If democracy is to recapture the world’s imagination, it will have to show it can deliver a better way of life than the autocrats
Every time the president of the United States declares the free press an enemy or calls to congratulate a newly elected strongman, it comes as a reminder of what we already knew: democracy is in retreat, in the US and around the world. An apologist for military dictatorship now leads Brazil. China’s premier no longer has to worry about term limits. Hungary, Turkey and the Philippines have opted for authoritarians. Surveys suggest that people around the world, including the young, have declining faith in democracy as a sensible way to govern.
Democracy’s champions, meanwhile, are rushing to the barricades in defense. The new leadership of the House of Representatives has made this session’s HR 1 bill a tome that, when all is said and done, at best catches the country up to best practices internationally. Others are going to court to defend old norms, like presidents disclosing their tax returns. They fly to places where ballot access is under attack and watch for irregularities. These are all noble-enough causes, but they don’t do sufficient justice to the fact of how poorly the institutions being defended have come to serve us.
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