I’m sad to say that I disagree with the thesis of Thomas Carothers and Richard Youngs’s article at Foreign Affairs. I think we are witnessing the twilight of democracy. I don’t believe it can survive the abandonment of moderation and dispassionate reason we are seeing everywhere today. I believe those are artifacts of a literate society while our society is post-literate.
I don’t know what sort of society will succeed a liberal democratic one but I’m pretty sure it will be some form of authoritarian one. Keep in mind that the overwhelming preponderance of people in the world including in the United States and Europe have little or no interest in liberal democracy.
The election of Trump would ordinarily confirm your idea, but then he was running against Clinton, the second worst candidate in modern times. So, I am loathe to throw in the towel. Besides, I think this is more than a democracy issue, it is also one for capitalism. The old Marxist critique was that (very short and rough form) was that the capitalists would eventually overdo it and we would end up with a tiny group of very rich people, and lots of poor people. We are heading that way, but not there yet. Given the way the wealthy now control the media, think tanks, local politics and now have one of their own as POTUS, I think this is close to being irreversible.
I had thought that our constantly being at war might tip things over, but given the response to the attack on Syria I think we just like to constantly be fighting somewhere. We are way, way too fond of bombing other people. Having started with the “pot” of bombing, we have now moved on to the “crack” of invading and occupying other places. How can constantly killing people in other countries who pose no threat to us be compatible with democracy?
Steve
I don’t think the founders ever envisioned a country so large and diverse. I also don’t think they ever envisioned universal suffrage, originally limiting voting rights to those most likely to BE literate, and informed.
I don’t think the failure is in the populace, but in liberal changes to the electorate itself.
Another way of saying this is, “If you think Trump is bad, wait until what comes after him.” I see no path to avoid this.