As we face a battle of ideas with autocracies, the traditional ringing justifications of democracy no longer carry much credence. Instead we have an uncertain, defensive debate about populism.
These days when people say "democracy" they really seem to mean, "rule by an interconnected web of institutions, both national, international and non-governmental, with significant input by universities and the media." I.e., rule by credentialed elites. That is why they can say, with a straight face, things like "we need to impose restrictions on speech to save democracy", or "on this election, democracy is on the ballot."
"democracy" means rule by credentialed elites with some token parcipation of the masses via the ballot box.
"populism" is the specter of what happens when the masses get what they want (e.g. stopping immigration, or stopping Western countries from funding wars in the Middle East and with Russia).
You will find absolutely zero tolerance for Putin-sympathisers from me, and the claim that the “masses want” us to abandon Ukraine is a straight-up lie.
Eh, I think it’s fair to worry that autocrats like Orban or Erdogan subvert democracy, and that others might. It’s not enough to have elections every 4 years if you’ve bought the press and jailed or intimidated your opponents.
You mean the university that was founded by Soros as an indoctrination center?
Frankly, I suspect that university was only ever the "best" in the same sense that 2024 Harvard is the "best", only without even the historical prestige of the latter.
These days when people say "democracy" they really seem to mean, "rule by an interconnected web of institutions, both national, international and non-governmental, with significant input by universities and the media." I.e., rule by credentialed elites. That is why they can say, with a straight face, things like "we need to impose restrictions on speech to save democracy", or "on this election, democracy is on the ballot."
"democracy" means rule by credentialed elites with some token parcipation of the masses via the ballot box.
"populism" is the specter of what happens when the masses get what they want (e.g. stopping immigration, or stopping Western countries from funding wars in the Middle East and with Russia).
You will find absolutely zero tolerance for Putin-sympathisers from me, and the claim that the “masses want” us to abandon Ukraine is a straight-up lie.
True, that said, his description of how the word "democracy" tends to be used in practice is unfortunately correct.
Eh, I think it’s fair to worry that autocrats like Orban or Erdogan subvert democracy, and that others might. It’s not enough to have elections every 4 years if you’ve bought the press and jailed or intimidated your opponents.
Orban is only considered an "autocrat" because he rules according to popular will and not that of the technocratic managerial oligarchy.
“Popular will”. See above. He drove out the region’s best university.
Precisely. The university is the power center of internationalist credentialed elites.
You mean the university that was founded by Soros as an indoctrination center?
Frankly, I suspect that university was only ever the "best" in the same sense that 2024 Harvard is the "best", only without even the historical prestige of the latter.