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and President Trump.

In a rare appearance in the State Department briefing room, perhaps a sign that the rotten press he and his department had been receiving was starting to sting, Tillerson addressed a range of issues, including Venezuela, where two prominent opponents of the regime were seized by security forces in the wake of an election (boycotted by the opposition) to elect an all-powerful Constituent Assembly that moves the country further down the road of totalitarianism. (TheConstituent Assemblywill have the power to rewrite the Venezuelan Constitution, which [Venezuelan President Nicols] Maduro desires, and is expected to replace the previous legislative body, where the opposition has a majority.The new body will establish a truth commission to prosecute political opponents.)Tillerson told reporters:

Clearly, what we want to see is for Venezuela to return to its constitution, return to its scheduled elections, and allow the people of Venezuela to have the voice in their government they deserve.

We are very, very troubled by what were seeing unfold following the constituent assembly vote, which went about as we expected, but the re-arrest of opposition leaders last night is very alarming. This could lead to an outbreak of further violence in the country. The situation, from a humanitarian standpoint, is already becoming dire. We are evaluating all our policy options as to what can we do to create a change of conditions where either Maduro decides he doesnt have a future and wants to leave of his own accord or we can return the government processes back to their constitution. But we are quite concerned about were seeing down there. It is a policy discussion thats currently under development through the interagency process this week.

In other words,democracymatters greatly to us and has consequences for the region. If the State Departments mission no longer extends to defending democracy, why bother even addressing it, let alone taking action against Maduros thuggishness? Even the White House joined in condemning Maduro. The United States condemns the actions of the Maduro dictatorship, Trump said in a written statement. Mr. [Leopoldo] Lopez and Mr. [Antonio] Ledezma are political prisoners being held illegally by the regime. The statement continued, The United States holds Maduro - who publicly announced just hours earlier that he would move against his political opposition - personally responsible for the health and safety of Mr. Lopez, Mr. Ledezma, and any others seized. While the statement avoided the term democracy, the evisceration of democratic protections and the unjust(theres that word again) actions of an authoritarian regime remain a concern of the United States precisely because it is in our national interest to maintain a peaceful and free hemisphere.

In reacting to the decision to remove democracy promotion from the State Departments mission Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) told me on Tuesday, Everything we do to foster democracy in emerging states is an investment in national security. He explained, Democracies make better partners for peace and prosperity. Renouncing our commitment to work for the values we hold dear would be a dangerous abdication of U.S. leadership, making our world less safe by destabilizing global security. From the Arab Spring to Venezuela and Washington, we cant forget the fight for democracy requires more than a Twitter account and the adoption of a few budgetary changes. Menendez, in reaction to the State Departments refusal to fill numerous senior spots and rumors of a reorganization that will eliminate many programs and positions that support human rights, introduced legislation to thwart the realpolitik crowd. He told me that last week I passed an amendment to the funding authorization bill before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to codify and mandate the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, whose responsibility it is to support democracy and human rights as a critical component of the State Departments work. He vowed, I will fight tooth and nail so the U.S. government doesnt walk away from our responsibility to conduct foreign policy in a responsible way that doesnt cripple our global standing and directly harms our national security interests.

Candidly, the administrations foreign policy objectives remain murky and incoherent. If the State Department doesnt know what it stands for, how does it expect adversaries and friends around the world to know where the United States stands?

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Venezuela shows why the US cannot downgrade democracy - Washington Post

In some ways, the United States seems far from such a situation today. The Trump administration, after all, appears weak: It is relatively unpopular, mired in scandal and divided by infighting Anthony Scaramuccis 10-day tenure is just the latest example. And it faces determined opposition from courts, the news media, state and local governments and ordinary citizens. If Mr. Trumps presidency ends in humiliation, future generations may well conclude that it was bound to fail all along.

But in other respects the United States is already well on the way to what I have, in my academic work, called democratic deconsolidation. Mr. Trump is increasingly emulating the playbook of popularly elected strongmen who have done deep, lasting damage to their countries democratic institutions.

