West Turning Its Back On Democracy

EU's democratic deficit is not a bug but a feature

Mar 22, 2025

∙ Paid

War makes the world safe for democracy, which is cancelled if you oppose war
As European electors in France, Austria, Germany and Romania found out
The EU was set up in response to the 'tyranny of the masses' blamed for WW2
It was designed not to be representative, with a built-in 'democratic deficit'
Which suits corporations but bypasses legislatures and the separation of powers

“Simultaneously, liberalism was replaced with neoliberalism — subordinating democracy to profit, prioritising corporations over the aspiration to liberty and equal opportunity, the greater good to government diktat, peace to forever wars.”

(2,300 words or about 10 minutes of your company)

Mar 22, 2025

The European Commission and NATO's break with democracy is looking permanent.

That's not how they state it, of course. They are going to war to make the world safe for democracy.

To have their war they must, if necessary, sacrifice democracy. The voters in the European elections, in France, Austria, Germany, Romania and Canada be damned.

This is the strategy outlined in Molly Ball's article for Time, "The Secret History of the Shadow Campaign That Saved the 2020 Election."

They had to sacrifice democratic elections in order to save democratic institutions — institutions like themselves.

The reason Time was so brazen as to admit publicly that the 2020 election had been "finessed" is that the globalists plan on doing it again... and again.

Expect to hear from the legacy media that it's president Donald Trump who abandoned democracy.

“Trump is abandoning democracy and freedom. That creates an opening for Europe — and Britain,” toots The Guardian.

No surprise that the hill on which democracy dies, in Jonathan Freedland's mind, is diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and the sanctity of big government.

This contempt for democratic elections is not new.

Echoes of Weimar

The term "authoritarian liberalism" describes the restriction of democratic participation in the name of liberty.

A leading jurist of the Weimar era, Hermann Heller (1891-1933) coined the phrase for the ruling cabinets just before the Nazis took power.

Governments took the view that representative democracy had to be curbed to cope with the decade of the Great Depression from 1929, through social and economic controls: cuts to wages and welfare, tax rises and quotas.

It strongly echoes what we see in the decay of the Western parliamentary system. Institutions and multi-party elections continue, but are put to authoritarian ends.

Regular readers will recall our doubts whether laissez-faire capitalism has ever existed in Europe, given its history of empire and mercantilism. There was, however, individual liberty.

See: Pirates, Privateers And Merchant Adventurers - Second of a series on depopulation (Aug 15, 2023)

Since the turn of this century, despite the talk of deregulation, the state has taken the role of arbiter in the response to financial crises, from the Dot Com crash to the 2008 banking crisis — interventionism without the name.

Simultaneously, liberalism was replaced with neoliberalism, subordinating democracy to profit, prioritising corporations over the aspiration to liberty and equal opportunity, the greater good to government diktat, peace to forever wars.

Sovereignty of the people and individual freedom within the constraints of one's wealth and capacity are replaced by economic metrics of technocratic utilitarianism.

See Philanthropy Is The Third Pillar Of Fascism (May 7, 2022)

Lawmakers rusticated

Neoliberals claim they are protecting democratic institutions by allowing the executive branch to bypass legislatures but this is an offence against the foundational principle of constitutionalism, the separation of powers.

Many Western governments sent lawmakers home during Covid, and Canada's former prime minister Justin Trudeau this month prorogued parliament so he could appoint his successor without an election. Britain's ruling Labour Party is cancelling (some of) this year's municipal elections.

See: Markets Tumble, Europe's War, Canada's Carnage - Democracy is suspended. Thanks for playing (Mar 11, 2025)

Heller's contemporary, who outlived him by half a century, was Carl Schmitt (1888-1985), legal theorist of the "state of exception."

The political theologian of the Third Reich, Schmitt said the state of exception (Ausnahmezustand) reveals where power truly resides. It is not what is decided, but who decides. The sovereign act is a decision on the question of the exception.

Endless emergencies

By declaring emergencies — Covid or climate change or war — the powers declare a state of exception.

It was obvious when in 2020 governments around the world started chanting in unison, “Build Back Better,” and when they implemented identical policies, like standing six feet apart (which turned out to be scientific hogwash). They reversed their position on masks in lockstep — even ignoring the World Health Organisation — making it plain that governments were being coordinated by some external entity.

That is Schmitt’s revelation of where power truly resides. It is praxis: the establishment of power by the act or the will. Leading beyond authority.

See Europe's Parallel Reality: C02 & Degrowth - Carbon is the new coloniser (May 09, 2024)

Curbing liberty

The authoritarian trend accelerated after September 11, 2001 and the explosion of the World Trade Center in New York. This made all citizens suspects in an endless War On Terror.

The response to every crisis — health, economic, state security — would be to further bypass representative democracy.

The primary tool has been the legal system: criminal law and other tools. It is appropriate that Britain's current prime minister Keir Starmer should be a former Director of Public Prosecutions.

See Any 'Emergency’ Would Be Step Closer To Dictatorship - Hate laws will censor all dissent (Sep 21, 2023)

This curbing of liberty has served to:

favour big corporations over family business, as during the Covid lockdowns;
erase the distinction between political and economic life, let alone religious or ethnic;
suppress social homogeneity and the people's role in their "lot";
turn the authoritarian liberal state into an effective autocracy.

Whose will?

To simplify: does democracy reside in popular sovereignty or constitutional liberalism, and can one exist without the other?

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