Economic nationalist Pat Buchanan opined last week that the
United States’ fraught political climate is turning the world against democracy.
In his article
“How
Democracy is Losing the Word”, he argued that our country’s sharply
divided political culture, the corporate media’s obsession with Trump, plus
authoritarian regimes’ economic successes were making democracy look bad. However,
Buchanan’s repeat pessimism is based on a fundamental flaw, one which
inadvertently exposes the very political and societal maladies he diagnosed
that are generating upheaval in Europe, Canada, and throughout the Western
World.
Early in his lamenting jeremiad, Buchanan writes: “And what will a watching world be thinking
when it sees the once-great republic preoccupied with breaking yet another
president?” But then he writes: “Among
the reasons democracy is in discredit and retreat worldwide is that its
exemplar and champion, the USA, is beginning to resemble France's Third
Republic in its last days before World War II.” So, which is it, Pat? Is
the United States a republic or a democracy? One of our Founding Fathers
already answered this question: “A republic, if you can keep it.” The
difference matters. Sadly, Buchanan’s seeming indifference to this fundamental
distinction occurs often—and is too often overlooked.
Before debunking the so-called “crisis of democracy”, is it
really true that the autocratic regimes he references are enjoying the peace
and prosperity? China’s market economy within a brutal dictatorship
is
stalling big timev because of President Trump’s successful trade and
tariff offensive. China’s militant repression against the Muslim Uighurs is
disgusting Chinese and foreign nationals alike.
Turkey
has become a third-world dystopia, hardly a shining beacon of
economic prosperity and national security.
But what else does Buchanan get wrong?
Despite the crises emerging in the corporate press, the
United States is a remarkable testimony to good government, in that we are a
republic. Counter-majoritarian institutions like the Electoral College and separate
state government have ensured effective limits to very cultural malaise eating
away at Europe. The corrupt media, for all its progressive posturing, could not
stop Trump, either.
But why does Buchanan’s mix-up matter? How does his mistake
inadvertently explain the reason for the Western Malaise he diagnoses?
First, let’s define the differences, which rest on more than
who votes for whom. In a democracy, the rule of law is the rule of the majority,
regardless of established norms and institutions. In spite of the rights and responsibilities championed
by Ancient Athens, the majority of Athenians voted for Socrates’ death because
they didn’t like his views. The Wiemar Republic, a makeshift democracy
assembled after Germany’s fall in World War I, transformed into a fascist
tyranny under democratically elected Adolph Hitler.
To avoid these perverse outcomes, the American Framers
disparaged democracy, which amounts to two wolves and a lamb voting on what—or
rather who—is for dinner. Aristotle, himself a statist-elitist in Ancient
Athens, described a republic as “rule by the many for the benefit of all”, in
contrast to democracy, “rule by the many for the benefit of the many.” In a
republic, the rule of law curbs the rule of the majority. Socrates would have
received constitutional protections to disparage directly-elected rulers
without fear. In a republic, no one is above the law, including the crowd as
well as the individual ruler or the governing class.
The United States’ republican Constitution outlines
institutions to channel as well as check and balance popular, aristocratic, and
autocratic tendencies. Counter-majoritarian institutions like the US Supreme
Court serve as final arbiters for legal disputes. State and local governments rebuff
federal power. Enumerated powers and the Bill of Rights describe the boundaries
for the government, not the people. These arrangements preserve individual
liberty as well as local sovereignty, and both arrangements safeguard the
interests of all.If the world is witnessing the demise of “democracy”, we
should rejoice.
But will republicanism take its place? Anti-globalist
protesters around the world may be rejecting “democracy”, but they need to
understand why and agitate for something better. Populism in terms of policy
outcomes is noteworthy. However, populism as the means for governing is not. Conservative
and progressive nationalists plus the vast majority of the Yellow Jacket
protestors understand that corporate interests and globalist activists have twisted
democracy to their selfish ends. The answer does not lie in more “Power to the
People”, but less power to the state. They must fight for natural law and
natural rights, which means a constraint on government power altogether, not
more democracy.
Pat Buchanan’s unintended confusion should concern us, since
it reflects the underlying problems in the West. Younger generations around the
world don’t know the difference between democracy and republicanism. They certainly
don’t understand how democracy is inimical to individual and national liberty,
while republicanism preserves both. The older (and newer) generation of
reporters, liberal and conservative, don’t respect this difference, either, and
their views are informing the public discussion as a whole. At the very least,
conservative pundits who serve as the only source of good political science should
understand this difference. It’s not ethnic nationalism, but republicanism that
can Make the West Great Again.
If citizens in countries can’t distinguish between
democracy’s failures and republican successes, these worldwide uprisings won’t
accomplish lasting improvements. They rightly oppose the consequences of
unfettered expansion of the state, and they are demanding that the governments be
more responsive to “The People”. However, more government elected by “the
people” will not bring about a limited government protecting citizens’ rights
and safeguarding the nation from domestic insurrection and foreign invasion.
There is no demise of democracy in the United States, since
we are not a democracy. Furthermore, Europe’s answers to open borders, higher
taxes, diminished public safety, and cultural ennui sweeping those nations lie in the adoption of America’s
republicanism: definition and protection of the natural rights of citizens,
installation of principled checks and balances within government, and recognition
of the nation-state to establish its borders, language, and culture—with a
commitment to protect the Judeo-Christian principles that inspired the United
States Constitution.
