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      in World Politics

      Biden’s Binary Battle Against Putin

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      Well before his trip to Europe, Joe Biden’s team worked out the strategy for its messaging that would color everything connected to foreign policy. Vox summed up the drift with this title: “Biden sees his presidency as proving democracy — not authoritarianism — right for the world.” It is now common for pundits to lament that democracy appears to be under threat, though few agree on the nature of that threat.

      Just as during the Cold War, the US understands the marketing advantage of casting its global mission in binary terms. But this time, instead of communism vs. capitalism, the contrast is between democracy and authoritarianism. The average political consumer will immediately see it as a real and significant choice. In reality, there will always be a third and fourth choice, but deliberating on those choices requires serious thinking. The third choice is neither, which means rejecting both as insufficient. The fourth is something in between, which is what most European nations chose following World War II.

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      Faced with the binary choice, nearly everyone besides autocrats themselves will spontaneously choose democracy. But choosing the side that calls itself democratic doesn’t mean that one has chosen democracy. It means one has chosen the side that claims to represent democracy. Like any set of ideas, democracy can be a coherent philosophy accompanied by an ethical system of thought or a mere slogan. In the land of P.T. Barnum and Edward Bernays, the father of public relations, one can never be absolutely sure.

      The Biden administration has clearly understood the advantages of the binary strategy. It is even more compelling in the light of the ostentatious assault on democracy conducted by President Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trump. The Trump loyalists who complain of a stolen election are clearly a minority, but they remain a significant minority, capable of doing extensive damage. They further weaken the already fragile belief that the US electoral system embodies true democratic values. They offer a glaring example to the rest of the world of virulently anti-democratic behavior. They confirm the image many people have of a culture so obsessed with winning that it could never tolerate the give-and-take that democracy implies.

      Following Biden’s arrival in England for the G7 conference, The New York Times reported that the US president “has made challenging a rising China and a disruptive Russia the centerpiece of a foreign policy designed to build up democracies around the world as a bulwark against spreading authoritarianism.”

      Today’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:

      Authoritarianism:

      The epithet commonly attributed by one political authority, whose power derives from a sense of obedience to a particular group of interests, to another political authority who responds to a different group of interests

      Contextual Note

      In today’s remake of the Cold War — which, in many ways, resembles more the facades of a Hollywood set than it does the decades-long historical standoff between the US and the Soviet Union — Biden desperately needed to define a similar ideological split, even though the entire world had fallen into the global political and economic culture imposed by the US. Guided by his political marketers, the 78-year-old could appreciate that the winning formula from the 1950s and 1960s might still resonate with his countrymen. After all, Trump earned his victory in 2016 by exploiting the implicit nostalgia for the post-war years of prosperity with his motto, “Make America Great Again.” Americans have been conditioned to think of the 1950s as their golden age.

      Embed from Getty Images

      This idea has been brewing in the Biden administration for some time as the president’s way of defining his mission in the world. As the Times remarks, “Mr. Biden has argued that the world is at an ‘inflection point,’ with an existential battle underway between democracy and autocracy.” What was once capitalism vs. communism has become democracy vs. autocracy. 

      It may seem paradoxical that following his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Geneva on June 16, Biden described Putin’s state of mind in these terms: “The last thing he wants now is a Cold War.” This sounds reassuring. Could it mean that the new cold war is over? It is more likely that, once back on terra firma in the US, Biden will return to his theme of the Russian threat, warning that you can never trust Russian leaders. He will certainly boast of his diplomatic accomplishment, lowering the temperature, while seizing on the first occasion that presents itself to accuse Russia of not keeping its promises.

      For the moment, the vibes produced by the Geneva summit appear positive, positive enough in any case to leave The New York Times unsure of how to characterize the meeting. The Times journalists highlight Putin’s assertions of good intentions, but they leave considerable space for doubt about any concrete future outcome when they write: “Mr. Putin said he was ready for talks with the United States, and he voiced unusual optimism about the possibility of achieving results.” “Unusual” was the required epithet, meaning that any hope of actually achieving results should, in the readers’ minds, remain doubtful. The fact that dialogue exists, nevertheless, stands as a very real victory for Biden, if only as a contrast with Trump’s confrontational approach to diplomacy.

