The Left and Democracy

Ross Terrill has a nice piece in today's Chicago Tribune in which he discusses the divorce between the Democrats and, well..., democracy. His analysis is cogent and highlights many, if not all, of the reasons that "the Democracy" has become anti-democratic.

Terrill argues thusly:

The left of center parties embraced identity politics from the 1970s. Gays, minorities, women, others were cultivated as building blocks for a progressive edifice. But the "rights" of blocks cut against democratic principles. The individual going to the ballot box does not want to be taken for granted in deference to identity blocks.

Other factors include the left's discovery that courts help the cause of social engineering more readily than ballots, and the appalling role of money in elections. The latter is equally present on the right (I could write a whole column about some conservatives' wobbling on democracy).

Liberals' attachment to a notion of "international community" also dilutes democratic principles. If the UN chief, Kofi Annan, says our actions in Iraq are illegal, he must be correct, intuits the left, and the American majority must be wrong. Kerry's "global test" for American military action abroad is a lapse from democratic principle, no less than his tepid stance on Iraq's election.

Not least, the left cultural gatekeepers of our time in the media and academia have come to picture themselves as rivals of democracy. Telling us how we are going to vote (polls) and then why we voted (more polls) is a usurpation of democracy. Consider the arrogance of the exit poll; CNN announces the result before the result exists! Voter, the system is not yours to infuse from below; it is the media priests' to re-engineer from above.

This is an excellent, if limited, critique [I would argue that the problems go much farther back than the 1970's]. Read it, then check out his excellent book on "Socialism as Fellowship." I read it in grad school and it helped to explain a lot of what I saw going on around me. After that you might want to look at his several books on modern China. I would especially recommend his study of Madame Mao, The White Boned Demon.