‘Democracy’

Apparently, the sustained attacks claiming that Donald Trump is a unique threat to democracy have some persistent traction in the polls. "Democracy" (sometimes called "our democracy") is a strange ideological chimera. Most people probably assume that the Democrats are referring to the January 6th fiasco, which they call an “insurrection,” aided by Trump’s alleged endorsement of the riot. But there is a broader and deeper weirdness at work. “Democracy” turns out to be quite malleable.

First off, an election is not “democracy” when the wrong guy wins (e.g., Trump, Viktor Orbán, Benjamin Netanyahu). When voters pass referendums by voting in what is normally considered a democratic act, their will does not count if not consistent with “democracy” (i.e., spending caps, no race quotas, no aid to illegals, and no homosexual marriage are all barred by "democracy").

The fundamental organizational problem in America is that conservatives recognize that democracy requires widely shared cultural, moral, and social elements to survive, whereas liberals believe that even acknowledging those concerns ushers in authoritarian rule. Conservatives are beginning to realize that winning elections does not create the means to restore moral and cultural health, because even under supposed conservative rule, liberals continue to undermine the prerequisites of actual democracy through every captured institution. I don’t see a happy ending. Weimar degeneracy led to democracy dissolving into a death struggle between Nazis and Communists, each of whom sought to create a "democracy."

A guy who wants to wear dresses and change his name to Louise presents an illustrative issue. The authoritarian approach would be to tell him his behavior is absurd and repellent and to knock it off. The “democracy” position is that all of us must pretend he actually is a woman under penalty of law. A modest democratic solution might be to let “Louise” do his thing up to but not past the point at which the rest of us are required to buy into and actively accommodate his delusion. However, under “democracy,” that last approach is forbidden because it tacitly honors the kinds of beliefs and values that an authoritarian would have. Sharing the same family values as Generalissimo Franco or Mitt Romney is an implicit rejection of “democracy.” This is why such notions must be actively suppressed and excluded.

The "right” of indigents to camp and crap on city streets, the “rights” of shoplifters, and the “rights” of border violators all make sense if “democracy” is an ideological assault on every distinction, limitation, and value that makes ordered liberty possible, to be replaced with complete global equality.

Actual democracy cannot be permitted to inhibit what “democracy” demands. In much the same way that the pigs in Orwell’s Animal Farm claimed to support equality while also claiming that some (the pigs) are more equal than others, the American “elite” no longer pretends that “democracy” is about majority rule under a constitutional system of law. It is only democracy when they get their way. You would think that voters in a democracy would notice and overwhelmingly reject that arrogance.