For over half a century after WWII the US and the UK were, in spite of their many faults, beacons of democracy for the rest of the world. Which included inside the concept also the sub-properties of "beacons of efficiency" and "beacons of prosperity". Especially when the rest of the world was divided mainly into 1) recently leveled by carpet bombing, 2) starving 3rd world village, 3) red concentration camp.
Those leveled by carpet bombings rebuilt; the red concentration camps reformed; some starving villages stopped starving, and they all looked up to "The West" when they did so. This was a standard to which you could point and say "This is how you do it, so let's stop messing around, shall we?"
Today this international standard of democracy is being undermined, publicly, in two ways.
1) Externally--foreign policy behavior. The whole pulling up the drawbridge mood, with suddenly pulling out of this and that, refusing to continue giving guarantees to allies, and so on. This attacks the idea of institutional continuity, and gives credibility to the old Mussolini, and even
proto-Mussolini arguments against liberal democracy, that it is not fit for the modern world, because the elected representatives are too easily purchased by lobbies, and also you can't trust any government which changes every 4 or 5 or 7 years, depending on the system. What's the point of working for years on major international agreements, if at any point a newly elected government can come over and say "nope, we're pulling out, screw you"?
So this pooping all over the concept of continuity is indeed a threat to the very concept of democracy, and politics, just like markets, depend a lot on mood and interpretation. Had the center not won in the important EU elections this year, the world's belief in democracy would have been lying in a pool of blood, even just from the foreign policy behavior of what used to be the beacon of democracy.
2) Internally--peaceful handover of power and accepting that even if your candidate lost, the new government is legitimate for everyone. Both the US and the UK are split down the middle, very vocally, aggressively even, and one half keeps toying with the idea of the current government not being legitimate because of X, Y, and Z. Had liberal democracy not survived in the EU in 2017, this second internal undermining of the concept of democracy would have been the death blow, delivered by accident, through the best of intentions.
Democracy is only a legitimate concept if
a) international deals and alliances are honored even when governments change, and
b) internal election results are honored even if one really, really wanted one's party to win but it didn't. Everything else like peace, prosperity, predictability, and stability grows out of those two. One of those being under threat at the same time on both sides of the Atlantic is bad. Both being under threat is... If the EU and China had not been in a position to at least start pretending to take on the responsibility for the world while the Anglo-Americans go through their nervous breakdowns, we'd be back in 1939 by now.
We're not, only because enough carpet bombed places have been rebuilt, enough red concentration camps have reformed, and enough starving 3rd world villages have stopped starving, and the accumulated strength of these places is picking up the Anglo-American slack. For now. Because the reforms were inspired by the Anglo-American example* and if it discredits itself in front of the world, who knows what will take its place.
In Europe, in China, in Russia, in India, everywhere the resulting conceptual vacuum is likely to be filled by hate-peddling, history-rewriting, tradition-hijacking opportunists "See? This system didn't work even for them, how can it work for us? Enough reforms! Time to reclaim our roots and show the world that total obedience to the state and church is where it's at... Equality undermines the spirit of our people! Castes and hereditary rulers shall preserve us in eternity! Minorities that are not vile in the eyes of God and are to be exterminated, must know their place and be grateful! Cooperation and commerce is for losers! Only self-sacrifice on the fields of deadly conquest allows the soul to shine!" and so on.
When you've reached the top, and everyone is looking at you, trying to be you, while secretly hating you and being envious of you, fucking up isn't just about you anymore.
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*Not only in Russia, not only in China, but even Vietnam!! Which was a mix of carpet bombed
and starving third world village
and red concentration camp, and the Anglo-American center was responsible for at least one of those three, and yet even Vietnam conceded the system of the enemy has many benefits and began reforming.
