Pessimistic state of affairs.

[The following was mostly written in early January 2019. The essay was unfinished so I added the final two paragraphs on some hopeful signs for a post-covid bounce back for liberal democracy]

The march of far-right ideas and the return to nationalistic discourse should be an immense concern to the peoples of the west. Not only for the sake of their own society but for the sake of the health of the world. We’ve been down the path of nationalism before. The ultimate end is always the disenfranchisement and death of those who have the quietest voices, and the redirection of those with the loudest. It’s the ultimate extension of a toddler-like worldview: what’s mine is mine, what’s yours is actually also mine, and I’ll yell and hit you if you dare even think about touching what’s mine! But the march of nationalism in the western world isn’t the only present danger to the health of the world wide society. So too is the power of the non-democratic states. Russia and China are no longer the communist boogeyman of the cold war, but they are now more dangerous than ever. Both countries have moved away from planned economies, the least problematic part of their past regimes, but neither have moved away from the authority and validity of the state itself. Putin’s Russia is nominally a democracy, although it behaves nothing like one. In reality it's the carefully developed dictatorship of a man and his party around him. While the strength of the state comes from the pseudo party of United Russia, which has no ideology other than to support Putin and the rest of their own government. China on the other hand is still nominally a communist state but has long since abandoned the ideological tenets of communism. 

Both China and Russia have benefited immensely from dropping the ideology of communism. China has gone from lagging far behind in economic growth and output (relative to its population size to being the most important producer and, increasingly, consumer in the global market. Russia on the other hand has dealt with the pain of the de-soviet project, it’s sphere of influence greatly decreased, but its economic crises that led to the end of the Soviet Era have more or less been resolved (even if the country has not experienced the type of economic growth that China has experienced). What both states gained from their transition out of a planned economy is a legitimacy on the world stage. And of course by world stage I mean the western world’s perspective on things. While the Cold War was waged using rhetoric about liberalism, democracy, and the rights of peoples, it seems the most important change was to convert to capitalism. Russia and China have still been criticized for human rights abuses and for meddling in other countries. But the critique is less severe now that they both play by the rules of the global trade game (for the most part). Moreso, what each state gained was the ability to govern in the same way as their communist totalitarian past but without the overall disapproval of Europe and the United States. 

In China, Xi Jinping recently became leader for life after changes to the communist party rules, effectively making himself the equivalent of Mao Zedong without the ideology of the proletariat. In Russia, Vladimir Putin has successfully grasped the Russian State since he was appointed head of the FSB in 1998. He is currently term limited in the presidency until 2024 but there’s no reason to believe he will step aside on account of an arbitrary date (this is now in doubt after rumor emerged that Putin may step down as soon as next year on account of Parkinson's disease. The Kremlin denies this reporting). He has essentially built his own Stalin-esqe cult of personality. Putin is the only leader for a country that otherwise has no real ideology, no real plan. It feels almost like the country was so shattered by the experience of seven decades of ideological totalitarianism that they’d rather live under a completely non-ideological dictatorship than to experiment with the dangers and uncertainties that come with liberalism and democracy. 

However, if liberalism and democracy are the measures by which we judge what’s good and proper in the world, and I’m not sure that they are, then it’s not like the threat of Russian and Chinese models are anything new. What is new, perhaps, is the western retreat from a position of moral authority. As western democracies again flirt with the dangers of radical nationalism, there comes an inherent inward turn, towards self reflection. Every flaw is magnified as to drown out anything that occurs on the world scale. Trump proclaims “America First '' and redirects any conversation about why Syria and the middle east are producing such high numbers of refugees into why are refugees coming to our country? The problem of civil war and global entanglements aren’t important, what is important is the feeling that we’re being overrun by people who don’t speak like we do, who don’t interact like we do, who don’t worship like we do, who don’t purchase like we do, and who don’t pay-in like we do. Unlike communism, democracy doesn’t necessarily force it’s ideological wings onto anyone else if it doesn’t feel compelled to. America’s strength used to be the presumption of moral authority (even if it’s actions belied that presumption). Maybe Trump’s America is actually showing the world that the charade of human and civil rights, liberalism, and democracy were actually just slogans to a means of keeping bad actors like Russia and China from reaching economic hegemony. 

Meanwhile the glorious European Project has looked weaker and leakier of late, not necessarily because of the UK’s disastrous decision to leave but rather from the other states that are still firmly a part. The crisis of refugee inflows from north Africa and the middle east was not necessarily created by the peoples wanting to land on Europe’s shores but rather by the poorly managed and uneven response of the individual member states. With no plan and shifting priorities the members of the Union allowed for not only uneven and unprepared settling of refugees and migrants but also to the strengthening of gutless far-right nationalist parties. The veneer of the European Project of inclusivity and diversity looks damaged by the treatment of those non-European peoples who have settled across the continent. The emergence of nationalism on the continent where millions perished due to the destructive ideology under a century ago is not only deeply troubling but indicates some uncomfortably dark characteristics within human society. Of course this isn’t to say that a repeat of WW2 is a forgone conclusion. The EU is the result of a long process of bringing the states closer together in order to prevent such a conflict from ever happening again.  But there’s little to suggest that the fracturing or simply withering of the EU as an institution isn’t a possibility considering the way in which the Union has been unable to quell nationalist parties in it’s member states nor has it been able to deal effectively with the democratic backsliding in Hungary and Poland. 

For those of us who consider the strength of the liberal project to be the increased betterment for all peoples and greater representation for them, the backward march of democracy over the last decade has been deeply depressing. But maybe this is just the natural outgrowth of a world without major conflict. The fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War signaled a new period, the so-called “End of History.” What we may be experiencing now is the emergence of a new period of unease, sprung on us by our incredible combination of individual wealth and access mixed with astounding levels of inequality, stagnation, and a zeitgeist of doom. Although there may be signs of hope. 

With the election of Joe Biden, the world will again have an America that puts a premium on human rights and liberal democracy (at least in rhetoric). Furthermore, while increasing tensions between the US and China are a concern, there may be reason to think that it will drive a more ideological response from those in the west towards the liberal democratic order, much as the cold war did so for over four decades. Finally, there may be hope that the failures of nationalist parties and politicians in power will delegitimize their standing. Donald Trump was cast out after only one term, Austria’s nationalist party was removed from a coalition government for corruption, and anti-immigrant parties across Europe see their numbers falling as the refugee influx of the mid-decade recedes. Furthermore, the after effects of the coronavirus on global politics is still in the early stages. Perhaps the virus will serve as the sort of global catastrophe that reconfigures global values, much as the horrors of the Second World War did in the 1940's. How the world emerges from this global challenge may reshape a whole host of assumptions we have about our political moment.