In recent weeks, he has treated a gathering of Boy Scouts like a campaign rally. He has asked soldiers for political support at a ceremonial event. He has implied that policemen should rough up suspects they arrest. He has continued to feud with the countrys intelligence community. And he has suggested he still wants Hillary Clinton prosecuted.

Mr. Trump nonetheless has many supporters. While a majority of Americans believes that the president is doing a bad job, around 40 percent of voters and some 80 percent of Republicans approve of his performance. A number of Republican senators and congressmen have reportedly objected to Mr. Trumps attacks on Mr. Sessions and voted against parts of his legislative agenda, but most have yet to oppose him publicly.

This is worrying. The Constitution cannot defend itself. If Congress does not stand up to Mr. Trump because Republicans are afraid of their own base, the president may be able to obstruct the course of justice with impunity. Worse, he may then conclude that he can get away with violating even more basic limits on his power.

If Congress stands idly by as he fires Mr. Mueller, as it did when he fired the F.B.I. director, James Comey, it might prove similarly pliable should he disregard court rulings, attempt to close down critical newspapers or order his appointees at the Department of Justice to indict Mrs. Clinton.

Congress must send a clear message that these types of violations wont be tolerated. If Mr. Trump fires Mr. Mueller, Congress can ask him to continue his investigation under the auspices of the legislative branch. And if Mr. Trump pardons himself, disregards court rulings or blatantly oversteps the boundaries of his legitimate authority in some other way, Congress should impeach him.

No flashing light will announce that the very survival of democracy is now at stake if Mr. Mueller is fired. And since nobody can say for sure that the Constitution will become toothless if congressional Republicans let yet another infraction pass, their instinct will be to defer their patriotic duty to some more opportune moment in the future. But that moment may never come. There may never be a time when we know for sure that this decision, today, will determine whether the American republic lives or dies.

In Hungary, democracy did not end when Mr. Orban staffed the electoral commission with his cronies, or when he put loyalists in charge of state television stations or even when he changed the Constitution to expand his powers. But now that he has taken all these steps, the opposition has little chance of ousting him at the next elections. Slowly but surely, Hungary has ceased to be a real democracy.

The temptation to delay opposing Mr. Trump until the right moment comes along is understandable. Its also very dangerous. Even if congressional Republicans abdicate their duty, the Constitution may turn out to be unusually resilient. But the only sure way to save the Republic is for them to start standing up to the presidents authoritarian behavior not next week, or next month, but today.

Yascha Mounk, a lecturer at Harvard, a columnist for Slate and the host of the podcast The Good Fight, is the author of the forthcoming The People Versus Democracy.

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A version of this op-ed appears in print on August 1, 2017, on Page A23 of the New York edition with the headline: Trump Is Destroying Our Democracy.

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The Past Week Proves That Trump Is Destroying Our Democracy - New York Times

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoan delivers a speech in Istanbul in March 2017. Photograph: Ozan Kose/AFP/Getty Images

A rough inventory of Julys contribution to the global collapse of democracy would include Turkeys show trial of leading journalists from Cumhuriyet, a major newspaper; Vladimir Putins ban on the virtual private networks used by democracy activists to evade censorship; Apples decision to pull the selfsame technology from its Chinese app store.

Then there is Hungarys government-funded poster campaign depicting opposition parties and NGOs as puppets of Jewish billionaire George Soros; Polands evisceration of judicial independence and the presidential veto that stopped it. Plus Venezuelas constituent assembly poll, boycotted by more than half the population amid incipient civil war.

Overshadowing all this is a three-cornered US constitutional face-off between Trump (accused of links with Russia), his attorney general (who barred himself from investigating the Russian links) and the special prosecutor who is investigating Trump, whom Trump is trying to sack.

