This opinion piece from Ezra Klein is very substantial. I am not a Democrat neither a Republican, but a left-leaning centrist who adores Democracy and its institutional privileges.
Why is this opinion important? It provides a blueprint for making democracies successful, of marginalizing repugnant Trumpism into oblivion.
What’s Ezra discussing?
Of all the agenda, the important thing provided is a strict timeline that the Democrats have to follow to consolidate a win for President Biden. He cited Trumpism as a global phenomenon that is gradually becoming pervasive and uprooting that is an existential reality. How? You should read this article cited in the link below. However, I am more interested in this, not alone from a US perspective but from a global perspective.
In recent times, there has been a confluence of such pockets within the realms of Democracy. I presume the root causes are almost similar, though the modus operandi and models differ, irrespective of the democracies – Ankara, Brasilia, Colombo, Caracas, DC, Delhi, or London, Manila, etc., the list is long. Yes, I intentionally omitted Beijing, Islamabad, Moscow, Pyongyang, Tehran, etc. These are pseudo democracies under the facade of democracies.
Where do we start?
More important than that, what’s the deadline? Most democracies took the early parts as experimentations, some leaning left and most leaning covertly capitalist (mind you, I never said, right). In their greed to stay put, we compromised the very ethos of Democracy. The left-leaning socialist got decimated, whereas the capitalist gained and established their hegemony. Most of us saw or were made to see Democracy through the colorful glasses of capitalism. It is a heady mix exactly after mixing politics with religion. While the two are prominent spectra of today’s Democracy, another spectrum that recently took a prominent place – of politics and populism. The latter paved the way for an easy entry into politics. A few spectra add further to the rejigged model of our mutated Democracy.
Integrated Governance as a Foundational Stone
However, to truly understand, practice, and improvise Democracy, one needs strong Governance, Governance that is overarching right from the conception of the ideologies to the practice and execution and how the models are getting iterations. Unless the institution of Governance is independent, strong, and un-dismantlable, we are like to see mutants in Democracy that may very well devour the very foundation.
Shashank Heda,
Dallas, Texas
The content above is exclusively my own thoughts, no affiliation or allegiance.
mymilieu.org 