Democracy may be a flawed system but it is a lot better than being ruled by dictators - Andy Brown
The rot set in first in Putin’s Russia. He created an exemplar state for any ruler who wanted to enable a few very rich oligarchs to enjoy their wealth whilst the rest of the country was left with little other than a diet of heady nationalism.
In its own terms it has been a huge success. The man at the top is in a position to hand out licences to extract oil, gas, gold, timber and other raw materials or to run the banking and insurance system. Anyone who keeps their mouth shut or is prepared to praise and prop up the regime is likely to find themselves handsomely rewarded for loyalty. Those who dare to point out the scale of the corruption have a nasty tendency to end up out of a job, in jail or dead.
When it comes round to election time the trappings of democracy can be maintained. Serious opposition candidates are simply blocked from standing as enemies of the state. Tightly controlled media outlets tell voters how important it is to back ‘their’ leader and if that doesn’t work votes can simply be stuffed into urns before results are announced.
The truth for these regimes is not what is factually accurate and can be verified. It is whatever those in charge wish it to be. War becomes a special operation. An illegal invasion of a neighbour is described as defence against imperialism. The death of the leading opposition figure in prison after poisoning failed becomes natural causes.
In Iran that same twisted logic results in the beating up and murder of women being carried out by officially sanctioned morality police. A very strange definition of morality indeed.
All this would be bad enough if it simply resulted in great nations like Russia and Iran being exploited by a narrow cabal of self-serving leaders who used every trick in the book to stay in power. Unfortunately, it is a model that is being exported and eyed enviously by some in the West.
Lack of respect for facts and for democratic procedures has become normalised by figures such as Donald Trump and is now being copied by other drippingly privileged billionaires such as Elon Musk. Trump lost the last election and then proceeded to claim that he won. The lies he told a mob resulted in them breaking into the House of Congress where they beat a police officer to death whose only crime was to try and uphold the law.
Trump’s propaganda has a nasty tendency to work. How many people in Britain or even in the States know that the margin of his defeat four years ago was seven million votes? How many Republicans have reflected that he lost the popular vote to Hilary Clinton by almost three million votes and she conceded gracefully? How many of his voters care whether the things he accuses his opponent of have any basis in fact?
Only recently both Trump and the South African born and raised Elon Musk told US voters that London was not safe because it had been taken over by Jihadis. In reality it is the United States where mass shootings are commonplace because semi automatic weapons can be casually bought by those with mental health problems. London is much safer than every single large US city because of policies that Trump supports. Trump doesn’t care about facts. He makes things up and then repeats and exaggerates them whenever challenged.
Throughout his latest campaign he has invented ‘facts’ about immigrant numbers, crime levels, policies supposedly put forward by his rival, his own tax statements, his behaviour around women and anything else he found convenient. Instead of that approach becoming beyond the pale it has become normalised and an attractive model for disreputable politicians to follow.
After failing the British people so badly Liz Truss has been getting handsomely paid in the US for blaming everyone but herself for her abject failure. Both in the Reform party and on the right of the Conservative Party there are politicians who are looking at Trump’s voting figures and concluding that post-truth politics are a good career move.
In such circumstances it is vital that all people of good will assert some basic principles. Not all politicians are liars. Not every public servant is corrupt and self-serving. It isn’t a good idea to elect extremists who can’t be trusted.
Democracy may be a flawed system but it is a lot better than being ruled by dictators or the very wealthy. At a time when it is under attack it is vital that we defend it.
Freedom of speech, freedom of protest, and free elections were not handed down to us as a result of the kindness of the wealthy and privileged. They are things that our people had to fight hard for and fought wars against fascism to protect.
These hard won privileges are easily lost. Either we use our freedoms and assert the value of them at the ballot box or we risk seeing our society drift into an unhappy caricature of Putin’s Russia where the very rich take an increasing share of national wealth and use it to control the messages we hear.
Andy Brown is the Green Party councillor for Aire Valley in North Yorkshire.