Skip to main content

The assault on democracy won't end here

The philosophy of history that I was taught growing up could be best described as American Constitutional Hubris. That’s been the focus of history classrooms since World War 2. I was taught that there have been good ideas in history and bad ideas. Our ideas are the good ones, and that’s why we won.

It’s never been that simple. There are strengths and weaknesses in Democracy, Republicanism, Capitalism, Socialism, Fascism, Communism, and all the rest. Each is vulnerable to evil in different ways. Most of the movements we think of as Fascist or Communist or Socialist or Democratic were themselves conglomerations of different ideas, none of them as purely good or evil as we like to think.

The evil aspects of these ideas can evolve. They latch on to more noble ideas and twist them. Our own Constitutional Democracy is not as immune to this type of corruption as we like to think. Our naivety on that point is dangerous.

Evil ideas assaulted our democracy head-on during World War II and the Cold War. They were parasites on globalism and progress, and they were defeated.

The parasites evolved. They crept into our political system, hid behind noble ideals, and wrapped themselves in the American flag.

If colonialism cannot beat democracy head-on, it goes asymmetric. Instead of pushing its adversaries into reservations or ghettos, it redraws the lines on the map so their political voice disappears.

If tyranny cannot beat democracy head-on, it goes asymmetric. It convinces people that democracy is not hurt when fewer people vote, it’s actually helped, because the people who really deserve to vote will determine the outcome.

If fascism cannot beat democracy head-on, it goes asymmetric. It reduces politics to a cutthroat competition where winning dirty is morally superior to compromise.

If anarchy cannot beat democracy head-on, it goes asymmetric. It disrupts and undermines the institutions that make the rule of law meaningful.

Both political parties have glorious core ideas and and both have contributed to the freedom and comfort we know today.

Both political parties also have their problems. But undemocratic methods are not equally distributed between the parties. The parties are not mirror images of each other.

There are rotten apples in the basket. Those rotten apples are the undemocratic ideas and methods that are used and supported in the party. Their rot will continue to spread until those apples are thrown out.

Donald Trump is a symptom, not a cause. He did not create the undemocratic practices of his political party. He personified them. Donald Trump is not the rotten apple. He is the stench.

I pray for the man. I pray for his party. It's a great political party with a history of important ideas. I also pray that he and his party fail until these undemocratic ideas are purged from the party.

I’m not particularly optimistic. Donald Trump had to work very hard to lose his advantage. A better politician than Donald Trump could be more undemocratic and also more popular. We'll face that challenge someday. Maybe someday soon.


Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.

 

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility, value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests, but each of you to the interests of others. -- Philippians 2:3-4

<end>

<Notes>

This is the last of a six-part series which began with the post "Bending toward justice".

Recommended book: How Democracies Die, by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt

Recommended book: The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil, by Philip G. Zimbardo

Recommended book: The Reason Why: The Story of the Fatal Charge of the Light Brigade, by Cecil Woodham-Smith

Article: Why Trump Supporters Believe He Is Not Corrupt

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/08/what-trumps-supporters-think-of-corruption/568147/

Article: Elections Don't Matter, Institutions Do

http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/elections-dont-matter-institutions-do?utm_source=freelist-f&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20140116&utm_term=Kweekly&utm_content=title

Recommended book: Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning, by Timothy Snyder {This book shows how the destruction of institutions helped cause the Holocaust.}

"Believe it or not, I’m not by nature a particularly political person. I love figuring out how the world works, and also enjoy finding ways to explain things in plain English. I don’t enjoy partisan fights, although I obviously don’t shy away from taking sides."

That is a Paul Krugman quote, but I'm quoting it because it mirrors my feelings--I come to partisan conclusions in this series, but believe the analysis is not particularly partisan.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The 2020 Vote: Bending toward justice

The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.  --  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. My hero, Dr. King, was wrong about justice. I love Dr. King. His writings and speeches are collected in a book called “A Testament of Hope”. That book was a revelation for me. Dr. King had a moral clarity that is rare in this world. Many of his observations were accurate, wise, and timeless. But the ‘arc of the moral universe’ statement is misleading. We are promised no such experience in this world. In Dr. King’s time, the quote may have been both accurate and wise. King saw the expanding reach of national newspapers and television networks. When the nation, through that new media, was exposed to the reality and brutality of overt Southern racism--then the nation, which believed it shared a common and decent morality, imposed that morality on the South. While Dr. King’s understanding may have been both accurate and wise, it was not timeless. This is where my moral hero comes u...
Post a Comment
Read more

Deferred Maintenance

I once worked at a public university that had a huge 'deferred maintenance' problem. Their major equipment was often 35 years old with an expected lifetime of 30 years. As a result, they were constantly doing repairs and paying overtime, but had little time to do preventive maintenance and little money to make pro-active investments in new equipment. In one dorm, water from bad showers on the upper floors started leaking into the main lobby, and the 'fix' was to drag out garbage cans to catch the water. I was told that repairing the plumbing itself was expensive so it was being figured into the "five-year budget plan." The garbage can fix went on for at least a year. A two-page spread in The Atlantic Monthly (March 2008, p 38-39) calls out our nation's growing infrastructure problem. This is a real 'tragedy of the commons' situation: individuals are not willing to give up more tax money if they don't see a real-time, personal benefit. At the sa...
Post a Comment
Read more

Bad memes: This meme makes me happy

This Harden/Jordan meme makes me so happy. It is a classic illustration of a meme, and it is a classic illustration of propaganda. Memes are teeny blips in the broader world of propaganda, but they are simple and direct examples of propaganda. Propaganda is designed to bypass rational thought. It triggers emotional responses before we have a chance to think things through. When our emotional systems have already been pushed in one direction or another, our thinking systems almost always follow in the same direction. Memes go straight for our emotions. Look at the Harden/Jordan meme. The Jordan picture shows an intricate, difficult task--Jordan with both hands on the ball, and the defenders swarm around him--arms up, eyes up. The Harden picture is the opposite--two clowns could not do a better job of mocking a basketball moment. The defender leans in awkwardly, hoping to draw a charge. Harden flails, appearing to look straight up in the air as he begins his shot. It is well-designed to ...
Post a Comment
Read more