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We see litters of articles and papers from liberal media that democracy is globally dying. While I don't believe this is happening right away, could most democracies become less so in the future?
The German YouTuber Kraut some time ago had suggested that the political turmoil in liberal democracies is largely a result of the collapse of the USSR and with it, the Cold War consensus of combatting communism which unified various different groups.
I don't think American liberals are particularly holding up democratic principles in their own domain either, with how they deplatform and censor their opponents. Essentially, they're really just consolidating their electoral power while trying to protect the thin sheen of freedom in America. This bias extends across the US establishment. If you look at the highest-earning zipcodes they've all flipped massively to the democrats over the past few decades. Same is true if you look at the Ivy League. Seen in this light, the FBI was merely following the trend when they raided Ryan Kelley's home and other such harassment campaigns will not face scrutiny because a large portion of the US elite agree with the FBI targeting their political opponents. This is why they refuse to let Jan 6 die, it was certainly a riot, but nowhere close to a coup. We know what a real coup looks like from the recent Sri Lankan crisis. In South Korea, gender wars and the excessive divide over feminism has effectively become a major electoral talking point, although President Yoon Suk-yeol is married to a career woman himself who doesn't wish to be addressed as First Lady and has 0 kids with him. The state of the Koreas, one being a depressing totalitarian state and the other being a depressing, hyper consumerist protectorate of the US almost feels like an ill fated destiny. Even in India, the progressive pressure has generated a lot of culture wars of its own, where the ruling BJP's base perceive liberals as being sympathetic to Pakistan while levelling every epithet against India which would also be relevant to their archrival, and have reacted strongly. Couple with that the malthusian growth rates and the neoliberal decay preceding their rise to electoral power from being just another one of many parties in the country. But Russia and China, the "authoritarian competitors to the free world", are both strong societies, I can't imagine something like 1CP being done away so quickly if it was instituted in the US. They don't have to deal with electoral politics and do not have to deal with culture wars. And with an ascendant China, its proximity to China might tempt India to remodify its political institutions to have a shot at uplifting its hundreds of millions from poverty.
Now I'm not saying culture wars will end democracies, but its probably a symptom of decadence in democratic societies combined with the rise of social media highlighting our differences with millions of our own countrymen. Maybe I'm young and only speaking from my own limited experience? Curious to know what others think.
Personally I think that they're just not using democracy in the same way that most people understand it. To the best of my knowledge, "Democracy" when used in these contexts essentially means rule by the global professional managerial class. If Donald Trump won 85% of the popular vote and was elected in a perfectly functioning democratic election, that would be a defeat for democracy - and at the same time, if the FBI intervened and announced that actually electing Trump would be illegal and Hillary Clinton was to be installed as president instead, that would be classified as a victory for democracy.
A mite uncharitable, I think.
“Democracy” is a confused and loaded term, but it’s not so completely diluted to include that outcome. I am confident that American liberals, even neoliberals in power, would be horrified should an 85% vote get ignored. The working definition is something more like “autocracy with accountability”: the government should do its usual Government Things, and if the people are sufficiently upset, they’ll vote some representatives out. 85% is an example of that, and 47% is not.
This is compatible with a pro-manager-class interest, if you want to use the Marxist lens. It’s also compatible with good old-fashioned rational self-interest. Going along with a supermajority is good for one’s career. Switching horses midstream, not so much. If Trump had a supermajority, we wouldn’t be having this debate, because bureaucrats would be implementing that agenda—look at the post-9/11 government. It’s the uncertainty that kills.
Oh, I think that democracy as a word is still useful and that people can still have meaningful discussions using it. But I'm certain that a lot of people and organisations/institutions use the definition that I've suggested.
I wouldn't expect any mainstream Americans to do so unironically.
The acceptable way to criticize democracy, here in the US, is to claim the Other Guys defected first. Don't listen to the racists; they've been trying to take away human rights. Keep the commies from getting any power, since they'll just use it to dismantle democracy. He deserved arrest, since he was obviously abusing the office to sell secrets. Lock her up; she can't get away with white-collar crime.
