From article Why the elites fear democracy. Tom Slater. January 13, 2024.
‘2024 IS THE YEAR OF ELECTIONS AND THAT’S A THREAT TO DEMOCRACY.’
If you had to sum up the ideology of Western elites in one headline, you’d struggle to beat that one – from a recent Bloomberg piece about the apparent horrors that await us in the next 12 months.
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BLOOMBERG ISN’T THE ONLY JOURNALISTIC OUTLET CHILLED TO THE BONE BY WHAT REALLY SHOULD BE A CAUSE FOR CELEBRATION.
In 2024, almost half the world will go to the polls, with elections in at least 64 countries, plus the EU.
In all, that’s more voters voting than in any year ever.
The first big one is taking place in Taiwan as I type.
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Such is the deep distrust of democracy among our supposedly enlightened elites.
THE PROSPECT OF BILLIONS OF THE WORLD’S PLEBS BEING GIVEN THE OPPORTUNITY TO STEER THEIR RESPECTIVE NATIONS, all at once, is enough to make the professional opinion-havers of London, Paris or New York reach for their third glass of Sancerre.
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What are the chattering classes so worried about?
Well, when a certain kind of commentator declares something a ‘threat to democracy’ these days WHAT THEY USUALLY, REALLY, MEAN IS IT IS A ‘THREAT TO MY POLITICAL PARTY AND / OR IDEOLOGY’.
Their biggest fear is not so much that democracy might be overthrown this year, but that some populist parties they dislike might get themselves elected.
That’s certainly the vibe you get from a recent piece in Foreign Policy, horrified that ‘right-wing populism is set to sweep the West in 2024’ and thus be a ‘disaster for liberal democracy’.
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Will it, though?
Some right-wing upstarts certainly have illiberal tendencies, some are genuinely disreputable, but NO VIABLE RIGHT-WING POPULIST CONTENDER FOR POWER IN THE WEST IS CAMPAIGNING TO JUNK THE PRIVILEGE TO VOTE OR THE RULE OF LAW.
Electorally, it’s a non-starter.
They couldn’t achieve it even if they wanted to.
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Instead, they are positioning themselves as the only ones willing to court ordinary, working-class people – to countenance their supposedly ‘deplorable’ concerns about borders, sovereignty, multiculturalism and wokeism.
And this has been made incredibly easy for them by AN ALOOF ESTABLISHMENT AND DISORIENTED LEFT WHO CONTINUE TO PATRONIZE VOTERS even as they ask for their votes.
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Sure, there are plenty of elections this year that will hardly be carnivals of democracy.
No one’s expecting the Russian one to be close.
There have always been authoritarians who try to use rigged elections to legitimize their autocratic rule.
But as one breathless piece after another is currently doing TO LUMP POPULIST PARTIES COMING TO POWER IN THE NETHERLANDS OR ITALY WITH PUTIN’S DICTATORIAL TAKEOVER OF RUSSIA IS PATENTLY ABSURD.
We are being warned Donald Trump will be the second coming of Hitler.
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Technocratic elites posing as champions of liberal democracy is a bit like Iran chairing a UN human-rights forum - as remarkably happened last year. Whether they’re clamping down on so-called hate speech, or vesting ever-more power in the neoliberal Brussels bureaucracy, THE ELITES ARE AN INFINITELY BIGGER THREAT TO OUR HARD-WON DEMOCRATIC RIGHTS.
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The American presidential election in November is being talked up as the ultimate ‘test’ of democracy, against the supposedly mortal threat posed to it by Donald Trump.
But this is another spectacular case of projection.
THERE HAVE ALREADY BEEN FLAGRANT, ANTI-DEMOCRATIC ATTEMPTS TO BRING DOWN TRUMP, from Democratic district attorneys hobbling him with spurious indictments to Democrat-appointed judges and officials actually banning him from the ballot in Colorado and Maine.
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Trump’s imagined authoritarianism is nothing compared to the actual ‘respectable’ authoritarianism of THE ‘CENTRIST’, ANTI-TRUMP ESTABLISHMENT, WHICH SEEMS TO HAVE DECIDED IT MUST DESTROY DEMOCRACY IN ORDER TO SAVE IT.
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Why do the elites so fear populism?
The clue is in the name.
The dictionary definition of which is ‘political ideas and activities that are intended to get the support of ordinary people by giving them what they want’.
To most people, that sounds like democracy.
But OUR PROLETARIAT-FEARING ELITES, DESPERATE TO CLING ON TO POWER, HAVE CONVINCED THEMSELVES POPULISM IS THE STUFF OF TYRANNY.
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We’re in the midst of what the author Thomas Frank has called a Democracy Scare.
When the establishment rages against populism it is really raging against that still radical notion that ordinary people, rather than elite cliques, should rule.
NOTHING FILLS THE POLITICAL CLASS WITH DREAD MORE THAN PEOPLE ACTUALLY GETTING WHAT THEY WANT.
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Like every elite in history, our technocratic betters believe they are infinitely more rational, informed and qualified than the great unwashed to decide which course our societies should chart.
The mask slipped in 2016, following the seismic shocks of Brexit and Trump.
‘IT’S TIME FOR THE ELITES TO RISE UP AGAINST THE IGNORANT MASSES’, RAN THE HEADLINE OF ONE INFAMOUS PIECE.
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The great irony of this is the supposed experts have been getting it wrong for decades and THE ELITES HAVE COMPLETELY LOST THEIR MINDS, EMBRACING ALL MANNER OF POISONOUS, QUASI-RELIGIOUS FAITHS from gender ideology to woke ‘anti-racism’ to eco-austerity.
For all the talk of rubes falling for ‘fake news’ and ‘disinformation’, liberal elites are still gripped by the high-status conspiracy theory Putin was behind both Trump and Brexit.
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In truth, the elites are terrified of populism because they are terrified of democracy.
And you know what, they are right to be.
Now, as ever, it has the power to upend the status quo and topple tyrants, be they of the autocratic or technocratic variety.
So HERE’S TO THE YEAR OF ELECTIONS, TO A HISTORIC TWELVE MONTHS OF PEOPLE POWER, LET’S MAKE IT COUNT.
(end of article)
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“Nothing fills the political class with dread more than people actually getting what they want.”
In a sense the current populists here and everywhere are anarchists.
They want to tear down the existing order but are not sure what they want to replace it with.
Zat would leave a vacuum which dem socialist elitists would soon fill after All We have calmed down, gone back to work and settle in front of PC or TV.
Rather, We must gather All tHAT we can, race to replace neurotic old-wuv zat with futurists’ heroic New-love tHAT: first We “last of leaves fall from the trees” “people of the dawn” ignited Real Republicans take command, electrify, and re-energize the U.S.
Then We put a charge into the world, leading to All joining We for an enlarged model U.S. of the World where peace, wealthy and happy tune rain down and war, poverty, and misery weary tune reign be laid down.
(The Byrds songs Change Is Now, Lay Down Your Weary Tune, Space Odyssey, Beatles song Rain)
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