‘Progressive democracy’ means destroying the power of the people’s vote

If you listen to establishmentarians in Washington and Brussels, liberal democracy is under threat from anti-democratic populist movements. Instead of being a legitimate expression of citizen anguish, the establishmentarians say these populist movements are instead either driven by “fake news” or by sinister Russian interference.

This is, on its face, slightly perplexing. These same establishmentarians hold that every single past Western populist uprising — Andrew Jackson’s revolution of the 1820s, the European revolutions of 1848, the late 1800s American Populist Party (which gave the English language the word “populist”), FDR’s New Deal, and more — were righteous expressions of citizen anger. But the one that happens to threaten those in power today is illegitimate. A strange coincidence.

But what is it that is threatened? Those in power often talk about the threat to “liberal democracy.” This has been used all over the place, from Washington, DC-based think tanks to German courts. This is a clever turn of phrase, incredibly useful for cutting those who opposed the current political order. When non-political folks hear “liberal democracy,” they likely think of, well, simply democracy: the idea that individuals have rights and can cast votes to change the direction of the government if they are unsatisfied with it. So long as a few crucial individual liberties were protected – the freedom of speech, of religious belief, of protest – citizens could vote as they wished, though even that was tepid; if enough people really wanted things to go one way, it was understood that the people would ultimately get what they wished for. That is democracy as it has been understood throughout much of modernity.

But in the preceding decades, liberal democracy’s definition has been silently swapped out for something which should be called progressive democracy. Here, those original rights – freedom of speech, religious belief, protest – have been essentially swept aside in favour of progressive values like abortion rights, diversity, support for LGBT initiatives, and mandatory adherence to currently existing governing institutions. 

This has enabled establishmentarians to label their populist opponents as anti-democratic. Take Austria, where populist-right leader Herbert Kickl has come under political and judicial attack for having the gall to win his country’s parliamentary elections in September. Other major party leaders referred to Kickl as a “threat to democracy,” even though he had never actually done anything to threaten Austria’s democracy. He had never called for armed uprisings, nor had he stolen an election. He had not manipulated ballots or attempted to change laws to decrease freedom of speech.

He did, however, argue that Austria’s massive illegal migrant population should be remigrated into their own communities.

Another, even more frightening example, is that of Romania’s recent election cancellation. As has been well-documented, a populist-right candidate unexpectedly jumped from fifth in the polls to first place in the country’s first-round presidential elections. Their supreme court ruled that, due to suspected Russian interference (via the buying of bots on TikTok to support the populist candidate), the elections had to be run again.

But it turns out that it was not Russia paying for the TikTok accounts – it was Romania’s establishment liberal party, which had sought to boost someone they thought was an unpopular candidate in order to take votes away from the other right-wing candidate they had assumed would win. Which means the story, essentially, is that Romania’s establishment bought TikTok influence. It backfired, they blamed Russia, and had the elections cancelled in order to cover up for their mistake.

This is perhaps as anti-democratic as it gets. But it strikes at the core of what democracy is all about: voting for someone. Even if it had been Russia, the election would still have been “democratic,” because it involved people who cast ballots peacefully for a candidate they wanted to elect. The candidate happened to be anti-NATO and sceptical of Brussels’ ideology – but being anti-NATO does not make someone anti-democratic. 

The same perplexing “anti-democratic” label has been applied to the German Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), which has been designated an extremist party by the country’s intelligence operations. But the ruling was perplexing: the court argued that the AfD sought “discriminatory objectives.” But is wanting to eject migrants illegally in the country actually discriminatory? Discrimination based on race is of course a bad thing; ejecting migrants is simply border enforcement. If such a thing is anti-democratic, then “democracy” becomes essentially obsolete. It is, however, against “progressive democracy.”

It is not just about targeting parties and candidates though. There are legions of examples of individuals across the West being targeted by institutions for not adhering to progressive democratic principles. Just months ago, Ontario’s Human Rights Commission punished a small-town mayor for failing to announce that June was Pride Month. He had no legal requirement to do so, but a gay pride organisation had requested it and he had refused. The old liberal democratic value of choice was rejected in favour of the progressively democratic mandate of inclusion.

A bit further south, the Washington State Human Rights Commission decided that employees of a Christian-owned spa had to wax the private parts of a male client (who was portraying himself as a woman). Out goes religious belief (or simply not wanting to touch male genitalia) – in comes mandated diversity.

Religion and personal belief has come under attack elsewhere too. One man in the United Kingdom was arrested for silently praying in a “safe zone” outside of an abortion clinic. But the area had not been one where frequent attacks had occurred; it was a place where people had gathered to pray in the past. 

This is, in short, what establishmentarians are talking about when they discuss liberal democracy, which is in reality, progressive democracy: you will be made to care. Unless you care about the wrong thing, in which case you will be arrested.