I didn’t have time to do this last night, but will now share the portions of the Diane Rehm interview that disturbed and depressed me. Then I'll follow up with a shorter post explaining my main take-away. I know most people probably won't read these lengthy quotes, but I'll share them to provide context anyway. I bolded some sentences to make it a bit easier to grasp the point of that particular section.
She was interviewing the following people:
• Moises Naim distinguished fellow, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and chief international columnist, El Pais; author of "The End of Power: From Boardrooms to Battlefields and Churches to States, Why Being in Charge Isn't What It Used to Be"
• Alina Polyakova deputy director of the Dinu Patriciu Eurasia Center, The Atlantic Council, and senior fellow at the Future Europe Initiative; author of "Dark Side of European Integration"
• Yascha Mounk lecturer on government at Harvard University; fellow in the political reform program at New America; author of "Stranger in My Own Country"
Here are the quotes I found interesting:
MOUNK I think it's really important to understand that our political system has two elements that have often gone together, but they don't necessarily have to go together. So the first is that they are democracies. I think the best way of thinking about what democracy means is simply that it's a mechanism for translating popular views into public policies, that it's a system in which we have electoral institutions and other institutions and other institutions so that what people want and believe can be translated into what we do politically.
The other element is the liberal element. And that doesn't mean liberal/conservative. It doesn't mean Democrat/Republican. It means for protection of individual rights, the rule of law, respect for ethnic and religious minorities. And my sense is that what's happening in the world at the moment is that these two things that have often gone together are coming apart more and more. That we see a rise of two new regime forms, illiberal democracy or democracy without rights on the one side and forms of animocratic liberalism or rights without democracy, places where the rule of law is respected, but where people's views aren't heard on the other side.
REHM So you've identified three primary factors as a kind of early warning system. Give us a sense of that.
MOUNK Yeah. So political scientists have long believed that what they call Democratic consolidation as a one-way street, that once a country is relatively affluent, once you’ve had a couple of turnovers of government through free and fair elections, you really don't have to worry about the stability of democracy anymore. Democracy has become what they call the only game in town. And so in my recent research with my colleague, Roberto Stefan Foa, we start to think about and look a little bit at whether or not democracy still is the only game in town.
MOUNK Now, what does it mean for democracy to be the only game in town? Well, three things should have to be true. Most people give a lot of value to democracy, they're in favor of democracy, they think it's important to live in a democracy, that's a first. The second is that they really don't -- aren't open to other alternatives to democracy. They don't like the idea of dictatorship or military rule or technocrats running things. And the third is that there aren't any parties, politicians, political movements that are really powerful that undermine democratic norms, that in many ways, want to abolish the system or radically change the system.
MOUNK And we started to look at some of these warning signs in the United States and other places and what we found has been pretty concerning.
REHM Moises Naim, what about examples of liberal democracies elsewhere in Latin America, for example?
NAIM Latin America has a long history of swinging before the -- between autocracies and (word?) democracies. Democracies are always imperfect in Latin America and elsewhere. And then, we have these wide swings, very often propelled by financial crisis, by economic crashes. And in general, Latin America has been a pioneer, sadly, in the world that we now see where there is a huge gap between expectations and government performance. That has always existed and exists everywhere.
NAIM Governments always tend to underperform compared to the expectations of the voters of the population. But in recent years, we have seen the gap going even further because, first, their expectations are higher and second, governments, democracies, are having a harder time delivering because of financial constraints, because of political gridlock for a variety of reasons that create conditions that lead people to hope that perhaps a non democracy can have a better performance, which is not the case, except that they are more able to hide their underperformance and repress those that challenge and protest against the government.
REHM And to you, Alina Polyakova, what have you seen happening in Europe?
POLYAKOVA Well, looking at both Western, Eastern Europe today, of course we see the surge of these populist far-right political parties and leaders that very much subscribe to this anti-liberal, we say, managed democracy view of the world. A view of the world that is very much at odds with what we come to understand as Western liberalism more broadly. And this is driven by similar factors across Western and Eastern Europe and also in the United States. I think it's important to remember these are not isolated incidents, what's happening in South America, what's happening across Europe and what's happening in the United States.
POLYAKOVA It's part of a bigger historical moment, as I see it, that is giving the rise to these populist authoritarian leaders who may come to power in democratic countries, but then can incrementally roll back some of those democratic constitutions that we came to believe were not possible to dismantle so easily.
REHM Moises, specifically, what do you see happening in Venezuela?
NAIM Yeah, Venezuela is an extreme example of a government that one election became -- started as a democrat government and started undermining democracy from the inside. It used its powers to limit checks and balances, to treat political people, the opposition, criminalizing the opposition and going down the list that we have seen around the world. They do that in some places very stealthily and in some places more openly. But we see a pattern.
