DEMOCRACY DISSATISFACTION RATING RISES. When US Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi tore up President Trump’s State of the Union speech, she was not acting in isolation. The speech featured a glowing progress report on the US free market democracy. But more and more Democrats are favoring socialism no matter how well the economy is performing.
So is the rest of the world.
Cambridge University recently compiled surveys on democracy from 4 million people in 154 countries. It reports 57.5% of people worldwide are dissatisfied with democracy. This compares with a 33% dissatisfaction rate only 25 years ago.
However, it found one “island of contentment” in Europe, which has tried many forms of socialism. There satisfaction with democracy had attained all-time highs.
But many other large developed democracies, such as the US, UK, Australia and Brazil, have reached all-time highs of dissatisfaction with democracy.
Polarization threatens elections
The report cited political polarization as one main reason for their rising discontent. In many such nations the Left has moved so far from the Right as to leave irreconcilable differences.
Accordingly, each newly elected government will try to undo what the previous government did. As a result, the whole nation will rock back and forth. Each election will have the potential of becoming a revolution. Then the losing side will try to make it difficult for the winners to govern at all.
For example, in the US, many elected Democrats spend more time trying to undo the 2016 presidential election than working on any other issue. Increasing numbers on the Left want to push the Right out of the public sphere altogether.
Colleges in general were once bastions of free speech. Now many of them regularly forbid anyone from the Right to speak there. Instead they promote a political correctness that too often calls evil good and good evil.
For instance, they favor the promotion of homosexuality. But they condemn conversion therapy to heterosexuality. This implies that homosexuality is good and heterosexuality is bad.
Losing common moral ground
In fact, many jurisdictions places have now outlawed conversion therapy. But not by majority vote. The PC culture proponents often bypass the democratic process to achieve their aims. Instead, they go directly to judges whom they know will decide for the Left and against the Right. Even so far as, for instance, to nullify a new law against abortion after fetal heartbeat. A judge in Georgia did so in October.
John Adams, a Founding Father, once said, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” A democracy breaks down when its people lose common moral ground. This results from both moral and political polarization.
Read more in ETG article Morality-Based Democracy vs. Brutality-Based Statism
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