Bye Bye to Democracy?
Recent surveys show alarmingly low support amongst millennials for democracy. Yes, that democracy.
Here, in the birthplace of modern democracy, government by the people, for the people, is fading away. There’s nary a shrug from those very people who have both benefited from democracy, and whose duty it is to carry it into the next century and beyond.
Here, in the birthplace of modern democracy, government by the people, for the people, is fading away. There’s nary a shrug from those very people who have both benefited from democracy, and whose duty it is to carry it into the next century and beyond.
Closely related, a lot of millennials also say they have no confidence in democracy’s ability to solve problems or improve their lives. It’s not that they dislike or have a particular issue with democracy -- it just that they don’t see its usefulness anymore.
And growing up in a period of hyper-partisan gridlock, you can sort of understand that view. But it should still scare the crap out of you.
And let’s be 100% clear. Our democracy is far from perfect. According to Freedom House, we’re something like the 26th freest country in the world, only point or two ahead of countries like Mongolia, and well behind Chile and Uruguay. Chant with me: “We’re Number 26! We’re Number 26!”
We’re now under the second regime in less than 20 years who took power with less than a majority. And if it’s imperfection you want to talk about, ask people of color, particularly African-Americans, who historically have lived in horribly gerrymandered districts. Sometimes they find out that early voting days are reduced in their districts. Or maybe they get fewer voting machines and thus, hours-long waits in line, for which their employers may or may not grant time off.
In our two-party system -- which as George Carlin once pointed out -- is exactly one more party than the old Soviet Union had, one party lies awake at night figuring out ways to get less people to vote instead of more.
No doubt we have a very blemished democracy -- but a functioning democracy nonetheless, one where if we put our minds to it we could fix a lot of these problems. But back to exactly why democracy is not akin to having the latest version of GTA, but why, without it, our days as a first-world nation are numbered.
I’m not going to lie or try to pretend the arguments I’m going to present are ones I created myself. Nearly everything I say in this post comes from one of the best books I have read in a very long time, Why Nations Fail. Authors Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson make the case that nations prosper when they have many personal freedoms and economic inclusion. In plain simple English, when most people feel like they can speak their minds and pursue their dreams, and when they feel their work means something, both in their bank accounts and in their hearts, the nation as a whole is strong.
The reverse is true in nations where political power is concentrated and economic mobility is limited. Take Russia for example. It is a vast nation, full of natural resources and strong, intelligent people. It is also a dictatorship, where the overwhelming majority of people are not part of the decision making and where oligarchs control the economy. The result: Russia’s economy is roughly the size of Italy’s and smaller than California’s.
Thank goodness nobody here wants that for our country. Many times in history, inclusive nations have made the slide to exclusive societies -- and the results are never positive. See the Roman Empire and Ming Dynasty China for more details.
And growing up in a period of hyper-partisan gridlock, you can sort of understand that view. But it should still scare the crap out of you.
And let’s be 100% clear. Our democracy is far from perfect. According to Freedom House, we’re something like the 26th freest country in the world, only point or two ahead of countries like Mongolia, and well behind Chile and Uruguay. Chant with me: “We’re Number 26! We’re Number 26!”
We’re now under the second regime in less than 20 years who took power with less than a majority. And if it’s imperfection you want to talk about, ask people of color, particularly African-Americans, who historically have lived in horribly gerrymandered districts. Sometimes they find out that early voting days are reduced in their districts. Or maybe they get fewer voting machines and thus, hours-long waits in line, for which their employers may or may not grant time off. In our two-party system -- which as George Carlin once pointed out -- is exactly one more party than the old Soviet Union had, one party lies awake at night figuring out ways to get less people to vote instead of more.
No doubt we have a very blemished democracy -- but a functioning democracy nonetheless, one where if we put our minds to it we could fix a lot of these problems. But back to exactly why democracy is not akin to having the latest version of GTA, but why, without it, our days as a first-world nation are numbered.
I’m not going to lie or try to pretend the arguments I’m going to present are ones I created myself. Nearly everything I say in this post comes from one of the best books I have read in a very long time, Why Nations Fail. Authors Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson make the case that nations prosper when they have many personal freedoms and economic inclusion. In plain simple English, when most people feel like they can speak their minds and pursue their dreams, and when they feel their work means something, both in their bank accounts and in their hearts, the nation as a whole is strong.The reverse is true in nations where political power is concentrated and economic mobility is limited. Take Russia for example. It is a vast nation, full of natural resources and strong, intelligent people. It is also a dictatorship, where the overwhelming majority of people are not part of the decision making and where oligarchs control the economy. The result: Russia’s economy is roughly the size of Italy’s and smaller than California’s.
