I’m reading The Narrow Corridor: States, Societies and the Fate of Liberty by Acemoglu and Robinson now. This is an interesting time to be reading about the risks democracies and liberalism face and how they can be created, maintained and destroyed. Right now, we are in the destruction phase.
Acemoglu and Robinson argue that a constant tension between society and political entities maintains stability. Political actors strive for more power, and social forces keep them in check. There are many ways this can happen. Most of the time, it is peaceful and occurs beneath the surface of day-to-day life. Sometimes, though, this tension spills into violence and repression. Sort of like what we are going through right now.
After reading what Acemoglu and Robinson have to say, I’m not very optimistic about the future of the United States. We seem to be declining into a state of corruption, where the use of political, moral, and personal authority is exploited for personal gain. The Trump family has enriched themselves almost beyond measure, and the new policies and orders being promulgated are antithetical to the values this country has lived by in the past – financial, political and psychological. The present situation seems to have more in common with the early Nazi party of the 1920s and 30’s, Gaddafi’s Libya or the early formation of the Soviet Union and Communist China.
Very sad footsteps to be following.
And things are not likely to get better any time soon. Liberty and democracy are held together by a positive tension between the political leadership and society. When freedoms are denied and democratic institutions threatened, society stands up to political leaders and demands a return to liberty and democracy. Ironically, this is happening in Iran right now.
But nothing like that is going to happen in the United States. We have entered a turning point of historical proportions, and there is little chance of returning to what the United States once was.
The reason is simple and irrevocable: Social values have changed dramatically, and the political process is still in swing.
Young people now entering their voting years, aged 18 to 22, were on the cusp of adolescence when Donald Trump was elected in 2016. This is important because puberty is the time when the brain begins to recognize abstract concepts and develop adult-like cognitive abilities.
Donald Trump and the MAGA movement have been prominent since these young people first became capable of adult-like thinking. The only president and political movement they have known is Trump and MAGA. For them, what now passes for democracy is normal. It’s all they have ever known. No wonder they have so little respect for the principles of liberal democracy. They haven’t really been able to see it in action.
For many of them, the Democratic Party is an irrelevant echo of the past led by doddering and outrightly senile politicians with little understanding of the challenges facing a far more youthful electorate.
David French sums this up quite well in the first paragraph of the Introduction to his 2020 book United We Fall.
It’s time for Americans to wake up to a fundamental reality: the continued unity of the United States of America cannot be guaranteed. At this moment in history, there is not a single important cultural, religious, political, or social force that is pulling Americans together more than it is pushing us apart. We cannot assume that a continent-sized, multi-ethnic, multi-faith democracy can remain united forever, and it will not remain united if our political class cannot and will not adapt to an increasingly diverse and divided American public.
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