      The article concludes by highlighting Putin’s literary culture, who cited Leo Tolstoy to sum up the outcome of the summit. “There is no happiness in life — there are only glimmers of it.” For Americans, who believe in their absolute right to the “pursuit of happiness,” this will be seen as a typical example of Russian fatalistic pessimism, something that Americans, whose culture celebrates optimism, will never accept. It has its literary charm, but it lacks the pizazz of Yankee ambition.

      Historical Note

      Most serious observers today are aware of a deep crisis of Western democracy, a more than two-century-old experiment that sought to demonstrate the possibility of creating and maintaining a government responsive to the people rather than as the privileged tool of a ruling class. The US and other Western countries have recently been faced with the confusion associated with the rise of populism, both on the left and the right.

      Populist movements are suspicious of those who have assumed the habit of governing, whatever their declared political orientation. Not only do they appear self-interested, but they are also seen as the hypocritical puppets of an obscurely perceived oligarchical class. The populists are right to suppose that there is more to the exercise of power than appears in the discourse of the power-wielding politicians. They call it the “deep state” and imagine it as a kind of dark well whose depth is unknown but can only be speculated about.

      Today’s version of capitalism is less industrial than purely financial. That means that power will always be measured by the ability of those who exercise or influence power to pay for what they want. In such a system, can democracy as 18th-century Enlightenment thinkers imagined it still have any meaning? A famous Princeton study published in 2014 describes the reality of decision-making today and calls the political system an oligarchy. “In the United States, our findings indicate, the majority does not rule.” It notes that “policymaking is dominated by powerful business organizations and a small number of affluent Americans.” It concludes that “America’s claims to being a democratic society are seriously threatened.”

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      The Balance website characterizes oligarchy in these terms: “Oligarchs only associate with others who share those same traits. They become an organized minority, while average citizens remain an unorganized majority. The oligarchs groom protégés who share their values and goals. It becomes more difficult for the average person to break into the group of elites.” That would appear to be a more accurate description of US politics today than the romantic idea of Jeffersonian democracy or Abraham Lincoln’s “government of the people, by the people and for the people.”

      Then comes the question: Is an oligarchy authoritarian? No, because there is no single decision-maker or institution capable of defining government policy. But neither is it a democracy. If he wished to be honest, perhaps Joe Biden should characterize the combat for the future as a contest between oligarchy and autocracy. The problem: It doesn’t sound convincing to Americans, who still feel an atavistic attachment to the idea of democracy.

      *[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

    • 188 Shares139 Views

      in US Politics

      Biden rejects Putin’s ‘ridiculous comparison’ between Capitol rioters and Alexei Navalny at summit – live

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      Key events

      Show

      5.53pm EDT
      17:53

      Governor signs law allowing Texans to carry handguns without a license

      5.23pm EDT
      17:23

      Academics: Breyer must retire from supreme court

      5.00pm EDT
      17:00

      Today so far

      4.43pm EDT
      16:43

      DoJ moves to drop lawsuit over Bolton’s tell-all book – reports

      3.16pm EDT
      15:16

      Biden – ‘Russia is in a very, very difficult spot right now’

      2.33pm EDT
      14:33

      Democrats ready to advance infrastructure plans on their own – report

      1.53pm EDT
      13:53

      Biden rejects Putin’s ‘ridiculous comparison’ between Capitol rioters and Navalny

      Live feed

      Show

      5.53pm EDT
      17:53

      Governor signs law allowing Texans to carry handguns without a license

      Texas governor Greg Abbott has signed a law allowing residents to carry handguns without a license or training starting in September.
      My colleague Erum Salam wrote about the controversial law in April:

      The law mirrors measures passed in 20 other states. It comes at the heels of several mass shootings around the country, and in Texas. In April, a man in Bryan, Texas opened fire at the cabinet company where he used to work, killing one person and injuring five people.

