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| From: Irish Political Review: Editorials |
| Date: September, 0001 |
| By: Editorial |
Democracy: A Deplorable Choice! |
| Democracy: A Deplorable Choice! The world is deeply concerned about the future of Democracy. The democratic world is concerned about it. The democratic world is the part of the European world which was reconstructed out of Fascism by the United States at the end of Britain's second World War. It is a dependency of the United States—that is what it is. Through its dependency on the United States, it has made life very difficult for itself during these past two years. But it had no choice in the matter. It was committed by its own sense of dependency to implement United States world policy, regardless of material disadvantages to itself. It is concerned about higher things than material prosperity. It lives by a value-system that comes from a higher source. That value system developed on the basis of a secure sense of dependence on the United States in the course of two generations. Seven years ago the United States elected a President whose policy threatened the European sense of secure dependency. Trump threatened to reduce the United States to the states of a state amongst the states, and to end its role as the policeman of a subordinate world system of states. And he threatened in particular that he would not fund NATO for Europe. He made good his threat to the extent that—unlike Obama, Clinton, Bush, Johnson, Nixon, Kennedy or Eisenhower—he has no War to his name, and he did not destroy any state. Hillary Clinton insisted that she did not lose the Election but that Putin stole it for Trump—or, "further or in the alternative", to put it in legal jargon—Trump undermined Democracy by resorting to "Populism". "Populism" was an appeal to the "deplorables" to come out and vote. The "deplorables" were the stratum of the populace who were becoming "white trash", due to lose of industry—resulting fro the export of Capital, required for American mastery of the world. Trump was accused of including these elements in the system of democracy, of treating them as if they had a stake in the system, and getting them to vote. The cry of "Populism" was taken up by the Irish and British media, without any attempt to show why it was undemocratic, or how it conflicted with Lincoln's definition of Democracy as "government of the people, by the people, for the people". The claim that Putin stole the election for Trump was also repeated at every turn, without a shred of evidence. Trump lost the next election. Following the Clinton precedent, he said it had been stolen from him. The democratic dependents of the United States treated that claim as striking at the very roots of democracy. Hillary Clinton was backed for the Presidency by President Obama. He said she was the best-prepared candidate for the Presidency that there had ever been. If the politicisation of the 'deplorables' had not lest her the election, the reasonable prospect for the democratic dependents of the United States was war here, there, and everywhere in the US interest. Joe Biden tried to take up the Obama/Clinton cause after the four-year delay caused by Trump, but there had been a considerable loss of momentum, along with the growth of a sense of independence in various parts of the world which did not exist in organic dependence on the USA as Europe does. Biden arranged the proxy war on Russia quite cleverly. (Does anybody still deny that it is a proxy war?) And he has achieved a rupture between Europe and Russia, consigning Russia to Asia. But he was an old man in a hurry, having to regenerate momentum after a four-year delay, and he invalidated the claim that the War in the Ukraine was very particularly based on national self-determination by simultaneously affronting China and asserting that he would make war on it, if it attempted to enforce its undisputed national sovereignty in Taiwan. He has warned the world that the Donbas is not the issue. This warning does not matter to the dependent democracy in Europe, but there is another world that notices it. And how much is the four-year delay imposed by Trump responsible for the great difficulties being experienced in getting a result in the Ukraine? Trump opened up the prospect of a return to a world of major states which would work out their accommodations with one another by means of conflict and compromise. This was an appalling prospect for the good little world of democratic dependency in Europe. But can it really be said that Biden has restored the certainty under which Europe has luxuriated since America took it in hand after 1945. "Populism" is asserting itself here and there. Democracy is in danger! And certainly the dependent democracy of Europe is a fragile thing. It seems to have become a hierarchical system of uniform consensus—a bird with only a left wing that knows it cannot fly. |