The Big Problem with Democracy

Welcome friends!

I was leafing through a magazine the other day and saw a small piece on the 1998 election of populist politician Hugo Chavez in Venezuela.  Interesting stuff but what really caught my attention was the picture of his fans wearing their signature red berets.  Here in the USA fans of faux populist politician Donald Trump also have signature red hats in the form of All-American baseball caps with his tongue-in-cheek political logo, Make American Great Again, emblazoned on the front in case one fails to make the connection and confuses it for just any old red baseball cap.  I can’t say I’ve noticed a lot of people wearing plain red baseball caps where I live so the wordplay seems a bit unnecessary but maybe out in the countryside they’re sufficiently common the additional branding makes sense.  Something a bit odd about the color red isn’t there?  The Nazi flag was a big red banner with a swastika.  The flag of the old USSR was a big red banner with a hammer and sickle.  The flag of communist China was and still is a big red banner with some stars.  It seems whenever politicians want to play populist the appearance of the color red cannot be far behind.  Well, I suppose it makes some sort of sense psychologically speaking.  Red is an exciting and angry sort of color that really shows people one is mad as hell and not going to take it anymore.  What happens once the red appears is, well, a bit more indeterminate.  Anyway contemplating the ever hopeful crimson clad mobs of the world got me thinking a bit about the drawbacks of market economies, the awkward fit between market economies and political democracy, and the funny paths populism of both the real and fake varieties may take.  Maybe this week I’ll keep it short and look at just the Big Problem with democracy: the ability of the wealthy elite of a nation to dominate a nominally democratic political system and use it for their own purposes.

Oh heck.  I meant to do a big reveal just then.  Oh well, doesn’t matter.  Let’s just move on shall we?  Yes, what generates the ever hopeful, optimistic, steadying influence of political democracy is that everyone is or at least could potentially get involved to some degree.  Everyone is responsible to some extent for whatever we choose to do.  Instead of falling on one another with rocks and tree limbs and so on we have this notion it may be worthwhile to sit down and argue about things or at least take a few moments from our busy schedules to post ostensibly pithy but often rather insane sounding quips and bon mots on comment boards and so on.  Of course everyone who lives under a real democracy understands the egalitarian ethos of the one person one vote principle that lies at the heart of political democracy is frequently undercut and often all but obscured by that great principle of market economies: Money Talks.  In a democracy like the one we have here in the USA money talks so much it’s nearly impossible for anyone else to get a word in edgewise.  Money fuels academic research, media empires, political campaigns, popular culture.  Our politicians come from money and when finished playing politics return to money.  They represent money or at least require the acquiescence of money to be effective or even to survive politically.  Money, money, money.  That’s what we’re all about here in the USA.

We could of course do quite a lot to overcome the corrosive influence of big money on politics in a numbers of ways such as for example revising our campaign finance laws, changing how politicians are compensated, putting in place legal penalties for disseminating fake news, changing how we fund and credential institutions of higher education, and so on and so forth but the problem with all those ideas is that most of the people we actually elect not surprisingly like the system as it is and have no intention of upsetting the proverbial apple cart.  Indeed one cannot help but notice here in the USA all trends are going in exactly the opposite direction.  Our Supreme Court has famously expanded the power of big money in politics, irresponsible big money funded media empires peddling fake news proliferate, our president is a multi-millionaire with an administration composed nearly entirely of Wall Street traders, CEOs, and the like.  Indeed one has the notion the only real qualification right now is to have a boatload of money and be willing to swear an oath of personal fealty to Mr. Trump with any kissing of rings purely optional.  So at least here in this country one can forget about any official attempt to confront the influence of money in politics.

Now when would-be autocrats wielding vast economic power also capture political power in a democracy some funny things are liable to happen.  If they reach for too much too fast voters might rebel and overcome even the awesome power of the almighty dollar or peso or any other comparable unit of currency.  One may get a true populist along the lines of Mr. Chavez and we all know the paroxysms of rage and resentment that swept over the moneyed class of Venezuela and indeed the rest of the world when that happened.  Of course sometimes the wealthy can ride the wave so to speak.  If the wealthy elite is clever they can turn real populism into the sort of fake populism we saw many years ago with Mr. Hitler in Germany or more recently with Donald Trump here in the USA.