      5.44pm EDT
      17:44

      The Justice Department thew out a Trump-era ruling that made it virtually impossible for immigrants fleeing domestic violence to seek asylum in the US.
      Former attorney general Jeff Sessions had overruled a previous court decision that people facing domestic violence in their home countries were eligible for asylum. Today, the Justice Department “vacated” that decision. Attorney general Merrick Garland wrote that questions about which groups be considered for asylum “should instead be left to the forthcoming rulemaking, where they can be resolved with the benefit of a full record and public comment.”
      Garland’s move had been celebrated by immigrant rights advocates. “Around the world, in Central America and elsewhere, women struggle to have governments ensure, or in some cases recognize, their right to protection,” Human Rights Watch said in a statement.

      5.23pm EDT
      17:23

      Academics: Breyer must retire from supreme court

      David Smith

      A group of 18 legal academics has issued an extraordinary joint letter urging US supreme court justice Stephen Breyer to retire so that Joe Biden can name his successor. More

    • 138 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      Biden meeting marks rare trip out of ‘bunker’ for Covid-cautious Putin

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      For more than a year, people who have wanted to get within breathing distance of Vladimir Putin have performed a ritual, two-week quarantine in Russian hotels and sanatoriums to protect the 68-year-old president from falling ill with coronavirus.Since March 2020, powerful business people, regional governors, his pilots and medical staff, volunteers at an economic conference, and even second world war veterans have shut themselves away to meet the Kremlin leader or even stand in his general vicinity.So it will be a rare sit-down when Putin jets into Geneva to meet Joe Biden, who has been on a whirlwind tour through Europe, attending the G7 summit in Cornwall and then flying to Brussels for meetings with EU and Nato leaders before travelling to Switzerland. Putin has not publicly travelled abroad since the outbreak of coronavirus in early 2020, hosting foreign leaders in Moscow or Sochi and holding most of his meetings with government ministers and regional governors over videoconference.Critics have chided Putin for sheltering in a “bunker” during the coronavirus outbreak, reportedly protected by medical tunnels of dubious efficacy that sprayed visitors with a cloud of disinfectant.The Proekt investigative website later claimed the Kremlin had built an identical windowless office in Sochi, a resort city on the Black Sea, where Putin was reportedly holding meetings while he was believed to be in Moscow.All that was expected to end after Putin was given his first Sputnik vaccine dose in March, a procedure that was not documented on camera but that the Kremlin said the media would “have to take our word for it”.But the two-week quarantine period has remained for many visitors, including the US television crew who met Putin for an interview before the summit.“Appreciate the extra time, Mr President,” said Keir Simmons, an NBC correspondent. “The team has been in quarantine for almost two weeks, so this interview is very important to us.” Russian state television journalists have faced similar quarantine measures.The international coronavirus response will probably take a back seat in Wednesday’s discussions to pressing issues of strategic stability, as the US and Russia try to regulate their strained, hostile relationship.But they come as coronavirus has in effect halted normal business and tourism travel between Russia and the US, a result of Russia’s coronavirus travel restrictions and forced staff reductions at US embassies that make it difficult for Russians to get visas to the US.Vaccines administered in the two countries also remain mutually unrecognised by medical authorities, portending a political battle for their approval.Slow vaccination rates in Russia have led to “explosive growth in cases”, according to the Moscow mayor, Sergei Sobyanin, leading him to declare a week-long business holiday.Before the trip for the summit, Putin’s spokesperson Dmitri Peskov told journalists he was not vaccinated because he still had a high antibody count from when he had coronavirus last year.“All safety precautions have been taken extremely seriously,” said Yuri Ushakov, a Putin aide. “From the standpoint of the presidents’ health, both the Americans and we have taken a very serious approach toward this. There have been not that many in-person contacts lately, and so the special attention attached to these issues is natural.” More