Thank goodness nobody here wants that for our country. Many times in history, inclusive nations have made the slide to exclusive societies -- and the results are never positive. See the Roman Empire and Ming Dynasty China for more details.
For a more up-to-date example, look at the two Koreas. North Korea, rightfully seen as a basket case, where brutal dictator and trump BFF kim jong-un preside over an impoverished, malnourished and miserable country. By contrast, South Korea is an economic powerhouse and in Asia, a cultural superpower. Long a dictatorship itself, the South has seen its status and prestige skyrocket in the days since it transitioned to a first-rate democracy.
Two countries sharing a common history and culture, in fact the very same people from two different regions, but whose lives couldn’t be more different.
And now, it appears we have a person in the White House, fully aided and abetted by his political party, who bigly wants to add the United States of America to the list of also-rans, something that would immediately be not just a disaster for us, but really for the whole world.
Our democracy directly keeps the world a much safer, more stable place. Russia and China have long talked, if you listen carefully, about the need to knock the United States off the pedestal. We know now that vladimir putin has interfered not just in our elections, but was also heavily involved in the brexit campaign. He has also supported far-right parties and extremist organizations -- such as the NRA -- across the west.
His goal is obvious -- he wants to destroy democracy and in the process, reduce the United States to a backwater because a free, powerful and prosperous USA makes his objectives much harder to reach . Should putin be successful -- and has one party at least passively cooperating -- It’s going to have a dramatic -- and very negative -- effect on everybody’s life here.
For one, per the Bretton Woods Agreement -- right now the dollar is the reserve currency of the world. This has given the United States a lot of insulation from forces that annihilate the economies of other countries. And the dollar is the reserve currency of the world because the United States has been a reliably stable nation.
And that stability directly results from democracy and inclusiveness. And as far from perfect as we have been, we are a nation based on democratic institutions and the rule of law. On the other hand, dictatorships are based on the whims and fancy of their strongmen or ruling factions, subject to change and almost never with the consent of the majority of their societies.
Democracy has been, over time, the biggest reason why we overcame dictatorial adversaries time and time again. We believed in our cause, I think it’s safe to say, much more strongly than the Soviet citizen did. Even people cheated out of their slice of the very economic pie -- like black people from the Jim Crow South and similar places -- they helped create, they still, in their hearts, believe they at least have a way to address that problem, that the American Dream itself is noble, even if it isn’t always equally achievable.
And don’t think our adversaries don’t notice this. They do, and they hate it. Dictators like putin don’t want to make things better for their citizens. They’re not interested in elevating their own people, just their own power, and their solution is to drag the rest of the world down to their miserable level.
And they have enablers here in the USA. Making our country a backwater, maybe even a vassal of Russia is something we can only conclude is something repubs seem perfectly happy to allow as long as they get what they want. That would be uncontrolled power for billionaires (at least repub billionaires), large corporations and a legal system wholly owned by christian fundamentalists, all completely contrary to democracy.
Should they get their wish, in a fairly short time will affect every part of your life and mine. There is, eventually, the threat that citizens will start getting knocks at the door in the middle of the night, like happens in most dictatorships. But way before that happens, let’s look at some of the more mundane ways your life could be affected when democracy goes bye-bye.
Your ability to make a comfortable living is in jeopardy, since the repubs and the right have all but vanquished any power organized labor may have had and left large companies almost like mini-nations onto themselves. As we have seen just from repub economics, the rich have done fantastically well over the last 30 years, while most working people’s wages have flatlined. This situation will get much, much worse.
In a dictatorship, loyalty to the strongman is valued far more than any kind of competence or expertise. Government incompetence is always a feature in undemocratic societies. The public infrastructure that all citizens -- regardless of class -- rely on often devolve. Roads go unfixed -- except in well-connected neighborhoods. Ditto for water delivery systems, or law enforcement, or education, or disaster relief. Ask the residents of Flint, Michigan, New Orleans, or Puerto Rico how that’s working out.
The rich and powerful will pretty much have carte blanc to do as they will and escape consequences, which they kind of do now (again, if they have the right connections), but it’ll be worse, while ordinary citizens will likely face harsher penalties and less personal freedoms.
