In the 18th century, it seemed that there was a move in the western world away from authoritarian rule and toward democracy. The attempts in those first efforts were significantly flawed. America's independence followed by its new Constitution, which though providing an improvement over European aristocracies, was written in order to maintain the status quo for America's new elites. In the meantime, France's initial attempt for democracy simply saw one set of authoritarians replace another. The same occurred in Russia's 1917 October Revolution.
Of course, we are taught to think that Western democracy started with America. Those exceptional claims that we Americans make about ourselves is just one of our "charms" that so "endears" us to the world. Of course, some of us who would pretend to be educated point back to Greece as providing the origin of democracy. But some Americans, like Ben Franklin, were influenced by what the Iroquois (actually the Haudenosaunee) Confederation had constructed.
Over time, America has become more democratic even though it still has a long way to go. A nation founded on white supremacy cannot be counted as a full democracy until that white supremacy is utterly destroyed and is not replaced by another ethnocracy or a classocracy.
Though Germany experimented with a democracy just after WW I, democracy did not really take hold until some time after WW II. I cannot speak to France's evolution to democracy even though the French seem to have a better vision of what a democracy is than we Americans have.
But here is the point. Evidence that democracy is on the upswing when authoritarian nation start evolving toward democracy has its counterpart by noting that democracy is dying out when seemingly democratic nations drift toward authoritarian rule. And that is where we have to look at America again.
Right now, America is flirting with embracing a fascist type ruler. That is the kind of leadership that both Trump and DeSantis are offering. Both are looking to end the influence of competitors so that people who agree with them and support their agendas can experience more freedom while those who disagree receive either revenge or are silenced. Little do they know that Freedom - Equality = Privilege. And thus, instead of working, and fighting in some cases, for freedom, they are actually striving for privilege and control. And that can be clearly seen when Republican leaders vow to or work on eliminating wokism. For the Trump side of the Republican Party seems to only believe that there should be one Constitutional right: the right to conform to their beliefs.
We should note here that our nation has 2 foundational secular institutions: our democracy and the free market. And counter to any claims by conservative ideologues, these 2 institutions oppose each other. Democracy and the free market are ideological enemies. For whereas democracy is egalitarian because it is based on 1-person/1-vote. The free market is based on 1-dollar/1-vote. That means that in a land where everyone is supposedly equal, some are more equal than others because they have more dollars. And we have seen a similar theme expressed before in an Orwell novel.
However, we should also note that democracy is more than just allowing majority rule, it is about preserving every group's equal status in society. Thomas Jefferson warned us that denying the minority their equal rights and standing is synonymous with oppression. And thus, democracy has a self-limiting discipline in any group's or person's pursuit of self-interest. That self-limiting discipline is to avoid denying another person's or group's equality while seeking one's own interests. In fact, the more democratic we are, the more conscientious we are about protecting the rights and equality of others.
The battle we see in America is between democracy and the free market. If the free market provides the biggest influence on democracy, then what we will see is an endless king-of-the-hill political battle between the candidates and parties to see who will win control the nation. For the free market is about competing to conquer and control, so long as you don't give the appearance of having a monopoly.
When democracy is influencing the free market more than the other way around, then we will see a more egalitarian sharing of wealth and resources in the economy. That doesn't mean that we will have neither the wealthy nor the poor. But it does means that our wealth and income disparities won't continue to grow as they have with our current form of neoliberal capitalism for the past few decades.
A prerequisite for a democracy is that people can see complexity in the world. They need to be able to see complexity because democracy is sometimes about balancing the rights of opposing groups--simplistic thinking would only consider the rights of one group. In addition, with democracy, they can see that most, if not all, opponents are not all bad especially since democracy demands that we share power and collaborate with others. And so when we are able to recognize complexity in people, we also see that all of us are a mix of good and bad.
A prerequisite for authoritarian rule is to have enough people who hold to a black-white world view. With such a view, people are seen as being all good or all bad depending on whether they side with one's own group or leader. And when people see those from other groups that way, there is a growing reluctance to share power and collaborate with them on how to solve problems. So guess what kind of thinking does the free market encourage? Does it encourage us to share with those who have different views or to wrestle to conquer them in order to gain exclusive control?
So here we should think about the influencers that surround us. How are they teaching us to think? Are they teaching us in ways that will move us to promote democracy? Or are they teaching us defeat our opponents before they beat us?
Here we should note that influencers don't have to be ideological or religious leaders. Influencers can also include artists on whom we depend for entertainment and a break from the real world. Here we need to ask if our entertainers or artists promote a simple worldview where we are preoccupied solely with our own interests and concerns or do they enable us to also recognize the needs and rights of others.
Because of the above, the future of America frightens me especially because that future will affect my children and grandchildren more than it will affect me. In addition to looking at the other trends in culture, I see culture favoring simplistic, black-white pictures of the world. Such a view is in our news, our education, our religions, and in our arts and entertainment. Those black-white worldviews can sabotage the best social justice efforts because such worldviews prohibit us from being careful not to violate the rights and equality of others while seeking our own or our group's rights. The black-white worldviews also interfere with our trusting others because those who have some disagreements with us are then regarded as having no redeemable contributions or claims to make.
And so the above paints an horrific picture of America's future. Not only does our preference for the market mean that we favor control over others, but the kind of thinking we are encouraged to employ pushes us to accept authoritarian rule out of self-defense if not out of ambition.
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