    • 138 Shares119 Views

      in Elections

      Biden says Putin a 'worthy adversary' ahead of talks – video

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      Joe Biden said meeting with Vladimir Putin would be ‘critical’ and that he would offer to cooperate on areas of common interest if the Kremlin so choses. Biden warned that if Russia chose not to cooperate in areas like cybersecurity ‘then we will respond’. The US president also characterised Putin as ‘bright’, ‘tough’ and ‘a worthy adversary’. When questioned by reporters, Biden said the potential death of the opposition leader Alexei Navalny, now jailed in Russia, would be a tragedy and would hurt Russian relations with the rest of the world and with the United States. The two men are meeting in Geneva on 16 June for the first time as presidents

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      Vladimir Putin refuses to guarantee Navalny will survive prison
      Joe Biden to use Nato summit to atone for damage of Trump years More

    • 100 Shares99 Views

      in US Politics

      Nato summit: leaders declare China presents security risk

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      Nato leaders have declared China presents a security risk at their annual summit in Brussels, the first time the traditionally Russia-focused military alliance has asserted it needs to respond to Beijing’s growing power.The final communique, signed off by leaders of the 30-member alliance at the urging of the new US administration, said China’s “stated ambitions and assertive behaviour present systemic challenges to the rules-based international order”.After the summit, Joe Biden said that the US had a “sacred commitment” to come to the defence of its Nato allies in an effort to soothe residual nervousness in the wake of Donald Trump’s hostility. Biden said that his fellow leaders at the summit knew most Americans were committed to democracy and that the US was a “decent, honourable nation”.On the question of potential Ukrainian membership of Nato, Biden said the Russian occupation of Crimea would not be an impediment, but that Ukraine still had work to do on corruption before it could join a membership action plan.“It depends on whether they meet the criteria. The fact is, they still have to clean up corruption,” Biden said.The Nato leaders declared their concern about China’s “coercive policies” – an apparent reference to the repression of the Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang – the expansion of its nuclear arsenal and its “frequent lack of transparency and use of disinformation”.The language, notably stronger than the China remarks contained in the G7 statement agreed on Sunday, follows lobbying and pressure by the Biden administration, seeking to create a counterweight of democratic nations in response to Beijing’s growing economic and military might.However, Nato’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, insisted China was “not an adversary”, saying instead the emerging strategy was to address “the challenges” posed by Beijing, which will “soon be the biggest economy in the world” and “already has the second-largest defence budget, the biggest navy”.At the beginning of the summit, Biden said there was a growing recognition that Nato faced new challenges. “We have Russia, which is acting in a way that is not consistent with what we had hoped, and we have China.”Nato, founded in 1949 at the start of the cold war, was created to respond to the Soviet Union and more recently Russia, while Beijing rarely posed a serious security concern for its members.China had never previously been mentioned in a Nato summit declaration, apart from a brief reference in 2019 to the “opportunities and challenges” the country posed for members of the western alliance – a time when Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trump, was president.On Sunday night, Jake Sullivan, the US national security adviser, promised Nato would increase its focus on Beijing, saying that China “will feature in the communique in a more robust way than we’ve ever seen before”.Other countries have highlighted the importance of striking a balance. Boris Johnson, the UK prime minister, said as he arrived at the gathering: “I think when it comes to China, I don’t think anybody around the table today wants to descend into a new cold war.”G7 leaders criticised Beijing over human rights in its Xinjiang region, called for Hong Kong to keep a high degree of autonomy and demanded a full investigation of the origins of the coronavirus in China.China’s embassy in London said such mentions of Xinjiang, Hong Kong and Taiwan distorted the facts and exposed the “sinister intentions of a few countries such as the United States”. It added: “China’s reputation must not be slandered.”Stoltenberg also said the alliance’s relationship with Russia was at “its lowest point since the end of the cold war”. He blamed Russia’s “aggressive actions” for the deterioration in relations at the start of a one-day summit attended by Biden for the first time since he took office.Alliance members had hoped for a strong statement of support for Nato from Biden after several years in which Donald Trump dominated the summits, threatening to pull out of Nato in 2018 and storming home early in 2019.“Nato is critically important for US interests in and of itself,” Biden said as he met Stoltenberg. The president described Nato’s article 5, under which an armed attack against one member is deemed an attack against them all, as “a sacred obligation”.He added: “I want Nato to know America is there.”The allies denounced Moscow’s “hybrid actions”, “widespread disinformation campaigns”, “malicious cyber activities”, and election interference directed against Nato members. “Until Russia demonstrates compliance with international law and its international obligations and responsibilities, there can be no return to ‘business as usual’,” the statement said. “We will continue to respond to the deteriorating security environment by enhancing our deterrence and defence posture.”Alliance members agreed a new cybersecurity strategy in response, and will for the first time help each other out in the case of “cyber-attacks of significance”, mirroring Nato’s obligation of collective defence in the traditional military sphere, enshrined in article 5. More

