Democratic regression in comparative perspective: scope, methods, and causes
Democratic regression began beneath the surface long before it became obvious through overt anti-democratic movements.<p>Democratic regression started when the majority of people in countries like the USA started to feel as if they had no viable choice that actually represented their own interests or ideas. This is why most people don&#x27;t vote. They see it as a choice between &quot;the puppet on the left&quot; and &quot;the puppet on the right.&quot;<p>I mean take 2012. Obama had clearly demonstrated himself to be Bush&#x27;s third term, at least when it comes to quite a few issues such as banking reform and remaining entangled in Iraq. For all his &quot;change&quot; rhetoric Obama didn&#x27;t change much. His opposition was Mitt Romney, a literal member of the financial elite who signaled nothing beyond an intention to represent that elite.<p>Nobody signaled an intent to represent the actual interests of the middle or working class in the US. Nobody talked about pushing back on unfair trade policies or taking any other steps to return good jobs (a.k.a. not service jobs) to the US. Nobody even really acknowledged that there was a problem.<p>Then in 2016 you had Hillary Clinton who clearly would continue Obama&#x27;s policies and seemed to be working on trade pacts to further accelerate outsourcing to China, and you had a wildcard self-styled populist upstart. I can&#x27;t stand Trump, consider him dangerous, and did not vote for him, but I can totally understand people who did. He was the first candidate in at least a generation to even <i>acknowledge</i> the economic collapse of the American center.<p>The Democratic Party and the left continue to think Trump&#x27;s victory was about race, and I still think they are wrong. Yes there are racists and yes they like Trump, but those people were never going to vote for Hillary Clinton anyway. Maybe a few of them voted when they otherwise would have stayed home, but I don&#x27;t buy the idea that some tide of closet neo-Nazis and 4chan incels swept him into office. Do they ever ask people in these polls if they actually voted or intend to vote?<p>Trump won because historically blue &quot;rust belt&quot; states tipped, and that was because of his economic rhetoric... which was ironically <i>liberal</i> in some ways. He ran as a social conservative but as an economic liberal, and that overlaps quite well with working class America. He may be lying and just saying what he needs to say to get elected, but that&#x27;s what he <i>said</i> and that&#x27;s what people voted for.<p>Another major ingredient was the collapse of trust. The Bush administration lied us into a war, and then in 2008 we bailed out the banking interests that created the crisis while leaving the actual economy to rot. Those two events did more to undermine American democracy than a thousand Russian troll farms could ever achieve. People no longer believe in our system.<p>We&#x27;ve been a very dysfunctional democracy for decades. What we are seeing is the final collapse of the facade revealing the rotten structure underneath.