Suffering democracy in the age of Trump New social movements needed to preserve principles of justice, freedom and equality
All over the globe, liberal democracy is losing its grip on the public imagination, and in the midst of this loss a toxic form of illiberal democracy is taking its place. As institutions that once provided public visions and proactive spaces are stripped of their authority and decay under the scourge of casino capitalism, the foundation is being set for the rise of new modes of authoritarianism.
What they all share is both a hatred for democracy and a willingness to feed off the anger and rage of those who have suffered under punishing austerity measures and the restructuring of all aspects of society to the dictates of financial markets and a culture of cruelty imposed by global capitalism.
At a time in which the growing problems of inequality, terrorism, war, state violence, immigration, precarity, mass poverty, and the elimination of the welfare state have accelerated, the very edifice of stable democracies have been shattered.
In the midst of a massive global attack on the welfare state and social provisions fuelled by neo-liberal policies, the social contract central to liberal democracies has been shredded and with it any viable notion of solidarity, economic justice, and the common good.
Progress has been turned into its opposite and registers more inequality, suffering, and violence. The older language of collective rights has given way to the discourse of individual rights, and the vocabulary of collaboration and compassion has been uprooted by a discourse of radical individualism and a harsh, survival-of-the fittest ethos. Freedom has morphed into a synonym for unbridled self-interest and a rationale for abdicating any sense of moral and political responsibility.
Under global neo-liberalism, the future has now become a repository for projecting our most dreaded anxieties.
The increasing failure of global neo-liberalism has produced the conditions in which more and more people are inclined to express support for authoritarian alternatives that reproduce the power of right-wing populist nationalists and favour the interest of white majorities who advocate a return of barricades and borders rather than eliminating the systemic conditions of economic, cultural, and social domination. Viktor Orban, the Hungarian prime minister, spoke for many when he proclaimed that societies founded on liberal principles will not be able to compete successfully in a global market and that there is no reason for democracies to be liberal in order to be successful.
Stoked by fear and a resentment toward those considered a threat to white nationalist ideologies, the retreat from the imposed death-dealing effects of neo-liberalism parading as democracy gave rise to the awkward return of the repressive ideologies of ethnonationalism, the stifling of dissent, and exaltation of state violence as a mode of governance. For instance, under Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey there has been a return to the traditions and grandeur of an Ottoman past. In India, the right-wing ideologue, Narendra Modi, has resurrected the ideology of Hindu nationalism. In a similar vein, President Trump has fuelled a culture of fear, racism, and demonization as part of his efforts to resuscitate an “alt-right” culture of white Christian nationalism.
It is against this wider historical and social context marked by a mounting embrace of illiberal democracy that the authoritarian populism of Donald Trump and other demagogues can be both interrogated and challenged, especially when the political interests that bear part responsibility for producing a “neo-liberal economics turned punitive and illiberal” now claim to be the only force capable of resisting Trump’s authoritarianism. It is also against this world wide embrace of illiberal democracy that a debate must begin over rethinking politics outside of the discourse of capitalism.
Politics becomes more democratic when it translates private troubles into broader systemic issues, challenges the commanding institutional and educational structures of illiberal democracy, and does so in a language that speaks to people’s needs, enabling them to both identify and invest in narratives in which they can recognize themselves and the conditions that produce the suffering they experience. In this instance, the call for institutional change is inextricably connected to the politics of social transformation and a rekindling of the social imagination. Democracy is not simply a set of institutions but a practice grounded in values and the principles of justice, freedom and equality that must be struggled over by an informed public. Only then will social movements emerge willing to challenge the growing illiberalism in the U.S. and elsewhere in order to build a society that embraces the beauty of universal emancipation and promise of a radical democracy. At a time in history when the stakes for democracy are so threatened and life on the planet itself so imperiled, collective action is the only way out of the age of illiberal democracy. It is time to go for broke.
Henry A. Giroux is a widely-published social critic and McMaster University professor who holds the McMaster Chair for Scholarship in the Public Interest, the Paulo Freire Distinguished Scholar Chair, and is a Visiting Distinguished University Professor at Ryerson University. Born in Rhode Island, he held numerous academic positions in the U.S. and now lives in Hamilton.