    • 75 Shares109 Views

      in World Politics

      Democracy Is Down but Not Out

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      Alexander Lukashenko, the Belarussian dictator, snatches a dissident from midair. Military strongman Assimi Goita launches another coup in Mali. Benjamin Netanyahu escalates a military conflict to save his own political skin in Israel. In the United States, the Republican Party launches a full-court press to suppress the vote.

      Authoritarianism, like war, makes headlines. It’s hard for democracy to compete against political crackdowns, military coups and unhinged pronouncements. Sure, democracies engage in periodic elections and produce landmark pieces of legislation. But what makes democracy, like peace, successful is not the unexpected rupture, such as the election of Barack Obama, but the boring quotidian. Citizens express their opinions in public meetings. Lawmakers receive constituents in their offices. Potholes get fixed. That’s not exactly clickbait.

      Because the absence of war doesn’t make headlines, as Stephen Pinker has argued, the news media amplifies the impression that violence is omnipresent and constantly escalating when it splashes mass murder, genocide and war crimes on the front page. Peace may well be prevalent, but it isn’t newsworthy.

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      The same can be said about democracy, which has been suffering for some time from bad press. Democracies have been dragged down by corruption, hijacked by authoritarian politicians, associated with unpopular economic reforms and proven incapable (so far) of addressing major global problems like the climate crisis. After a brief surge in popularity in the immediate post-Cold War period, democracy according to the general consensus has been in retreat.

      Judging from recent quantitative assessments, the retreat has become a rout. The title of the latest Freedom House survey, for instance, is “Democracy Under Siege.” The report details how freedom around the world has eroded for the last 15 years, with 2020 featuring the greatest decline yet. The Economist Intelligence Unit, which produces a Democracy Index every year, promoted its 2020 report with the headline, “Global Democracy Has a Very Bad Year.” The authoritarian responses to the COVID-19 pandemic contributed to the worst showing so far for the model, with the average global score plummeting from the previous year. Meanwhile, the Rule of Law Index for 2020 also registered a drop for the third year in a row.

      If we extrapolate from the current trend lines, democracy will be gone in a couple of decades, melted away like the polar ice. But it’s always dangerous to make such extrapolations given history’s tendency to move in cycles not straight lines. So, let’s look at some reasons why democracy might be in for a comeback.

      The Pandemic Recedes in America

      Much of the reason for democracy’s dismal record in 2020 was the expansion of executive power and state controls in response to the COVID-19 outbreak. Some of those power grabs, such as Vladimir Putin’s constitutional changes in Russia, are still in place. Some countries, like India and Brazil, are still struggling with both COVID-19 and powerful authoritarian leaders.

      But even with the continued high rate of infection in a number of countries, the overall trajectory of the disease is downward. Since peaking in late April, the reported number of global cases has dropped nearly by half. So, two trend lines are now intersecting: the lifting of pandemic restrictions and the backlash against hapless authoritarians.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Americans, for instance, are coming to terms with both the retreat of COVID and the removal of Donald Trump from the White House, Facebook and Twitter. The Biden administration is undoing many of Trump’s undemocratic moves, including those imposed during the pandemic around immigration and refugees. The attempts by the Republican Party to tamp down voter turnout proved spectacularly unsuccessful in 2020, which despite the pandemic featured the largest-ever increase in votes from one election to the next. In terms of the voting-age population, you have to go back to 1960 to find an election with a higher percentage turnout than the 62% rate in 2020.

