Democracies on the verge of a nervous breakdown (disturbing read)

[Dennis Donovan]

https://www.politico.com/news/2019/11/25/democracies-verge-nervous-breakdown-073493

The West’s malaise and self-doubt are growing deeper, and not just due to the man in the White House.

By BLAKE HOUNSHELL and BRYAN BENDER

11/25/2019 05:18 AM EST

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia — If there’s a word that sums up the current mood of the West’s high command, it’s this: despair.

That’s the clearest and most alarming takeaway from discussions with the assorted diplomats, military officials and security wonks who assembled this weekend for the annual Halifax International Security Forum in Canada, a clubby gathering of leading democracies.

<snip>

Within the major democracies, populist rabble-rousers are on the march, powered by social media and puffed up by economic discontent, dislocation and voters’ disillusionment with leaders who haven’t delivered on their promises. For every inspiring example of people power in places like Hong Kong, Iran and Sudan, there are equally alarming cases of countries sliding back into “illiberal democracy,” as in Hungary, or simply dysfunction and paralysis, as in the United Kingdom.

Yascha Mounk, a researcher who has done seminal work on democratic decline, said that even seemingly robust democracies like Chile and France that have seen at times violent popular demonstrations “are much more brittle than we realize.”

Mounk noted that it usually takes populations a decade or more to wake up to the danger of authoritarian leaders like Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who in the meantime can tighten their grip on the state and make it nearly impossible for voters to dislodge them.

</snip>

If only republicans would put country over party...

[abqtommy]

1. IF is an awfully powerful little word. I can say that if the Democrats had won the House back in

2018 then we might have had a chance at reclaiming our Democracy. Oh, wait...that DID happen and we now have a majority of people who actually think that we're on the right track. If we keep on keeping on then we'll win this. Let's make sure that if the reTHUGS continue to survive as a political party then they'll be permanently in the minority.

[inwiththenew]

2. "Russia is like a series of hurricanes. China is climate change."

Well said. There are no shortage of businesses here, notably the NBA & some Hollywood studios, who are willing and eager to kowtow to China because of the money they help them make.