This piece reminded me of Chomsky's critique of modern liberalism. It's been a while since I heard it (this was back in 2018 or so), so I may misrepresent it somewhat.
What he argued is that liberalism has manifested itself as a cabal of elites. Those elites disagree on many things, but there is one thing on which they do agree: that they are the ones fit to govern, and while the occasional rabble-rouser may be allowed into the legislatures, they aren't to be allowed to exercise any more power than any other ordinary legislator (and, if possible, should be sidelined).
The role of the people in this implementation of liberal democracy, then, is not to have actual influence over policy; it is to consider the competing proposals of the various factions of the governing cabal and choose between them periodically. True participatory democracy is anathema to this vision of liberal democracy.
What happened in 2016 in the United States was that both parties faced a populist insurgency, the Republican Party with Donald Trump, and the Democratic Party with Bernie Sanders. The insurgency was successful in the former case and failed in the latter (and failed again four years later). Rage at the elite cabal then propelled the successful insurgent to an election victory on the back of support from places that had felt as though the policies of those elites had failed them.
Of course, the insurgency has in turn metastasised into its own elitist cabal with different criteria for inclusion while still attempting to broadcast the populist message. Meanwhile the other camp stays stuck to a great extent in its own elitism, promising not to bring true democratic participation but rather just to restore the old elitist cabal.
The old elitist cabal was not liberal democracy, of course, but rather lizard democracy; the new cabal said they were humans, and won support on the back of that claim, but have now revealed themselves simply to be another species of lizard.
But the humans all have the vote, and for a lot of them, putting in an actual human is less important than keeping out the wrong lizard.
I'm a Chomsky "fan", but not an expert. I think he'd be careful about framing "liberal", but he certainly had a lot to say about elites, and our problems are exactly as you and Mike agree -- that elites are too smug to descend to real democracy. The Founders' fears of mobocracy ("populism"?) are met by civics education (hey, where did that go?), and we are in the throes of reconstituting where the hell we can recover that in time (one-by-one, folks, as Mike suggests - you never know)
I've copied this pregnant sentence for wider sharing - obvious but overlooked in the present state of consumerism: "Democracy isn’t a consumer service where you select preferred policies from competing vendors. It’s a participatory responsibility that demands the hard work of persuasion, coalition-building, and engagement across difference."
This piece reminded me of Chomsky's critique of modern liberalism. It's been a while since I heard it (this was back in 2018 or so), so I may misrepresent it somewhat.
What he argued is that liberalism has manifested itself as a cabal of elites. Those elites disagree on many things, but there is one thing on which they do agree: that they are the ones fit to govern, and while the occasional rabble-rouser may be allowed into the legislatures, they aren't to be allowed to exercise any more power than any other ordinary legislator (and, if possible, should be sidelined).
The role of the people in this implementation of liberal democracy, then, is not to have actual influence over policy; it is to consider the competing proposals of the various factions of the governing cabal and choose between them periodically. True participatory democracy is anathema to this vision of liberal democracy.
What happened in 2016 in the United States was that both parties faced a populist insurgency, the Republican Party with Donald Trump, and the Democratic Party with Bernie Sanders. The insurgency was successful in the former case and failed in the latter (and failed again four years later). Rage at the elite cabal then propelled the successful insurgent to an election victory on the back of support from places that had felt as though the policies of those elites had failed them.
Of course, the insurgency has in turn metastasised into its own elitist cabal with different criteria for inclusion while still attempting to broadcast the populist message. Meanwhile the other camp stays stuck to a great extent in its own elitism, promising not to bring true democratic participation but rather just to restore the old elitist cabal.
The old elitist cabal was not liberal democracy, of course, but rather lizard democracy; the new cabal said they were humans, and won support on the back of that claim, but have now revealed themselves simply to be another species of lizard.
But the humans all have the vote, and for a lot of them, putting in an actual human is less important than keeping out the wrong lizard.
I'm a Chomsky "fan", but not an expert. I think he'd be careful about framing "liberal", but he certainly had a lot to say about elites, and our problems are exactly as you and Mike agree -- that elites are too smug to descend to real democracy. The Founders' fears of mobocracy ("populism"?) are met by civics education (hey, where did that go?), and we are in the throes of reconstituting where the hell we can recover that in time (one-by-one, folks, as Mike suggests - you never know)
I've copied this pregnant sentence for wider sharing - obvious but overlooked in the present state of consumerism: "Democracy isn’t a consumer service where you select preferred policies from competing vendors. It’s a participatory responsibility that demands the hard work of persuasion, coalition-building, and engagement across difference."
How impressed are you with Judge Luttig's recent declaration?
Democracy is a right. But it also is a duty.
love the comment about democracy being the teenager at the table working to be heard