Concerns about democracy being a viable governing system continue to flow:
Krzysztof J. Pelc, a political science professor at McGill University, said Trump’s refusal to admit he lost and the GOP’s reluctance to publicly rebuke him suggest that the Trump phenomenon will not end when he leaves office.
“The spectacle of the past weeks implies that even if the White House becomes more open to greater cooperation with its allies, it may simply be unable to act on those good intentions,” he said.
“The great lesson that U.S. allies have drawn from the past four years is that the American ideals of democratic freedom and openness rest on a fragile basis. American political institutions have proven more delicate than most international observers thought. As a result, we are always one election away from U.S. commitments coming undone.” [WaPo]
Add one part essence of Gingrich [Newt], two parts bad intellectual thinking [abortion], ten parts water, mix vigorously. Find Donald Trump at the bottom of the glass [worm], put in office with a host of enablers [Congress], despite overwhelming goodness of the water [3 million vote victory at the polls for Clinton].
Four years later, swear God told you Trump should be reelected, jump up and down, speak in tongues [Copeland, White, et al]. Foster outrage with lies. Compare symptoms of Democracy’s decay with arsenic poisoning.
OK, so that’s a little noir. Honestly, every governing system requires work, whether it’s Communism (see how hard China works to keep its citizens in line), monarchies (spreading the idea that the King has been touched by a Divinity), theocracy (which bloody-handed Divinity are we worshiping this year?), or Democracy (why should I respect the ideas of my fellow citizens when I’m so obviously right?).
But Pelc, above, has a point: if America is going to be changing course radically every year, then why should we be trusted? And, implicitly, isn’t this also possible for every other democracy?
For decades, the two big political parties worked together to lead the nation and the world towards shared goals of freedom and democracy. It began to fall apart when the Soviet Union broke up, no longer constituting an existential threat to the United States, and then Newt Gingrich began preaching power politics, and disaster has been befalling America ever since.
It’s just part of the job to refute the Gingrich Doctrine for those who believe in Democracy, I think.