Even here things can get a bit tricky.  One important decision is whether to pretend one is standing up to the moneyed elite on behalf of the little guy or be candid about representing the moneyed elite but pretend pandering to the moneyed elite is good for everyone.  Mr. Hitler famously railed in public against capitalism as a vast Jewish conspiracy and carefully cultivated the false impression he was a simple man of the people and not really one of those rich fat cats all the while living like a medieval king and fawning over and currying favor with said fat cats at society cocktail parties every chance he got.  Mr. Trump has taken a rather different approach in proudly proclaiming and displaying his allegiance to the moneyed class while attempting to establish helping the moneyed class helps everyone else at the same time.  However, he has hedged his bets by successfully speaking such an endless stream of rot many of his followers appear to have gotten the risible notion he’s meant to be the champion of the little guy.  When it comes to being a conservative politician it pays to talk nonsense.  One can apparently have one’s cake and eat it too after all.

The danger of course and what keeps thinking people always a bit worried for the future is what happens when inevitably the wealthy class ends up doing quite well indeed and everyone else starts to circle the proverbial drain?  How long can a politician like Mr. Trump keep the charade going and what happens when he fails?  Well, that’s an interesting question.  Over the years we’ve seen various approaches to handling just this phenomenon.  One could always try to keep everything on an even keel using propaganda alone.  The conservative media machine seems well set up to give it the old college try.  Many of the people who follow their wacky fake news sites have apparently ceased to use any other source of information and are basically like putty in their hands.  However, other countries have given that approach a go only to find over time things can start to get a bit wobbly.  Fortunately bullshit is not the only weapon in their arsenal.  They also have weapons in their arsenal.  Yes, wars certainly help not only to goose the economy of course but to get people thinking about things other than their own economic and political impotency.  It’s hardly surprising the first thing on the mind of every unscrupulous politician wanting to keep people on board has always been to start a war or two.  Of course clever politicians can create some of the same psychological benefits and sometimes even some of the same economic benefits for at least some subset of the population by starting virtual wars with divisive commentary designed to get what is hopefully a bit more than half the population fighting everyone else.  Lots of potential booty to spread around if one plays it right.  Mr. Hitler appeared to base his entire political existence on this sort of thing but even Mr. Trump has wasted no time taking up the banner of racism, sexism, nativism, ethnic and cultural purity, religious intolerance, hatred of sexual minorities, and so on and so forth.  Indeed there doesn’t appear to be a potential source of social division he has not attempted to exploit to further his own ends.

What happens when that fails to do the trick?  Well now we’re setting out on same very shaky ice indeed.  In that case I suppose the wealthy elite could not fail to reach the conclusion democracy must go. Conservative pundits and intellectuals have been busy for many years now laying out their criticisms of democracy if not setting out explicitly their vision of an authoritarian oligarchy that would better concentrate economic and political power in the hands of the moneyed class.  The project appears to be going quite well at least in rural areas of the nation.  I read a story the other day about a billboard someone had put up in a small town in the state of Maryland suggesting liberals arm themselves if politicians pursue impeachment proceedings against President Trump for the unstated but contextually obvious reason conservatives would attempt to murder them.  One would have thought the implied threat of violence and rejection of our traditional democratic norms would prove anathema to freedom-loving Americans of all political persuasions but alas that does not appear to have been the case at all.  The local police chief noted about half the community supported the sign.  The long-term conservative project of laying down the foundations for finally ending democracy here in the USA seems to be proceeding right on schedule.

Can American democracy survive the threat represented by conservatives and the Republican Party?  That’s anyone’s guess right now.  The democracy loving elements of the US population may yet rally and fight them back but the way things are going right now I’m not particularly optimistic.  On the bright side whatever happens on our benighted shores the ideals of political democracy can never truly be defeated.  If American democracy fails as well it may somewhere someone will surely take up the banner if not now then soon.  (Well, yes, now you mention it I do realize there are other thriving democracies but I’m trying to be dramatic.  Maybe they fail one day as well and for the same reasons.)  To those future democrats let me just say find a way to make it work and you will have a thing of power and beauty and stability.  It served the USA well for a long time before the corrosive power of money, greed, and ignorance brought it down.  A word to the wise if I might?  If you cannot create a society in which economic power is distributed in an egalitarian way then be sure to put firewalls between economic power and political power.  Keep your democracy powerful and you will have a system that will serve you well for many years.  Allow it to become the plaything of self-serving rich people and I’m afraid you may have set out on the same path we have found ourselves on here in the USA.  I wish you good luck my future brothers and sisters!  Long live democracy!

References

‘Hey liberals better get your guns if you try to impeach’: This pro-Trump sign outside Washington is coming down.  Justin Moyer.  May 9, 2018.  Washington Post.  https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/local/wp/2018/05/09/hey-liberals-better-get-your-guns-if-you-try-to-impeach-this-pro-trump-sign-outside-washington-is-coming-down/?utm_term=.b0f50c6c234e.