It is popular on the left side of politics to charge people with the terrible crime of destroying democracy. Yet those who make the charge rarely think clearly about what it actually means.

Anti-Brexit campaigners in the UK called Boris Johnson ‘anti-democratic’ when he went ahead with Brexit. It was difficult to reconcile the accusation with the deed, given that UK citizens had voted in favour of Brexit in a referendum – surely the anti-democratic path would have been to delay, dilute, or ignore Brexit (like his predecessor)?

There are some quite successful ways to destroy democracy, if you so wish. All the worst dictatorships and oppressive regimes in the last century thought they were democracies.

The illusion of democracy is one of the pillars of communism; the Soviet Union held several elections – though often with only one name on the ballot. China is a democracy, don’t you know? In 2020, China’s deputy ambassador to Australia said on the ABC’s Q&A:

‘People say Australia is a Western democracy and we are a party state. Actually, we see ourselves as a socialist democracy. A simplistic comparison between Australian democracy and Chinese democracy would be like this: you have a voting democracy, we have a working democracy… it is difficult, in this part of the world, to understand how a democracy should work with one single leading party, it is difficult.’

In one sense, no one truly values democracy, just as no one truly values freedom of speech; rather we resign ourselves to the fact of irreconcilable disunity and accept free expression as the safest compromise.

For instance, I didn’t want Labor to win the last election. I don’t like them and I wish they weren’t in charge. And I don’t believe half the things that are said about Climate Change, gender, and a lot of other topics. I wish that the people saying such things would stop speaking. Yet if I prevented people from voting against me and silenced people disagreeing with me, then I would become a dictator. Even if I were right about everything, and made Australia a better place for a time, I would still have destroyed democracy and would likely make the country worse in the long run.

Instead, I choose to value democracy and freedom of speech. They are a type of determined humility. I submit to live in a world where other people can outvote me. That is the true test of democracy.

One of the ways to attack democracy is by making opposing positions illegal. This prevents the opposition from running for office – they are disqualified in the very act of campaigning.

To some extent, this will always occur. For instance, some countries criminalise blasphemy against Mohammad. Can ‘freedom of religion’ get on the ballot in such countries? The discussion is outlawed.

In the West, more and more laws are being created that limit free expression, while our governments are taking action against freedom of speech. In Canada, the Trucker protests were opposed directly by the power of Trudeau’s State. Their funds were seized and many were arrested. Theirs was a legitimate, though disruptive, act of democratic expression. It was political, yet the ruling government moved to silence them.

Now we come to Joe Biden’s speech last week.

The visual aspect was unfortunate. In an attempt to have both a blue and red background (suggesting this was a moment of unity-politics, and not party-politics), the Democrats made the place look like some kind of satanic shrine. To further endear themselves to right-wing voters, who are notoriously pro-military, the President was flanked by armed forces. It all looked very V for Vendetta.

The speech itself was every bit as bad as it looked. It was not a party address, but a formal government address. Joe Biden said the following:

‘Democrats, independents, mainstream republicans, must be stronger, more determined and more committed to saving American democracy than MAGA republicans are to destroying American democracy … we are the United States of America, the United States of America.’

The double-speak and reverse logic is astounding to hear outside of fiction. In the name of uniting America, Biden directed the public to oppose those who think the wrong way. In the name of saving democracy, he calls for the silencing of some citizens.

This new term ‘MAGA republicans’ describes a large number of American citizens who support Donald Trump’s MAGA (Make America Great Again) policies. The key promise that President Trump took to his 2016 election was to drain the swamp and to confront ‘permanent Washington’. Quite simply, MAGA is nationalism, not an extreme nationalism, just the type of political position taken by ‘national’ parties throughout the world.

Joe Biden, on behalf of the government, attempted to formally brand his political opposition as hateful and unacceptable.

This is reflected in the way the Biden administration has treated MAGA supporters. Protesters from the January 6 election riots have been put into solitary confinement. They have been vilified by the press with unrestrained hyperbole. January 6 hearings were televised across multiple stations, such that anyone familiar with Soviet ‘show-trials’ must surely have felt an itch in their gut.

On Australian TV, I have heard politicians and reporters repeat outright lies about the protests, such as describing them as ‘armed’ and saying that they ‘killed multiple people’, even though only one person was killed that day and she was an unarmed protester shot by a capitol police officer. Compare this to the numerous deaths at the hands of BLM rioters.

The protests were not good, but they have falsely been used as a vehicle for political action. The protesters who were incarcerated are not merely prisoners, they are political prisoners. Their crimes were not trespass, which is minor, but that of supporting unacceptable politics.

The State also directly targeted President Trump, raiding his home at Mar-a-lago. There is repeated (often gleeful) speculation that there will soon be sufficient pretext to arrest and incarcerate President Trump himself.

Contrast the government action against Trump and his supporters with the government’s paltry response to BLM protests in 2020 (which were actually armed, and actually did kill several police officers) and the group who established ‘CHAZ’ as an autonomous zone in downtown Seattle for several weeks. It is very concerning.

Joe Biden’s highest priority when he came to power was election reform. Not any sort of policies to improve people’s lives, but election reform. Rather than restore basic election safeguards, he sought tolock in radical Covid-related election changes that got him elected under a shadow of doubt.

No healthy nation argues about the method of voting, they only argue about the policies of the parties being voted for.

The signs are all there – the Biden administration increasingly does not believe that its political opponents have a right to democratic expression.

I have thought many times about what will happen in the West if it continues to decline in this way.

Falling educational standards, childish behavioural standards, the preponderance of broken families, drug abuse, lack of religion, diminishing work ethic, an antagonistic political divide, bloated government, a growing affection for socialism, and an insatiable obsession about things that don’t matter and complete blindness to things that do…

If I was to make a prediction, it would be our rapid descent into poverty until, eventually, we become vulnerable to a more disciplined nation like China. But it occurred to me that there may be a worse vision.

I’m used to thinking of America as a net good. They have a balanced, if clunky system, and are formally in favour of peace and biased to liberty. Even when their foreign policy actions have been poor, such as the various regime-change wars of the last few decades, they have at least been the lesser evil; Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan was reprehensible, but the Taliban was still the most culpable party in what eventuated.

Yet how far is the West away from simply being the bad guys?

No future is inevitable – I’m the last person to claim I know what will happen. But I believe it is worth knowing what future is possible. The Soviet Union actually happened. It is not fiction, it is history, and the elements of human nature’s immense cruelty that enabled it can surely repeat their performance.

If the Biden administration continues to recklessly use its government power for plainly political ends. If it continues to disrespect the system of checks and balances that it inherited. If its presumption of moral virtue continues to blind it to the existence of its own victims… Then this moment will be remembered in history as a pivotal moment. The moment when America transforms from a bastion of freedom, to one of the most dangerous and malicious governments in history.

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