As we approach the end of election season in the USA and are faced with a very uncertain future, it’s worth commenting that democracy is dead. At least democracy as we understand it: the idea of having a vote which means having a say in how your country is run.
This idea really is dead but that hasn’t quite been realised yet, at least not by those purporting to support it. In fact, democracy to some people, is only good if it produces favourable outcomes. There are many examples of this, currently Georgia is one, Hungary is another, the majority of people in each country want the government they’ve voted for. But the EU, with US support decides that democracy is under threat because those people are voting for the wrong people.
If people vote for what the West calls autocracy, then that’s the decision of those people.
In China for example, where I live, people vote regularly for local representation. The West calls it autocracy but I’m 100% certain, and this opinion is borne out by institutions such as Harvard University, San Diego University, the Edelman Trust Barometer and others, that given the choice in a general election, Chinese people would overwhelming vote for the CPC to represent them.
The fact that there isn’t a general election doesn’t mean there’s no democracy, what China has is consultative representation and it makes constant changes to policies, as evidenced by its growth strategies. China has grown exponentially in every measurable metric over the last 50 or more years, and its current system is proven to work for Chinese people. We can therefore clearly say that, if it works for the majority of the people for most of the time, then China is a democratic country – just not in the same way as others which claim democracy.
One thing is certain, if democracy needs to be delivered by armed military intervention, then it’s definitely not democracy – we should ask the Iraqis who’s democratically elected government have, since 2020, been asking US troops to leave their country. Iraq has an imposed democracy, imposed by the USA who now, having imposed it on them, don’t like the result it delivers and have chosen to ignore them.
One thing we can say with absolute certainty is that Western style democracy does not represent the will of the majority of people anywhere. I know there will be many an American calling me out on this and telling me that at least they can insult their leaders and vote them out but the truth is, when they vote them out, they only vote in someone who they still don’t want to represent them. Let’s take a closer look at some of the recent failures of democracy.
There are millions of Americans screaming for their government to stop their intervention, stop supplying weapons and stop allowing Netanyahu to get away with war crimes, crimes against humanity, murder and human rights abuses but the voices of those millions of Americans are not only clamped down on in any protest they make (something deemed a constitutional right when the protest agrees with the government but a criminal activity when it doesn’t). The people of America want the slaughter to stop, the government of the people of America invited the accused war criminal to their place of power and then gives him standing ovations when he explained to them why he’s cleaning out Gaza and needs to murder thousands to succeed. Now Americans are faced with a choice; vote for Trump who will support Israel to the end, or Harris who will, unsurprisingly support Israel to the end too.
The United Nations voted, in December 2023 and again in September 2024 to stop the slaughter in Gaza, yet the Security Council has one or two nations who veto that vote – even China vetoed one of the votes because it felt that the solution was not right, so having a veto means having no democracy and, because there’s no democracy there are already tens of thousands, and potentially many hundreds of thousands more people will die needless deaths.
Something a little less serious, the European Union’s decision to place tariffs on Chinese EVs was put to a vote, but not before there was a “closed door inquiry” into alleged subsidies for Chinese manufacturers. So, the people of the EU have no idea what information their MEPs used to formulate their voting decisions and, when it finally came to a vote, out of 27 member states, only 10 voted yes. Five voted no, and 12 chose not to vote at all but, with just over 30% of the total votes, because abstentions don’t count, the vote was carried and Europeans will need to pay more for their EV cars.
The additional tariffs raised will be collected by the EUs tax collectors and what will happen to those funds is anybody’s guess, certainly they won’t bring any benefit to buyers of environmentally friendly vehicles who just paid more for their cars than they ought to have paid.
Democracy at work? Perhaps not because even European car manufacturers don’t want this.
It’s not just modern events, look at the sanctions on Cuba, they’ve been in place for a generation. I was four years old when the US placed sanctions onto Cuba in 1962. Any person my age or younger who lives in Cuba has known nothing but sanctions all their lives. The world disagrees, the United Nations disagree and the UN Security Council disagrees but every time the removal of sanctions comes up for a vote, there is always one country against it, the last time, in 2023, the vote was 187 in favour of removing the sanctions, 2 against and one abstention. The two voting no, were of course the USA and Israel, and the one country that abstained, was Ukraine. Having 187 countries in favour though, shows us that the idea of democracy does not transcend the United Nations; this problem is compounded by the fact it was the 29th such vote, in favour of ending sanctions on Cuba – it begs the question, what purpose does the UN serve? it’s been unable to curtail these arbitrary sanctions and it’s unable to prevent wars anywhere the US wanted to start one!
The British government, the home of modern democracy and the “Westminster system” so admired all over the world still has one house, the House of Lords where not a single member is elected. Some members are born to the job, they are the landed gentry, some are promoted to the job when they become Bishops or High Court Judges and some are appointed to the job but here’s the kicker, once they have a seat in the House of Lords, they have it for life – they can literally be in a coma but can’t be replaced! Some of them are appointed because they make significant contributions to one party or the other, and these people scrutinise the work of the elected Members of the House of Commons, send back for amendments what they don’t like and generally delay the passage of any bill that doesn’t suit them.
Australia fares no better. The LNP Coalition was voted out almost three years ago after a massive blunder, they agreed to a secretive deal with the US that even Cabinet weren’t privy to, it was called AUKUS, the moment Labor were voted in the new PM flew to the US to sign the deal. Parliament wasn’t consulted, the people certainly didn’t get what they wanted and it looks like, after three years of this secretive deal that the truth is coming out, the Australian government won’t get they want either, they will just be required to pay for what the USA wants in the region.
Remember all this when people tell us how good we have it because we can vote a party in or out. The question really is: democracy, what democracy?
Jerry Grey is a former British Police officer who was a general manager in a multi-national security company based in Australia for 17 years. He has lived, worked, travelled extensively and studied in China for almost two decades. He holds a Master Degree in cross cultural change management. Jerry Grey is a freelance writer living in Southern China's Guangdong province.
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