Sweden’s V-Dem Institute warns that the US is no longer a liberal democracy. And autocracy is creeping across Europe too, says writer Martin Gelin
👉 Remark: The article is about the U.S. and Europe, despite the title.
Sweden’s V-Dem Institute warns that the US is no longer a liberal democracy. And autocracy is creeping across Europe too, says writer Martin Gelin
👉 Remark: The article is about the U.S. and Europe, despite the title.
Americans did know oppression. First the Native Americans, then the European settlers seeking refuge from all kinds of persecution in Europe. Finally (at least that’s the story they told), the American revolutionaries tried to shake off what they portrayed as oppression by the British.
But unfortunately, illiberalism, autocracy, fascism and genocide seem to behave on a macro level like viruses behave on the micro level: like them, a society can - by way of surviving a previous infection - acquire a certain level of immunity. But over time, the pathogen can mutate and transform, and the concentration of antibodies in the organism can degrade over time so the defensive response is weakened. I fear this is where we are now: our societies have started to forget or deny the horrors of where this road has led us in the 20th century, and are becoming susceptible to the trappings of autocracy again. Let’s hope we don’t have to go through the natural process of immunisation again - because the pathogen is deadly and has the potential to kill its host.