Lets be brutal: democracy is dying. And the most startling thing is how few ordinary people are worried about it. Instead we compartmentalise the problem. Americans worried about the present situation typically worry about Trump not the pliability of the most fetishised constitution in the world to kleptocratic rule. EU politicians express polite diplomatic displeasure, as Erdoans AK party machine attempts to degrade their own democracies. As in the early 1930s, the death of democracy always seems to be happening somewhere else.

The problem is it sets new norms of behaviour. It is no accident that the enemies of the people meme is doing the rounds: Orbn uses it against the billionaire George Soros, Trump uses it against the liberal press, China used it to jail the poet Liu Xiaobo and keep him in prison until his death.

Another popular technique is the micromanaged enforcement of non-dissent. Erdoan not only sacked tens of thousands of dissenting academics, and jailed some, but removed their social security rights, revoked their rights to teach, and in some cases to travel. Trump is engaged in a similar micromanagerial attack on so called sanctuary cities. About 300 US local governments have pledged entirely legally not to collaborate with the federal immigration agency ICE. Last week the US attorney general Jeff Sessions threatened federal grants to these cities local justice systems, a move Trump hailed using yet another fashionable technique the unverified claim.

Trump told a rally of supporters in Ohio that the federal government was in fact liberating American cities from immigrant crime gangs. They take a young, beautiful girl, 16, 15 and others and they slice them and dice them with a knife because they want them to go through excruciating pain before they die, he said. At school and I mean primary school we were taught to greet such claims about racial minorities with the question: Really? When and where did this happen? Trump cited no evidence though the US press managed to find examples in which gang members had indeed hacked each other.

This repertoire of autocratic rule is of course not new; what makes it novel is its concerted and combined use by elected rulers Putin, Erdoan, Orbn, Trump, Maduro, Duterte in the Philippines and Modi in India who are quite clearly engaged in a rapid, purposive and common project to hollow out democracy.

Equally striking is that, right now, there is no major country prepared to set positive global standards for democracy.

In her 2015 book, Undoing the Demos, UC Berkeley political science professor Wendy Brown made a convincing case that the worlds backsliding on democratic values has been driven by its adoption of neoliberal economics.

It is not, argues Brown, that freemarket elites purposefully embrace the project of autocracy, but that the economic microstructures created inthe last 30 years transmogrify every human domain and endeavour, including humans themselves, according to a specific image of the economic. All action is judged as if it has an economic outcome: free speech, education, political participation. We learn implicitly to weigh what should be principles as if they were commodities. We ask: is it worth allowing some cities to protect illegal migrants? What is the economic downside of sacking tens of thousands of academics and dictating what they can research?

In his influential 2010 testament, Indignez-Vous (Time for Outrage!), the French resistance fighter Stphane Hessel urged the rising generation of social justice activists to remember the fight he and others had put up during the drafting of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. They fought for the word universal (not international as proposed by the main governments) in the full knowledge that arguments about sovereignty would sooner or later be advanced to deny the rights they thought they had secured. It seemed odd, back then, even to those of us sympathetic to Hessel, to receive this long, repetitive lecture about the concept of universality. But he was prescient.

The tragedy today is that there is not a single democratic government on Earth prepared to defend that principle. Sure, they will issue notes of displeasure over the death of Liu Xiaobo or Maduros crackdown. But they refuse to restate the universality of the principles these actions violate. The fight for universal principles has to begin as Hessel recognised with individual people. We must keep restating to ourselves and those around us that our human rights are, as the 1948 declaration states, equal and inalienable. That means if one faraway kleptocrat steals them from his subjects, that is like stealing them from ourselves.

Every democratic advance in history, from the English revolution of 1642 to the fall of Soviet communism in 1989, began when people understood the concept of rights they were born with, not to be granted or withdrawn. Today that means learning to think like a free human being, not an economic subject.

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Democracy is dying and it's startling how few people are worried - The Guardian

The demise of the Republican effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act is hardly the end of the story. Donald Trump will not let this loss stand.