Actually believing that the PMCs should be ignoring the people is considered gauche, even for most of the alleged PMCs. Such sentiment will almost always be couched in an appeal to justice or rationalized as protecting Democracy.
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"Democracy" is important to liberals insofar as they want the legitimacy that comes from allegedly representing the populace.
Once they have that they then go about tying the people up in all sorts of ways that actually prevent them expressing their will.
What sort of ways?
Voter protections are still largely left-coded, as far as I know. ID requirements are definitely a right-wing talking point. So were restrictions like poll taxes in the Southern Strategy era.
Representation is more complicated. The popular vote is decidedly left-wing. Approval voting has been proposed by Democrats but not really taken off. Reapportionment is ambiguous: recent cases were split on ideological lines, favoring Republicans but for procedural reasons. Recent legislation has been supported only by Democrats.
What are liberals doing to tie up the populace?
When I say "liberal" I mean it in the sense that both sides of the American political spectrum qualify, not in the sense where it's synonymous with "progressive" (or left-liberal)
They already did it. The structure of the US system allows, for example, judges to invalidate any laws when they've decided they've fabricated a basis for it. Given the current political realities the most obvious way of counteracting this - a Constitutional amendment - is basically impossible so the public has to take the long route to overcoming some of these rulings.
Roe is simply the most notorious example in which even left-liberal legal minds acknowledge issues with the ruling and, more importantly, the populace simply refused to tolerate this novel reading of rights to invalidate the laws of dozens of states and so mobilized for 40 years just to get back to status quo. And, even then, they basically got lucky. A slightly different election and Roe stands.
That sounds like tying up the popular will to me.
If you want an example of this left-coded anti-populism see the Left-Liberals acting like judges returning one of the most consistently controversial issues to state legislators was illegitimate. The federal governments increasing power also gives it levers here; iirc Biden threatened the funding of schools that enacted policies counter to his view of LGBT children's rights . So your school board and governor are onboard? Tough.
But it's not specific to left-liberals. It's a general principle of liberalism itself, with America in particular having a lot of bulwarks against popular enthusiasm.
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I think this is misreading the use of "defeat of democracy" in the Trump context. The progressive mainstream has been nursing a narrative somewhat along the lines of "If he can get away with it, Trump will abolish voting and proclaim himself emperor"; if you believe that, you don't need to require any esoteric beliefs on the true meaning of democracy to consider him becoming president a defeat for it, as the standard definition of democracy seems to assign some implicit weight to future generations that makes "overwhelming majority (of those who can vote now) elects eternal dictatorship" not count as a democratic choice. Conversely, dictatorially imposing democratic election processes in the future (by installing the unpopular leader that is seen as for maintaining them) would count as a "victory for democracy" even if it is not itself a democratic process, in the same way in which driving Germany's democratically elected leader to suicide in 1945 seems to be widely accepted as a victory for democracy.
Moreover, progressives believe that this belief of theirs must be obviously true to proponents of Trump as well, i.e. that they would be explicitly voting for the abolition of democracy. Considering noises about turnout rates in various elections across the world, I dare say even a 15% turnout or 85% spoiled ballots would also be labelled a "defeat of democracy".
I agree that that seems to be the mental model of the most anti-Trump blue family and friends I have. To them, the enabling act was a few months away from 2016 through 2020, and then in January 2021 their fears were seemingly confirmed by Trump refusing to concede. It's a bad situation, because if Trump and/or DeSantis are elected in 2024, it will be with a democratic mandate to go to war with institutions like the FBI, IRS, ATF, CDC, etc and attack woke capital, especially big tech. In the mind of Republicans, this will be seen as restoring democracy from unelected officials and breaking up trusts. To the Trump-fearing, it will look like a dictatorial purge. The institutions being attacked by Trump/DeSantis will obviously play this up in the media for their own self-interest.
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People being able to modify their perception of the world so drastically away from the truth, that they perceive Trump as being likely to abolish voting, poses the same problem as utility monsters: giving into their preferences and interpreterting them charitably starts an arms race spiral of everyone trying to radicalize themselves.
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