And these are reasons why, ultimately, dictatorships don’t last. They are poorly equipped to handle society’s basic needs. Resentment grows, the country fractures, it stagnates, and sometimes even ceases to be.
It would be naive to think this dysfunctionality wouldn’t reach all the way to the military. Time and time again, wars were the final nails in the coffin of dictatorships who fell due to generals who, rather than having military expertise or the best interests of the nation at heart, just knew how to suck up to the dictator.
Let’s be clear, this is all in motion right now right here in the USA. It didn’t start with donald trump, This didn’t start with trump. The repub party has been building this for a very long time, at least since reagan, aided by weak pushback from Stockholm Syndrome Democrats. Much of their vision for this country has already come to fruition. That’s the bad news.
Here’s the good news: It can be stopped, and more than likely even be reversed. But, as the repubs didn’t achieve their goals in one day or one year, neither will we.
You have to give the repubs a lot of credit -- they used lots of lofty, high-minded talk to get a third of the public to willingly and happily accept oligarchy, words like “small government” and “free markets.” Now, because we sat on our asses and didn’t pay attention, or maybe even worse, took all our freedoms and what was good about America for granted, they are in a position to wipe all those things away.
Democracy already is a positive word for more than two-thirds of the country. We Americans just need to start talking and making our case, and make this the cornerstone of the freedom and prosperity we want for everybody in this nation.
But we can’t just step back, say “democracy” and wait for the angels sing. We have to start anew and begin immediately explaining and reinforcing why democracy is not just something quaintly nice, like a picket fence, but the pillar of what made our country great, something that’s utterly central to our survival as a nation..
Let the repubs argue against democracy and make the case that we should be ruled by an unchecked strongman. They obviously won’t use those exact words, but now we clearly see what they really want. Democrats not only need to be ready to call bullshit when this happens, but we need a little fact and a little perspective, too, and never, ever again just assume that people will hear what we say and agree. We need to make the case not just constantly, but perpetually.
If we get trump to resign or beat him in his re-election bid, that’s barely even a start. Remember, one of two major parties wants to turn us into an oligarchy, and they have the will -- not to mention some backers with very deep pockets -- to do it. The good news is we vastly outnumber them, and they know this, which is why they want to eff with democracy in the first place.
Should we get past them, the work has only started.Nobody thought the far right could come back from the shellacking their boy Barry Goldwater (who seems downright reasonable by today’s standards) took in the 1964 presidential election.
Not only did they, but they’re about to forever create the John Birch-Heritage Foundation-NRA America, something they have salivated over for years. Whether or not they succeed is up to you. One thing you can bet on is they will never rest until they make it permanent, which means actual Americans can’t rest, either.
Two countries sharing a common history and culture, in fact the very same people from two different regions, but whose lives couldn’t be more different.
And now, it appears we have a person in the White House, fully aided and abetted by his political party, who bigly wants to add the United States of America to the list of also-rans, something that would immediately be not just a disaster for us, but really for the whole world.
Our democracy directly keeps the world a much safer, more stable place. Russia and China have long talked, if you listen carefully, about the need to knock the United States off the pedestal. We know now that vladimir putin has interfered not just in our elections, but was also heavily involved in the brexit campaign. He has also supported far-right parties and extremist organizations -- such as the NRA -- across the west.
His goal is obvious -- he wants to destroy democracy and in the process, reduce the United States to a backwater because a free, powerful and prosperous USA makes his objectives much harder to reach . Should putin be successful -- and has one party at least passively cooperating -- It’s going to have a dramatic -- and very negative -- effect on everybody’s life here.
For one, per the Bretton Woods Agreement -- right now the dollar is the reserve currency of the world. This has given the United States a lot of insulation from forces that annihilate the economies of other countries. And the dollar is the reserve currency of the world because the United States has been a reliably stable nation. And that stability directly results from democracy and inclusiveness. And as far from perfect as we have been, we are a nation based on democratic institutions and the rule of law. On the other hand, dictatorships are based on the whims and fancy of their strongmen or ruling factions, subject to change and almost never with the consent of the majority of their societies.
Democracy has been, over time, the biggest reason why we overcame dictatorial adversaries time and time again. We believed in our cause, I think it’s safe to say, much more strongly than the Soviet citizen did. Even people cheated out of their slice of the very economic pie -- like black people from the Jim Crow South and similar places -- they helped create, they still, in their hearts, believe they at least have a way to address that problem, that the American Dream itself is noble, even if it isn’t always equally achievable.
