“Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time…”
Winston Churchill, November 11, 1947.
Notwithstanding a person’s national, ethnic or religious identity or the cultural affinities and social attributes she or he possesses, liberal democrats in New York, Tel Aviv, Istanbul, Budapest, Seoul, Tbilisi, or Buenos Aires have more in common with each other than they do with their government and many other people in their countries.
Despite the significant differences in their countries’ circumstances, these democrats all face a monumental challenge: Preserving a value system and safeguarding democracy.
These schisms exist, to be sure, but there is a huge and broadening cultural divide that threatens democracy. The “Blue” half of America, majorities in Western Europe, Canada, Australia, Japan, South Korea, half of Israel, half of Turkey and half of Hungary all share a fundamentally secular, individualistic, post-modern, rights-based, equality-based, and expertise-based version of what is known as liberal democracy.
It is very far from the natural order. In fact, modern democracy is a recent configuration, not even 100 years old. Democracy, or more precisely, Western-style liberal democracy, is a political, social, and cultural phenomenon that took several hundred years of revolutions, struggles for civil and political rights, and the adoption of the rule of law to mature and develop.
“Western democracy” born in 1945 or afterward knows no other reality. Only a very few countries descended into authoritarianism but managed to restore democracy. Spain, Portugal, Greece, Brazil, Argentina, and South Korea all went through episodes of military rule, but democracy ultimately prevailed.
Contemporary Western societies, a term used loosely here, are torn between the conflicting values of modernism and old conservative traditions, globalism and nationalism, and ethnic identity and immigration.
This is why the MAGA ilk admire Vladimir Putin and why Netanyahu’s cult adores Trump. They are on the same bank of the cultural divide “as us”. On one side, there are Trump, Putin, Netanyahu, Erdoğan Orbán, the self-ordained “strongmen” who implement anti-modernist illiberal policies, authoritarianism, and yes, quasi-fascism.
On the other side there are modern liberal democracy, checks and balances, diversity, multiculturalism, science, expertise, rights, universities and yes, extreme forms of wokeness and excessive political correctness.
The MAGA crowd sees them as radicalized sacrilegious heathens, intent on controlling the average person’s life against their will and values.
The Netanyahu sycophantic groupies have been further radicalized by constant incendiary language and regard the other side as “leftist traitors” who think the Supreme Court should govern the country.
To paraphrase Martin Luther King Jr. and replace “justice” with “liberalism” (lower case), illiberalism anywhere threatens liberalism everywhere.
What do half of America, half of Israel, most of Canada, Australia and Western Europe have in common with Trump or Netanyahu? Nothing. What do Trump and Netanyahu have in common with Putin? Everything.
Art by Kate W 