Since its inception in 2010, Republicans have made the Affordable Care Act a symbol of Obama-Clinton overreach part of a supposed plot by liberal elites to expand government, burden the white working class, and transfer benefits to poor blacks and Latinos.

Ever the political opportunist, Trump poured his own poisonous salt into this conjured-up wound. Although he never really understood the Affordable Care Act, Trump used it to prey upon resentments of class, race, ethnicity and religiosity that propelled him into the White House.

Repealing Obamacare has remained one of Trumps central rallying cries to his increasingly angry base.

The question for every senator, Democrat or Republican, is whether they will side with Obamacares architects, which have been so destructive to our country, or with its forgotten victims, Trump said on July 24, adding that any senator who failed to vote against it is telling America that you are fine with the Obamacare nightmare.

Now, having lost that fight, Trump will try to subvert the Affordable Care Act by delaying subsidies so some insurers wont have time to participate, failing to enforce the individual mandate so funding wont be adequate, not informing those who are eligible about when to sign up and how to do so, and looking the other way when states dont comply.

But thats not all. Trump doesnt want his base to perceive him as a loser.

So be prepared for scorched-earth politics from the Oval Office, including more savage verbal attacks on Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, more baseless charges of voter fraud in the 2016 election, more specific threats to fire special counsel Robert Mueller, and further escalation of the culture wars.

Most Americans wont be swayed by these pyrotechnics because theyve become inured to our unhinged president.

But thats not the point. The rantings are intended to shore up Trumps base the third of the country that continues to support him, those who still believe theyre victims of Obamacare and who are willing to believe that Trump himself is the victim of a liberal conspiracy to unseat him.

Trump wants his base to become increasingly angry and politically mobilized so that it will continue to exert an outsized influence on the Republican Party.

There is a deeper danger here. As Harvard political scientist Archon Fung has argued, stable democracies require that citizens be committed to the rule of law even if they fail to achieve their preferred policies.

Settling our differences through ballots and agreed-upon processes rather than through force is what separates democracy from authoritarianism.

But Trump has never been committed to the rule of law. For him, its all about winning. If he cant win through established democratic processes, hell mobilize his base to change them.

Trump is already demanding that Mitch McConnell and other Senate Republicans obliterate the filibuster, thereby allowing anything to be passed with a bare majority.

On Saturday, Trump tweeted that Republican Senate must get rid of 60 vote NOW! He added that the filibuster allows 8 Dems to control country, and, Republicans in the Senate will NEVER win if they dont go to a 51 vote majority NOW. They look like fools and are just wasting time.

Whats particularly worrisome about Trumps attack on the processes of our democracy is that the assault comes at a time when the percentage of Americans who regard the other party as a fundamental threat is growing.

In 2014, even before Trumps incendiary presidential campaign, 36 percent of Republicans saw the Democratic Party as a threat to the nations well-being and 27 percent of Democrats regarded Republicans the same way, according to the Pew Research Center.

Those percentages are undoubtedly higher today. If Trump has his way, theyll be higher still.

Anyone who regards the other party as a threat to the nations well-being is less apt to accept outcomes in which the other side is perceived to prevail whether its a decision not to repeal the Affordable Care Act, or a special counsels conclusion that Trump did in fact collude with Russians, or even the outcome of the next presidential election.

As a practical matter, when large numbers of citizens arent willing to accept such outcomes, were no longer part of the same democracy.

I fear this is where Trump intends to take his followers, along with as much of the Republican Party as he can: toward a rejection of political outcomes they regard as illegitimate and therefore a rejection of democracy as we know it.

That way, Trump will always win.

2017 By Robert Reich

Robert Reich, a former U.S. Secretary of Labor, is professor of public policy at UC Berkeley. He blogs daily at http://www.facebook.com/RBReich/. To comment, submit your letter to the editor at SFChronicle.com/letters.

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Trump's a big loser now expect new attacks on democracy - San Francisco Chronicle