NAIM There is a, you know, a behavior that is now global in how these governments that win elections and initially democratic governments end up becoming highly centralized, autocratic and, as I said, undermining the democracy that allowed them to win.
REHM At the same time, Yascha Mounk, to what extent are populations themselves and, indeed, the media complicit when democracies begin to falter?
MOUNK The really worrying thing at the moment is the extent to which people are falling out of love with democracy and becoming open to alternatives to it. And so we were talking earlier about these three warning signs. They are flashing red, at the moment, in the United States. When you ask people how important is it to you to live in a democracy, you ask people who were born in the 1930s and the 1940s, over two-thirds say ten out of ten, really important. You get to millennials, born since 1980, less than one-third say that it's really important to them.
(snipping lengthy excerpt giving examples across the world, how young people value democracy less because they don’t have exposure to the alternative)
POLYAKOVA In the United States, for example, from a survey from about five years ago talking about warning signs, we saw that individuals without a college degree, half of them would approve of an authoritarian leader that is completely unchecked by Congress or other forms of checked government we have in the U.S.
REHM And where was that survey taken?
POLYAKOVA This is world values survey. So it's a huge survey that is global. And these are just the figures for the United States. And this number has been growing over time.
REHM Is that shocking to you, Yascha?
MOUNK Yeah, so this is some of the same data that we draw on in the study, and, you know, we went to that data because we had a suspicion that things may be deteriorating. But when we started to actually look at those questions, questions that don't just look at are you happy with a particular government you have at the moment, are you happy with how particular legislation is going but really questions about are you happy with this political regime form, of democracy itself, we were very shocked.
MOUNK We thought we might find something. We didn't hope that we would find something quite so extreme. So the movement away from support for liberal democracy has been -- has been strong in the United States and in other countries. And I agree with Alina that it's sort of a -- it's a slightly paradoxical thing, where, you know, part of the reason for this is not that -- you know, I don't think most people actually would like army dictatorship.
MOUNK In countries where they've experienced military dictatorship, most people tend not to like it. I think America -- Americans have a freedom-loving people. I think they would actually hate it if it actually came to that. But it's an abstract idea for them. And what we see at the moment is their deep dissatisfaction of a system, and that makes them ready to say you know what, let's do some experiments, let's try something new, anything, I don't care what.
MOUNK If it actually came to that, they would hate it, but at that time it might be too late because once you slip out of liberal democracy, it's very, very difficult to get back to it.
REHM So in the declining democracies that you have studied, how was the electorate itself co-opted into becoming part of that letting go?
MOUNK Well, what often happens is that you have a populist leader who says a couple of things. He says there's a common sense -- all of the political problems are not because the world is complicated, and there's automation, and there's globalization, and it's difficult to know how to deal with it. No, he says the political elites are corrupt. They care more about their own bank accounts and about ethnic and religious minorities, which you dislike, when we care about you. And all we need to do to fix our political problems is for you to elect me. I'm going to be your voice, I'm going to speak for you, I'm going to speak for the real people. I'm going to get rid of all the corrupt people, and your problems will be solved.
REHM Where have you seen that happen?
MOUNK I've seen that happen in Turkey, in Russia, in Hungary, in Poland, in Venezuela, and some might argue that it has been happening in the United States.
REHM Moises, how do you see it?
NAIM I completely -- I completely agree. And we have seen a formula. We have seen a pattern on what you have to do to win an election in the 21st century. And it's uncanny and very worrisome how these patterns are everywhere. It starts, as he said, with denying any value to what has been happening and whoever is creating an internal or domestic enemy, the elites, the people that have been in government, is Washington, And then also creating an external enemy.
NAIM Polarization becomes a very important tool in which this leader generates popular support. And so the external leader in Venezuela, (unintelligible) the United States, in Putin's Russia is NATO, and for Donald Trump the Mexicans and China. And so you need -- you know, they create an external enemy. They deny legitimacy to those domestic politicians, their rivals. They don't think of them as rivals. They think of them as mortal enemies and that do not have legitimacy.
NAIM And the results are the criminalization of political rivals and the delegitimization of the media. It's very important -- you know, they don't -- they start by denying the media the right -- they don't treat them as legitimate players, and they don't treat their political adversaries as legitimate players.
MOUNK Well, I think there's a number of things that has been happening in most places in the world. One is a huge urban-rural divide where urban areas have been doing very well over the last 20 or 30 years, and rural areas have really lagged behind more and more. And they feel...
REHM And you're talking about employment and income and living standards.
MOUNK Yes, absolutely, living standards, opportunity but also culturally, I think, the divide between these areas has grown. So that's one thing. The second thing that's important is just living standards in general. That's clear in some ways in European countries or in Turkey, but in a place like the United States and most of Western Europe, it's absolutely striking. All through the history of the stability of democracy, we've seen very rapid increases in the living standards of average people from one generation to the next.