      This surge in voters helped put Joe Biden over the top. It has also motivated the Republican Party to redouble its efforts, this time at the state level, to suppress the vote. It is doing so under the false narrative that electoral fraud is widespread and that President Biden’s victory is somehow illegitimate. And it is setting the stage to orchestrate an authentic election theft in 2024.

      The backlash against these anti-democratic moves has been encouraging, however. When the state of Georgia passed its voting restrictions in April, pressure from voting rights advocates forced prominent Georgia corporations like Coca-Cola and Delta to reverse themselves and come out against the bill (though only after the bill had already passed). Major League Baseball pulled its all-star game from Atlanta, and Hollywood has also threatened a boycott.

      These moves motivated Texas-based companies to protest that state’s version of voting restrictions before the legislature scheduled a vote. None of that stopped Texas Republicans from pushing ahead with the bill. So, last weekend, Texas Democrats had to deploy the nuclear option of walking out of the chamber to stop the vote suppression bill from passing. These courageous Texans, up against a powerful and determined state Republican Party, are now looking to the federal government to safeguard voting rights.

      At the federal level, the Democrats have put forward for the second time a comprehensive voting reform bill, the For the People Act, to expand access, reduce corruption and limit the impact of money on politics. The House approved a version of this bill in 2019, but it died in the Republican-controlled Senate. The House passed the reboot in March, but it again faces a difficult road to passage in the Senate because filibuster rules require at least 60 votes to pass and Democrats can muster only 50 (plus the vice-president’s).

      A failure to find “10 good Republicans” for this bill, the cadre that Senator Joe Manchin naively expected to step forward to pass legislation creating a commission to investigate the January 6 insurrection on Capitol Hill, may finally push the Democrats to scrap or at least significantly modify the filibuster rules, which were famously used to block further enfranchisement of African-Americans in the 20th century.

      High voter turnout and efforts to secure voting rights are not the only signs of a healthy US democracy. Last year, the largest civic protests in US history took place as tens of millions of Americans expressed their disgust with police violence in the wake of the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Civic organizations stepped forward to fight the pandemic and ensure more equitable access to vaccines. Young people, in particular, are engaged in large numbers on the climate crisis, gun control and reproductive health. After a long winter of discontent under Trump, perhaps it’s time for an “American Spring.”

      Mixed Record Elsewhere for Democracy

      Europe, meanwhile, is coming out of the pandemic in slightly stronger shape politically. The budget compromise that took place at the end of 2020, which ended up providing considerable relief to the economically disadvantaged countries of the southern tier, effectively saved the European Union from disintegrating out of a lack of solidarity. Alas, the compromise also watered down the EU’s criticism of its easternmost members, particularly Poland and Hungary, for their violations of the bloc’s commitments to human rights and rule of law.

      But there’s hope on the horizon here as well. Eastern Europe appears to be on the verge of a political sea change. Voters brought down Bulgaria’s right-wing populist leader Boyko Borissov in elections in April, and the new caretaker government has begun to dismantle his political system of cronyism. In Slovenia, tens of thousands of protesters have massed in the capital of Ljubljana, the largest demonstration in years, to demand the resignation of the Trump-like prime minister Janez Jansa. The near-total ban on abortion orchestrated by the right-wing government in Poland has motivated mass protests by women throughout the country, and even “Polish grannies” have mobilized in support of a free press and the rule of law. A finally united opposition in Hungary, meanwhile, is catching up in the polls to Prime Minister Viktor Orban ahead of elections next year.

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      The far right, with their contempt for human rights, free media, rule of law and political checks and balances, are the greatest threat to democracy within democracies. Fortunately, they are not doing very well in Western Europe either. The anti-immigrant Alternative für Deutschland has witnessed a significant drop in support in Germany, while Lega in Italy has also declined in popularity. Golden Dawn has disappeared from the scene in Greece. Vox is still the third most popular party in Spain, but it hasn’t managed to rise much above 15% in the polls, which is the same story for the Sweden Democrats (stuck at around 19%). Only in France and Finland are the far-right parties continuing to prosper. Marine Le Pen currently leads the polls against French President Emmanuel Macron ahead of next year’s election, while the Finns Party leads by a couple of percentage points in the polls but with elections not likely before 2023.

