plutocracy political repression in the u.s.a

In the last few years, citizens all across Europe organize to take their governments to court for their lack of actions before the climate emergency. Hard-won democratic reforms are being eroded by an entitled, affluent elite, who are doing their utmost to stymie progressive reforms and suppress broadly shared democratic sentiments. In contrast to what Alexis de Tocqueville long ago dubbed the “tyranny of the majority,” the threat today comes from a tyrannical minority. Progressives need to push back against this explanatory framework. Such was the premise of a piece published in New York magazine in 2016 by Andrew Sullivan, who argued that “hyperdemocratic” society was eroding vital “barriers between the popular will and the exercise of power.” Regular people, we are told, can’t be trusted to appreciate and protect democratic principles and procedures. Under this view, the crisis of democracy is caused, in effect, by an excess of democracy. We live in a “populist moment,” pundits including Yascha Mounk tell us, and Brexit, the rise of ethno-nationalist movements and parties in Europe, India, and Brazil, and the United States lend credence to this view. Consider, for example, the common refrain that “populism” is to blame for our current predicament. Unfortunately, conventional narratives too often get things wrong. In order to determine what a progressive agenda to repair and revitalize democracy should be, we need to understand what has gone awry. It falls into disrepair and disrepute, thanks to the action or inaction of human beings who have lost touch with or, in some cases, sabotaged the tenets, responsibilities, and possibilities that a system of self-government entails. It is undermined, attacked, or allowed to wither. During the Covid-19 pandemic, they found that the conditions of democracy and human rights had deteriorated in eighty countries including Belarus, Egypt, France, Sri Lanka, the United States, Uganda and many more – “exacerbating the 14 years of consecutive decline in freedom” worldwide.ĭemocracy, however, doesn’t retreat either of its own accord or by some organic or immutable process. According to the 2018 Freedom House annual report, “seventy-one countries suffered net declines in political rights and civil liberties” in 2017, leading to an overall decrease in global freedom. Recent research reveals that democracy, defined by the preceding attributes, has weakened worldwide over the last decade or so. Today, the liberal democratic compact appears to be breaking down-democracy, we often hear, is in crisis.

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Plutocracy political repression in the u.s.a