MOUNK So in the United States, from 1935 to 1960, the living standard of an average American doubles. From 1960 to 1985, it doubles again. And since 1985 it's been stagnant. Somebody who's 30 years old today has a 50 percent chance of earning more than their parent did when they were 30. It used to be over 90 percent of the population for that is true. And so the question now is, is our system stable if we live in relatively affluent societies. In that case we're probably going to be fine.
MOUNK Or is our system only stable if we have this continual increase in the living standards of average people? And if that's the case, then we may be headed for some very, very turbulent times.
REHM Alina?
POLYAKOVA But at the same time, again going back to Europe, we are seeing the emergence of populist authoritarianism in affluent societies, societies that have been very much hit by the financial crisis.
REHM Such as?
POLYAKOVA Such as Sweden, such as The Netherlands, Denmark. All of these countries are seeing huge surges in populist authoritarianism, and I'm not even talking about Switzerland, one of the wealthiest countries in the world, where they have a majority ruling populist far-right party for quite some time now. So I think it's easier to perhaps think about this in terms of kind of relative deprivation, economic decline, but in fact this is a much broader pattern.
REHM You know, during this 2016 election, Moises, we heard a great deal of criticism of globalization as being a very important part of why so many people are suffering. They've lost jobs, they've lost incomes. How important a role does globalization play in these feelings of almost discrimination against workers at the lower levels?
NAIM Yes because remember, Diane, I mentioned the importance of having an external enemy. You have to have an internal enemy that you don't recognize as such, as a legitimate alternative voice, and you need to have an external threat.
REHM Yascha, one of the more alarming pieces of research you've come across has to do with the number of Americans who say Army rule in this country would be a good thing.
MOUNK Yes, and that's a great indicator because it's a very extreme alternative. It's not saying do you want the president to have a little bit more power, do you want experts to have a bit more of a role. If you say Army rule is a good system of government, you really have fallen out of democracy with a very deep way. Now 20 years ago, one in 16 Americans said Army rule would be a good system of government.
REHM One in 16 20 years ago.
MOUNK Yes, and today it is one in six. So it's still a minority of Americans, it's still not all that many people, but it has more than doubled over the course of 20 years.
REHM So what does that mean when the president-elect appoints a number of generals to really high places, where previously there would have been civilian leadership?
MOUNK Well, I think it's a worrying development. It's worrying to have military generals in positions that were usually reserved for civilians. It is also worrying when the president-elect says, as he did a couple of days ago, that he wants a private security force around him, which is how authoritarianism has started in many different countries. You know, there's one...
REHM What does that mean, a private security force? I mean, do you interpret that as doing away with the Secret Service? Do you interpret that as surrounding himself with paid non-governmental police? How do you...
MOUNK That's my understanding. I haven't followed that news story in 100 percent of detail, but my understanding is that the president has been protected by the Secret Service and at local events by local police forces. And Donald Trump was saying no, during the campaign I built up a bunch of bodyguards and private security forces that I employed, and I want to continue doing that as president, which other presidents have not done.
REHM And give me an example of another country where that kind of private security force was sort of an early indicator?
MOUNK Well in -- I'm reluctant to make that comparison, but in a lot of fascist countries. One of the key elements that captured the state and that gave a leader power were private security forces of a very similar kind. Now I don't think that that's what Donald Trump is planning to do, and I should be clear about that. By the way, I think one of the important differences between Donald Trump and populist leaders in places like Poland or Hungary is that they are ideologically committed to the project of illegal democracy, that they understand, that they want to make the country a lot less liberal, much more hierarchical.
MOUNK I don't think Donald Trump is as ideological self-conscious as they are. I don't think that he has a clear alternative for the kind of system he wants in the United States. I just think that he has very similar instincts.
POLYAKOVA Right, so, one thing that we should remember is that once you have a populist government come into power, there's no just one point when truth and democracy is gone. These are slow incremental changes that happen over time. They happen through democratic processes. So in Poland, for example, we have the ruling party, the PiS Party in power now, since 2015. They have been instituting some of these push backs and rollbacks in democracy. One, most recent one, is now inciting mass street protest across Poland.
POLYAKOVA Is their attempt to censor the media by not allowing independent journalists to report directly from the Parliament, which was always the case before. And since last week, Polish people have come out on the streets protesting against this. And the government has been forced to respond, so they have taken this law off now, off the voting measures. So what we are seeing is that society, civil society can push back, but it takes engagement and it takes people following and holding their governments accountable for what they're trying to do as they implement their vision of illiberal states, as Viktor Orban of Hungary has called this.
