Threats to Democracy
While it is common to hear Democrats call Trump a threat to democracy, there are three movements going on in America that represent real threats to democracy and Donald Trump is not representative of any of them.
Progressive liberalism: progressive liberalism argues that an elite group of people comprised of government bureaucrats, wealthy individuals, academics, and media moguls can determine what is best for the people and can do so by grouping the people into various identity groups and then relying on the government to determine who gets what. However, for such a system to work it depends on two things. Progressive liberalism depends on people’s willingness to accept what government determines is their equitable outcome. And so, people must think in a politically correct way and if they fail, they will be censored and ultimately cancelled. There is no room in progressive liberalism for diversity of thought, because individuals are relegated to making relatively minor decisions regarding unimportant matters as it relates to society as a whole.
When Hillary referred to 25% of Americans as deplorable, she was actually understating what she really thought. Democracy in the eyes of the “elite” is a “necessary evil” since it creates a risk long term societal plans will be unended by someone representing regular people. The enemy of progressive liberalism is classical liberalism, libertarianism, and to some extent populism. It should come as no surprise, that when the “elite” decided Joe Biden had outlived his usefulness, they moved quickly to replace him with another “face”. No attempt was made to solicit any input from everyday Democrats. The job of ordinary votes is simply show up and vote how they are told to vote.
The second threat, this one coming from the right is Christian conservatism. I am not referring to the personal values and beliefs of any individual or their right to apply those values and beliefs to themselves, but rather an attempt by Christian conservatives to impose their religious values on others. To be clear, our nation’s core values are grounded in classical liberalism which itself emerged out of the Reformation and thus is closely linked with Judeo Christian beliefs.
But where classical liberalism departs from Judeo-Christian beliefs, or any other religion is that it only recognized that an almighty Creator gave human beings unalienable rights. It does not accept any other form of religious revelation as might be found in religious writings. An easy example, is
“gay” marriage would be an obvious “right” to classical liberals, since all human beings have an unalienable right to pursue happiness. But for many conservative Christians, homosexuality is a sin, and the state should not “affirm” sinful behavior.
The third threat is Islamic theocracy. Traditionally, Islam embraced “the state” as subordinate to Islamic faith and so legitimacy of government only existed if it served Islam. Many modern Muslims reject this belief, but many others do not. In America today, it remains the least threat to democracy shorter term, but to the extent the number of adherents increases it represents a threat to democracy.
This tension between Islamic theocratic thinking and western governments can be witnessed all over the “western world”. The ultimate resolution of this conflict can only come in one of three ways. Capitulation of western governments to Islamic dogma, expulsion of Muslims who embrace Islamic theocracy, or hopefully as happened in Christianity, a “reformation” by which Islam becomes a “personal religion” and not one that imposes its beliefs on others.
Of the three threats the greatest threat at this time is progressive liberalism only because it has the most powerful lobby behind it, “the elite”. Christian conservatism has been in decline for decades and so while occasionally its adherents are successful at imposing their values on society as a whole, for the most part, the Courts and Congress have not endorsed their positions enough for them to represent a “threat to democracy”. Islamic theocratic thinking is a bigger issue in Europe due to the size of the Islamic population, but in the US, it is more likely to produce tension as it has recently between Jews and Muslims, than threaten democracy.
If Republicans win this November, then any threat to democracy is stalled for the time being. But we should be aware, that for democracy to survive, we must “teach” it in our schools. Let’s use a simple example, abortion.
Progressive liberals embrace abortion as a “right” and ignore any conflicting rights of the unborn baby. As such, they don’t recognize “human rights” if doing so is inconsistent with their beliefs. Conservative Christians have declared that abortion is murder. They don’t recognize the women have rights that have to be considered. Islam like Conservative Christians and most religions rejects abortion except in certain instances. If we are a “democratic” nation that embraces human rights, then independent of progressive liberals want, conservative Christians want, or Muslims want as individuals, our society demands that we use the democratic process to resolve an unreconcilable conflict of human rights between the woman and the unborn baby.
Young people should not be “taught the answer” but rather how to apply the principal of human rights… life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness to the issues of our day in a country that resolves such conflicts through a democratic process that starts with elected individuals representing the citizens of the country and ideally settles on a compromise, that most likely satisfies no one, but is better than any other compromise.
Through critical thinking, citizens may well arrive at a different balance in those human rights, some may favor more generous abortion rights and some more limited, but the starting point is that our society is based on human rights… not progressive liberal ideology or Christian ideology or any other ideology. Individual ideology can certainly affect how one feels on abortion, but not how those differences should be resolved. When someone talks about “mandating” abortion policy or packing the court to impose abortion policy rather than demanding Congress or the state legislatures come up with a compromise, they are threatening democracy by dismissing it, when it is not convenient.
So, when considering how to vote, listen carefully to determine which politicians speak in terms of individual rights and using the legislative process to reconcile conflicts in individual rights vs people that want to impose their values on society as a whole without individual input through elected representatives and without consideration of the human rights of all humans. I am concerned the real “threat to democracy” comes from group ideology, not in respecting individual human rights.
