“Across the globe, democracy is in a state of malaise,” Roberto Foa tells the BBC. Foa authored a report from the University of Cambridge’s Centre for the Future of Democracy showing public faith in democracy at the lowest point ever measured (since 1995). Dissatisfaction with democracy has risen 10 points from 48% to a record 58%.
Data going back to the 1970s showed a steady upswing through the latter decades of the 20th century. Over the last decade, however, dissatisfaction has been rising. “The UK and the United States had particularly high levels of discontent, ” BBC adds:
But a group of European countries has been bucking this trend, with satisfaction with democracy higher than ever before in Denmark, Switzerland, Norway and the Netherlands.
Some of the dissatisfaction may have origins in the financial shock of 2008 plus the refugee crisis of 2015 and “foreign policy failures.” Dissatisfaction in the United States has been climbing since the late “aughts” to its highest point on record. A majority now report they are dissatisfied.
“[I]f the public lacks commitment to democratic principles, or loses faith in democratic institutions, demagogues and opportunists may brush these aside,” Foa cautions along with Yascha Mounk in The Atlantic, adding:
… the drop in satisfaction with democracy is both especially rapid and especially consequential in the United States. For much of its modern history, America has viewed itself as a model democracy that could serve as an example to countries that wished to emulate its success. Survey data show that there was a little substance to this hubris: as recently as 10 years ago, three out of every four Americans said that they were satisfied with the state of their democratic system.
During the 2008 financial crisis, this began to change. And since then, Americans have become more pessimistic about their system every single year. For the first time on record, polls show that a majority of Americans (55 percent) are dissatisfied with their system of government.
When David Cameron and Barack Obama led London and Washington, D.C., Italians had rejected proto-populist Silvio Berlusconi, the pair write, and the party of Germany’s Angela Merkel held its largest parliamentary bloc in decades.
Since then, Donald Trump won the presidency in the U.S. and Germany has seen the return of far-right politics. You know, to get back to the good old days.
Oh, those good old days. Trump allies are handing out money in black communities as corrupt Democrats once did:
The first giveaway took place last month in Cleveland, where recipients whose winning tickets were drawn from a bin landed cash gifts in increments of several hundred dollars, stuffed into envelopes. A second giveaway scheduled for this month in Virginia has been postponed, and more are said to be in the works.
Politico reports the cash giveaways have been organized by an outside charity, the Urban Revitalization Coalition. Under current rules, donors may make donations anonymously and take tax deductions for them.
The acting president is on trial for attempting to blackmail a foreign government into investigating Americans he is sworn to defend. Trump is turning the executive branch into a “Sixth Family.” Americans plainly see money buys access. Money and digital “sub rosa electioneering” are contorting the upcoming election. The one percent rig capitalism with impunity as everyone else gets poorer. GOP operatives continue to sell voters on the idea elections themselves are corrupt and effectively invite foreign adversaries’ help in making it so.
“Democrats are bracing for the possibility that if President Donald Trump loses the 2020 election, he and his aides will bungle a smooth handover of power – and maybe even try to outright sabotage the transition,” Politico reports.
Donald Trump is not on trial in the Senate. The Constitution and our democratic republic are.
Public faith in democracy is flagging? Ask not for whom the pitchforks pitch.
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