Historically, many of its members have waged and/or supported wars in the name of democracy.
Democracy has been held up as the beacon of good governance and ethical behaviour in a good versus bad, or democracy versus authoritarian, perceptual dichotomy; the struggle for dominance of which is viewed in Manichean terms. The idea perpetrated is that unless democracy wins, the world will fall into the hands of the evil. As a consequence, methods used in the struggle for dominance had been ruthless, savage and unrelenting; particularly in the domains of propaganda, cold wars and hot wars. We see this currently happening in Ukraine and the genocidal war in Gaza.
Yet despite the profusion of information gathering, ideas and analysis, the fundamental nature of democracy, its practice and its evolution have not received the attention that it deserves. Taking the last three US presidential elections as example, it is quite obvious that President Abraham Lincoln’s description of the principles of democracy, one “of the people”, “by the people” and “for the people” have been violated both in terms of ideas and practice. For one, Trump won the 2016 presidential election even though he trailed Hillary Clinton by 233,000 votes because of a quirky US democratic practice of adding on Electoral College votes, putting a mark on the question of government “by the people”, and “of the people”.
As for government “for the people”, there are innumerable media reports that indicate the Trump I government favoured the rich. A Dominic Rush report in The Guardian, 2019, says, “In 2018 the richest 400 families in the US paid an average effective tax rate of 23% while the bottom half of American households paid a rate of 24.2%”.
On the “separation of powers”, an imperative which characterises democratic practice, Trump I had appointed so many judges to benches that Ian Millhiser of VOX (30/09/2020) says, “Long after Trump leaves office, these judges will shape American law — pushing it further and further to the right even if the voters soundly reject Trumpism in 2020”.
Following Trump I, the Biden administration did not fare any better. To cut the story short, a summary statement by Robert Reich, The Guardian, 2021, suffices: “… all the underlying structural problems were still with us – a nation deeply split, Trumpers still threatening democracy, racism rampant, corporate money still dominating much of politics, inequality still widening, inflation undermining wage gains, and the Delta variant of Covid still claiming lives”.
Across the Atlantic, the Anglospheric world did not fare any better. Between 2010 and 2024, the government was led by five Conservative Prime Ministers: David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak. Of these, only David Cameron would have been the choice of the people. The rest were appointed through internal arrangements and therefore not truly reflective of government “of the people”. The period was marked by poor economic performance, incompetence, misconduct and, lamentably, Brexit. A bestseller by James O’Brien (Penguin, 2024) explains it all.
The malady of democracy in the Anglo spheres on both sides of the Atlantic is especially severe when the mainstream media tasked, in a proper democracy, with keeping the government honest acts instead in collusion with politicians. James O’Brien opines that if the most powerful media interests, such as that of Murdoch’s, in the country see themselves working actively in cooperation with a government towards shared ends, public interest will be strangled. Secondly, that collusion in “casting people pointing out the problems as the real problems, it heralds an open season on anyone deemed to be difficult”. This is nothing less than an open attack on one of the much touted values of democracy, freedom of expression. He mentions that the third element of Murdoch’s capture of the country’s soul is the willingness to mould facts to the agendas shared with governments or to abandon facts altogether in pursuit of them.
YouTube watchers will not miss the fact that one of the most vocal critics of the US government policies and actions, the erstwhile weapons inspector Scott Ritter, had his home raided by the FBI. As for a clearly evident case of manufacturing consent, the US House of Representatives passed a law, HR1157, in September of 2024, allocating 1.6 billion dollars to the State Department and USAID to counter Chinese “malign” influence. This was in addition to the prevailing funding of the mainstream media to say good things about the US government. The democratic process is harmed because a bought mainstream media compromise the voters access to fair and independent information that enable them to elect representatives to act in their best interests and to hold the government to account for the actions taken on their behalf.
Despite the poor practice of democracy and outcomes, it serves the purpose of political elites to deify democracy to the point that any criticism of it is, in the eyes of the convinced, a sacrilege. Deification of democracy is not as far fetched as it would seem if we take just the Vietnam War as an example. In that war, above three million people were killed, including 58,000 American soldiers. No one would commit themselves to that kind of slaughter without compunction. Such massive killings would be in vain if the mission is not transcendental in nature, akin to a God driven mission to combat evil.
The world is now gearing up for a Trump II government reflexive of Trump I with its cronism and nepotism (usually used to characterise emerging economies) and other fascist straits, but with an added malaise of a convicted felon being re-electied as President. Apart from the spectre of a sick system, how else can one come to terms with a President-elect who campaigned on whipping up resentment against the most unfortunate people in their midst for political gains, the worst of which was the accusation of Haitian immigrants eating American pets. Regardless of what has been said of undocumented immigrants, they have been known to provide the cheap agricultural labour that keeps food on American tables affordable.
If the democracy in the US is unwell, what of the European NATO, AUKUS, QUADS, 5-Eyes and ANZUS members that jump to the US’s bidding? The majority of them bought into the narrative of democracy being under threat from external enemies like Russia and China through what is by now the familiar Chomskien theory of the manufacture of consent. Insecurities turned them into willing vassal states ready to sacrifice their own economies – such as cutting off vital Russian gas and compromising their own industries – to protect their democracies from external forces when the real threat derives from within.
We do need some form of gatekeeping if we were to be able to elect informed and wise leaders to handle ever more complex national and international problems in a world that is changing rapidly with the emergence of new powers, new institutions, new technologies, climate change, and ever closer economic integration. Otherwise the price is human extinction.
Teow Loon Ti was a researcher in aquaculture; and a teacher. Teow Loon Ti has a BSc.(Hon) in Zoology, an MA(Lit. & Comm.) and a PhD in Education.
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