I have to confess that one thing I didn’t think I would have to worry about in my lifetime is the safety of democracy in our country and that of our biggest ally.
I grew up in the Cold War in which industrialized democracies, mostly in Western Europe and North America, faced off against communist regimes predominantly in eastern Europe, China and a smattering of other locations around the globe.
On the periphery of this conflict were what are now known as developing countries but which then were call the Third World. The “First World” was the western industrialized democracies and the “Second World” was the less industrialized post-WWII communist alliance.
So, the tension was between parliamentary democracies that held free elections where the majority of people chose their leaders, and the communist “dictatorships” where elections were held but very suspect and in which power was effectively concentrated in a single person or a handful of people.
I recognize that I’m being very cut and dried here and there are more subtle shades to all of this but I’m here to discuss the failings of democracies and not so much re-frame the Cold War conflict.
So, let’s get back to the premise. Actually, I guess the Cold War is relevant in that after the Cold War, the communist block became more democratic and now the Western democracies are in danger of becoming more autocratic mainly because of one main culprit, always the trendsetter, the United States. But similar forces are at work in our own country and other, certainly Anglophone democracies.
Forces in the U.S., specifically in the right of the political spectrum and aligned with the Republican Party, are working towards limiting democratic participation. Legislation is being passed that limit who can be on the voting lists and the exclusions are effectively based on race. This is despicable. It’s also not exclusively a function of our current times, it has gone on here and there over the past decades. But this is completely at odds with how society is supposed be developing. We’re supposed to be improving the lot of everybody’s status not working to roll back only recently-won freedoms.
Part of the scenario in the U.S. is how chauvinistic they used to be about democracy and freedom. They invaded countries with the justification that they were liberating them from potential communist oppression, pushing back the wall of tyranny. Now, I know this was, at times, just a smokescreen for imposing economic self-interest. But the rhetoric was the fight for freedom and democracy. I remember driving by a sign in Washington state apologizing for the noise a nearby air force base was creating but then justifying it with “that’s the sound of freedom.”
Now here they are openly limiting the democratic freedoms of their own people.
And, of course, I haven’t even begun to touch on the leading Republican candidate for president, the much-indicted, multimillion-dollar fined and burdened Donald Trump who professed once he will be a dictator “for one day.” To even be talking like that in the country that trumpeted its campaign to bring freedom and democracy to the world – whether they wanted it or not – is unbelievable.
But that’s where we are in 2024. And the sentiment behind these and many more actions – I only have so much space here – are at work in our own country and that of the United Kingdom and Australia. We have groups who want to wrest power away from a democratically-elected government simply because they don’t like it. The fact that they think they can just walk in and demand a change of government provides the comfort that at least we know we should be able to outsmart this movement relatively easily.