      Elsewhere in the world, the pandemic may result in more political casualties for far-right populists, as they get caught in the ebbing of the Trump wave. Brazilians are protesting throughout the country under the banner of impeaching Jair Bolsonaro, a president who, like Trump, has compiled a spectacularly poor record in dealing with COVID-19. Bolsonaro’s approval rating has fallen to a new low under 25%. The still-popular former leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, recently cleared by the courts to run again for office, appears to be assembling a broad political coalition to oust Bolsonaro in the elections set for next year.

      Hard-right leader Ivan Duque has achieved the distinction of being the least popular leader in Colombian history. Politically, it doesn’t matter so much, since he can’t run again for president in next year’s election. But the public’s disgust with the violence in Colombia and the economic inequality exacerbated by the pandemic will likely apply as well to any of his would-be hard-right successors.

      The extraordinary mishandling of the pandemic in India has had a similar effect on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s popularity, which has also recently fallen to a new low. However, after seven years in office, he remains quite popular, with a 63% approval rating.

      Modi’s Teflon reputation speaks to the fragility of democracy in many parts of the world. Many voters are attracted to right-wing nationalists like Modi — Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey, Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines, Nayib Bukele in El Salvador — who promise to “get the job done” regardless of the political and economic costs. Such leaders can rapidly turn a democratic country into a putatively democratic one, which makes the step into authentic authoritarianism that much easier.

      The coups in Mali and Myanmar, China’s crackdown in Hong Kong, the enduring miseries in North Korea, Venezuela and Eritrea — these are all reminders that, however fragile democracy might be in formally democratic states, politics can always get a lot worse.

      Lukashenko: Strong or Weak?

      Take the example of Belarus, where Alexander Lukashenko has ruled supreme since 1994. Thanks to his own ruthlessness and the patronage of neighboring Russia, Lukashenko has weathered mass protests that would have ousted leaders of weaker disposition.

      His latest outrage was to order the grounding of a Ryanair flight from Greece to Lithuania as it was flying over Belarus — just so that he could apprehend a young dissident, Roman Protasevich, and his Russian girlfriend, Sofia Sapega. Virtually everyone has decried this blatant violation of international laws and norms with the exception, of course, of Putin and others in the Russian president’s orbit. The editor of the Russian media conglomerate RT, Margarita Simonyan, tweeted, “Never did I think I would envy Belarus. But now I do. [Lukashenko] performed beautifully.”

      Embed from Getty Images

      Lukashenko indeed came across as all-powerful in this episode. But this is an illusion. Putin has not hesitated to assassinate his critics, even when they are living outside Russia. Lukashenko doesn’t have that kind of reach or audacity, so he has to wait until dissidents are within his own airspace to strike. I’d like to believe that the opposition in Belarus takes heart from this desperate move — is Lukashenko really so scared of a single dissident? —  and doubles down on its efforts to oust the tyrant.

      Outside of Putin and his toadies, Lukashenko doesn’t have many defenders. This elaborate effort to capture a dissident only further isolates the Belarussian strongman. Even putatively democratic states, like Poland and Hungary, have unequivocally denounced Lukashenko.

      Anti-democratic actions like the Ryanair stunt capture headlines in ways that pro-democratic efforts rarely do. Honestly, had you even heard of Roman Protasevich before this affair? Along with all the other depressing news of the day, from Texas to Mali, this brazen move suggests that democracy is teetering on the edge of an abyss.

      But all the patient organizing against the strongmen that doesn’t make it into the news will ultimately prove the fragility of tyranny. When it comes to anti-democrats like Lukashenko, they will one day discover that the military, the police and the party have abandoned them. And it will be they who teeter at the abyss, their hands scrabbling for a secure hold, when along comes democracy to give them a firm pat on the back.

      *[This article was originally published by FPIF.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More