My favorite observation of baseball sage, Yogi Berra, is that it’s tough to predict stuff, especially when it’s in the future. It’s especially tough to predict the totally unlikely and irrational. Who among us octogenarians could have predicted that it would someday be as easy, if not easier, to contact a friend on the other side of the globe than someone across town. Who could have predicted that teaching basic longhand writing would no longer be a staple of basic elementary education?
I recall back in 1958 when several of us Marines, soon to be released from active duty, were discussing that after several years of Marine Corps barracks language we would have to be careful not to slip up in polite civilian company, especially in the presence of women. Who could have predicted that we needn’t worry? Once-considered foul language would become common among many teenagers, including females, and among corporate CEOs and politicians on public media and during campaign speeches. During the 1950s Marine drill instructors had perfected profanity to an art form. The amateurish public use of profanity by latter day corporate big shots and politicians pretending to be “tough guys” would expose them as the fools they actually are.
Improper sexual affairs ended the political careers of John Edwards and Gary Hart, and caused significant embarrassment endangering the careers of many others. Former Minnesota Senator, Al Franken, was tossed out of the Senate for alleged sexual harassment during his previous career as a comedian.
Who could have predicted that a New York real estate magnate who openly boasted about getting multiple gorgeous women in the sack during his pre-political career, and was indicted and convicted for falsifying records to pay off a women for silence regarding a lover’s tryst, could ever become president? Not that this was arguably the most serious in a list of transgressions that would have ended the career of any other politician.
With the world-wide trend toward democracy following the fall of the Soviet Union, who could have predicted that trend reversing toward autocracy in the early 21st century?
How could a plurality, close to a majority, of voters elect a candidate who denied the results of the 2020 election and resisted the peaceful transfer of power, talked of prosecuting political enemies, releasing felons convicted and sentenced for the January 6, 2021 incident, ending the Constitution, and much else? Many voters, instead of resisting, actually celebrated his intention of breaking written and unwritten rules and norms of democracy. This all seems totally irrational and could not have been predicted.
Party professionals of both parties have been joined by news anchors, pundits of all stripe, and media nitwits of all varieties with their versions of how the unpredictable has come to pass. Some of them no doubt have something to add to the mix. A couple of articles in the November-December issue of “Foreign Affairs” magazine, published by the Council of Foreign Relations, shed light on this situation.
An article titled, “How to end the Democratic Recession,” referring not to economic recession, but to a decline of democracy in many countries during the early part of the 21st century takes on this issue. Stanford professor, Larry Diamond, cites the swing toward “autocratizing” countries and a decline in “democratizing” countries. Freedom House, a nonprofit group that tracks changes in political rights, civil liberties, and the rule of law, found more countries losing freedom than gaining it. Studies by other organizations have found average levels of democracy dropping in every region of the world since 2006. Diamond writes, “The changes have not always been disastrous, but they have been remarkably broad and persistent.”
Diamond adds that over the past two decades, critical constraints on human behavior have been lifted. Ambitious politicians have observed the rhetoric and methods that their peers abroad have used to dismantle democracy piece by piece. He cites several factors that contributed to a general international drift away from democracy. Among them was the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, tarnishing the idea of promoting democracy by using military action to force regime change, followed by a global financial crisis that destabilized many countries, including democratic ones.
Diamond further observes that the digital technology boom joined a snowballing set of global trends that undermined popular support for democracy and created fertile ground for the rise of illiberal populist policies. Dramatic increases in income inequality in both advanced and emerging economies with soaring wealth for a few at the top, and economic stress for middle and lower classes, caused pessimism for the latter and cynicism about the parties and politicians that failed them.
This inequality, Diamond writes, fed into political polarization, further augmented by movement of diverse people, ideas, and cultures, upsetting long-settled hierarchies of social status. To exploit this backlash, he writes, “…politicians in many advanced democracies, particularly in Europe and the United States, framed large waves of immigrants as a threat to economic health, social stability, and national character. Their rhetoric distorted reality, but it played to people’s fears.”
Does this mean that voters will necessarily gravitate to a form of populism at the cost of democratic norms and values?
A second article in that same issue of Foreign Affairs by Vanderbilt University Distinguished Political Science Professor Larry Bartels, “The Populist Phantom: Threats to Democracy Start at the Top,” takes a somewhat different slant, partially reinforcing views expressed in Diamond’s article. Bartels cites studies showing that the apparent popular move among voters toward populism is overrated and that the cause of discontented voters is more due to pace of social and cultural changes.
Bartels asserts that in recent years, “…the rise of hot-button issues such as civil rights, abortion, immigration, and national identity have polarized the parties, raising the stakes of contestation. In response, political elites — especially Republicans — have demonstrated a troubling willingness to violate democratic norms in pursuit of partisan advantage.” He concludes his article with, “And when popular grievances are used as a pretext for bad policy — or even worse, as a pretext for democratic backsliding — it is politicians, not the citizenry, who are culpable.”
Whether it’s fear and anger of cultural change or economic stress, maintaining rules and norms of democracy do not top the list for voters.
If, as Bartels asserts, politicians are culpable, does this absolve voters of all responsibility? You decide.
— John Waelti of Monroe, a retired professor of economics, can be reached at jjwaelti1@tds.net. His column appears monthly in the Monroe Times.