And don’t think our adversaries don’t notice this. They do, and they hate it. Dictators like putin don’t want to make things better for their citizens. They’re not interested in elevating their own people, just their own power, and their solution is to drag the rest of the world down to their miserable level.
And they have enablers here in the USA. Making our country a backwater, maybe even a vassal of Russia is something we can only conclude is something repubs seem perfectly happy to allow as long as they get what they want. That would be uncontrolled power for billionaires (at least repub billionaires), large corporations and a legal system wholly owned by christian fundamentalists, all completely contrary to democracy.
Should they get their wish, in a fairly short time will affect every part of your life and mine. There is, eventually, the threat that citizens will start getting knocks at the door in the middle of the night, like happens in most dictatorships. But way before that happens, let’s look at some of the more mundane ways your life could be affected when democracy goes bye-bye.
Your ability to make a comfortable living is in jeopardy, since the repubs and the right have all but vanquished any power organized labor may have had and left large companies almost like mini-nations onto themselves. As we have seen just from repub economics, the rich have done fantastically well over the last 30 years, while most working people’s wages have flatlined. This situation will get much, much worse.
In a dictatorship, loyalty to the strongman is valued far more than any kind of competence or expertise. Government incompetence is always a feature in undemocratic societies. The public infrastructure that all citizens -- regardless of class -- rely on often devolve. Roads go unfixed -- except in well-connected neighborhoods. Ditto for water delivery systems, or law enforcement, or education, or disaster relief. Ask the residents of Flint, Michigan, New Orleans, or Puerto Rico how that’s working out.
The rich and powerful will pretty much have carte blanc to do as they will and escape consequences, which they kind of do now (again, if they have the right connections), but it’ll be worse, while ordinary citizens will likely face harsher penalties and less personal freedoms.
And these are reasons why, ultimately, dictatorships don’t last. They are poorly equipped to handle society’s basic needs. Resentment grows, the country fractures, it stagnates, and sometimes even ceases to be.
It would be naive to think this dysfunctionality wouldn’t reach all the way to the military. Time and time again, wars were the final nails in the coffin of dictatorships who fell due to generals who, rather than having military expertise or the best interests of the nation at heart, just knew how to suck up to the dictator.
Let’s be clear, this is all in motion right now right here in the USA. It didn’t start with donald trump, This didn’t start with trump. The repub party has been building this for a very long time, at least since reagan, aided by weak pushback from Stockholm Syndrome Democrats. Much of their vision for this country has already come to fruition. That’s the bad news.
Here’s the good news: It can be stopped, and more than likely even be reversed. But, as the repubs didn’t achieve their goals in one day or one year, neither will we.
You have to give the repubs a lot of credit -- they used lots of lofty, high-minded talk to get a third of the public to willingly and happily accept oligarchy, words like “small government” and “free markets.” Now, because we sat on our asses and didn’t pay attention, or maybe even worse, took all our freedoms and what was good about America for granted, they are in a position to wipe all those things away.
Democracy already is a positive word for more than two-thirds of the country. We Americans just need to start talking and making our case, and make this the cornerstone of the freedom and prosperity we want for everybody in this nation.
But we can’t just step back, say “democracy” and wait for the angels sing. We have to start anew and begin immediately explaining and reinforcing why democracy is not just something quaintly nice, like a picket fence, but the pillar of what made our country great, something that’s utterly central to our survival as a nation..
Let the repubs argue against democracy and make the case that we should be ruled by an unchecked strongman. They obviously won’t use those exact words, but now we clearly see what they really want. Democrats not only need to be ready to call bullshit when this happens, but we need a little fact and a little perspective, too, and never, ever again just assume that people will hear what we say and agree. We need to make the case not just constantly, but perpetually.
If we get trump to resign or beat him in his re-election bid, that’s barely even a start. Remember, one of two major parties wants to turn us into an oligarchy, and they have the will -- not to mention some backers with very deep pockets -- to do it. The good news is we vastly outnumber them, and they know this, which is why they want to eff with democracy in the first place.
Should we get past them, the work has only started.Nobody thought the far right could come back from the shellacking their boy Barry Goldwater (who seems downright reasonable by today’s standards) took in the 1964 presidential election.
Not only did they, but they’re about to forever create the John Birch-Heritage Foundation-NRA America, something they have salivated over for years. Whether or not they succeed is up to you. One thing you can bet on is they will never rest until they make it permanent, which means actual Americans can’t rest, either.
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