Populism vs. Democracy
For the last four years, I spend half of my time for trying to understand what is happened on America’s democracy and the radical change in U.S. politics. This trend called as “populism” has spread across the America and then, the whole world. I began not recognize the United States anymore ever since Donald Trump ascended to the presidency in 2017 and the country being torn apart between Trump supporters and anti-Trump supporters. What is surprising to me is that usually, there always the two camps in American politics that divided into their society which is the Democrats and Republican, but today what the world see including myself is between Trump supporters and anti-Trump supporters. The worst thing that you could not imagine is that the Trump supporters are began to following the Indonesia political trend which is called as the “politicization of religion” with the goals to gain more voters and also cultivated their base supporters.
The United States politics that we know had changed drastically after Obama left the White House which marked as the end of mediocre politics and Trump presidency was marked as the beginning of the worst nightmare that people could ever imagine. Honestly, I’m regretted with the American people who vote Donald Trump rather than Hillary Clinton (although we know the 2016 U.S. presidential election was interfered by Russia) and I still don’t understand why they elect the man who doesn’t know the “rule of game” in Washington DC and making a policy based on his own mind rather than consulting with the Congress or his cabinet. But, the big picture that we can see from Donald Trump presidency is that he and his supporters were trying to undermine the American democracy principles which already stood for the last 200 years and replacing it with their own version of “so-called democracy” which it becomes my reason why I hate Donald Trump so much.
I become Donald Trump hater when he was took an oath of office in 2017 until he left the White House on January 20, 2021 when Joe Biden was sworn as the 46th President of the United States. For 4 years, I attacking Donald Trump through my Instagram story and posting a comment in news article post on Instagram and I expected the backlash of so-called “Trump buzzer” who are a Trump fanatics, but there is one thing that I don’t expected and I’m very surprised which is my hatred towards Donald Trump has cost me of friendship in my campus which is pretty odd since the American political drama does not reached into my country, Indonesia and especially in my campus or in my class. Several people in my class has showed their hatred to me because I hate Donald Trump and I’m pretty vocal about it. And then, I figured it out that they also become Trump supporter for Indonesia branch (which I considered them as fake friends or fake peoples) which is the reason why they turned back against me.
It is very unfortunate that this Trump Effect has infected beyond Washington DC and went into Indonesia especially those people in my class. But, because of that, I’m trying to make my own research and investigation on this unusual political phenomenon in America which infects several countries in the world including the democratic countries. Based on my findings, these radical political change called as populism and the most common reason why the populism has grew into several countries is because the peoples dissatisfaction to their own government due to several reasons and one of them is the economic recession, the incoming of immigrants, high tax which lead to what people are worried about such as the national security threats due to new immigrants, and their job would be taken by the immigrants. This is the reason why Islamophobia has reached its peak in America along with the far-right wing including the infiltration of the Christian right conservatives and white-supremacists.
However, there was a dilemmatic problem on the interpretation of populism itself which I want to sort this thing out. Populism can be a good influence or bad influence into the democratic system. Populism will be good for the people to reform the country and held accountable of its government as long as the people were hold the principles of democracy and tolerance, but the populism will be bad if the purpose were deviated from the democracy principles if the people were supporting the race, ethnic and religion supremacy and oppressed the opposition. Unfortunately, we already had the case of the bad populism which is Donald Trump presidency (2017–2021). Funniest thing from the bad populism is that they were projected from the art as the old saying says “life imitating art” which in this case, Donald Trump presidency came from the Netflix original series with political drama theme, “House of Cards” starring by Kevin Spacey as the pragmatic & ruthless politician Frank Underwood along with his wife, Claire Underwood.
On House of Cards universe (which also happens in the our reality), Frank Underwood use his power and pragmatism to strip down the principles of democracy in America for the purpose of self-interest. This is happened to President Donald Trump who are trying to undermine the principles of democracy even in the beginning of his administration by hindering the FBI investigation on Russian interference in 2016 presidential election which resulted the dismissal of FBI Director James Comey and led to the further investigation conducted by the Congress even the White House has ordered FBI and the Department of Justice to give a “stonewall” for Congress investigation.
President Trump actions on interfering FBI investigation in order to avoid being implicated with Russia was a bad pattern and marked as the “cardinal sin of the destruction of democracy” which is the obstruction of justice that conducted by the President of the United States for the last 200 years. Even though President Richard Nixon has tampering the government institutions such as FBI and CIA as his personal squad to destroying his enemies including Democrats supporters and politicians in 1970s which was resulted in Watergate scandal and led to his resignation, no one has ever come close to destruct the American democracy principles.
Then, the American media was began comparing Trump administration with Richard Nixon administration (1969–1974) in which had a similarities due to both of them were hit by a major scandal. Nixon was implicated to be connected with the Watergate scandal that cost his position as the President of the United States which he was resigned on August 1974. But, on the other hand, Trump was implicated to had an alleged ties with the Russian government and had a knowledge of the interference in 2016 presidential election and sabotaged Hillary Clinton’s campaign which led to the scandal known as Russiagate.
After the 2016 election, Trump and his supporters were bringing the United States to the far right until we can’t recognize this country anymore. The division gap between American people who were supporting Donald Trump and anti-Trump become more widen and its spread across the continent. The ascension of Donald Trump as president becomes a “wake-up call” for the right wing parties across the world and ignite the massive wave of revolution against the democracy. I can see this is also similar with Germany during 1930s when the country was hit by the Great Depression from U.S. and it was added by the debt of World War I repatriation which crippling the Germany economy and the price of goods were skyrocketed. And the price wasn’t just skyrocketed, it was went soaring high until the values of Deutsche Mark currency were worthless.
German politician Adolf Hitler who at that time as leader of Nazi Party, saw this crisis as an opportunity and a momentum to seize the power and rallied the people to join the Nazi cause in order to overthrow the democratic government who was failed to resolve the economy crisis. The ironic thing was — probably the dumbest thing ever by the politician — that the failure government under Chancellor Kurt von Schleicher and his predecessor, Franz von Papen had a knowledge of the loomed threat of Nazi Party to the democracy if they win the election, however both of them was scared of their political reputation due to the loss support from their voters which was diverted to the rising Nazi Party, so they were making a “pact with the devil” for the coalition government after the election which led to the degradation of democracy principles in Germany government and led to the fascism dictatorship as we know in the world history.
Schleicher and von Papen saw the rise of the Nazi Party and understand the threats for the Germany democratic system if they were gain control of the government and the opposition parties in the Reichstag (Germany Parliament). But, the ruling parties who had a control of the government in Reichstag wont cooperate with the opposition parties to form a grand coalition government against Nazi Party in the 1932–1933 federal election due to several party interest rather than to pursue for the national interest and protecting the democratic system from Nazi Party. This is the failure of the democratic institution to facing the threats of democracy from “bad populism” and the politician who were entrusted by its people to become as a “guardian of the democracy” at the imminent danger, was failed to protecting and instead letting them to destroy the democracy principles rather than to preventing it. We can take this example as a lesson for the danger of populism if they were not monitored.
I’m explaining about the examples of “bad populism” from the examples of Donald Trump and Adolf Hitler. Now, I’m gonna explaining the examples of “good populism” which there is a lot of examples. For my pick, I’m gonna use the example from the Scandinavian countries in which their government is to be considered as the democratic and efficient government in the world. The democracy index for Scandinavian countries according to the 2020 Economist Intelligence Unit is full democracy which there is an explanation behind this. As we know, the major cause behind the successful force of Scandinavian countries is the economy policy known as Nordic model which is shaped by social democrat parties. Now, the part of shaping economy policy where social democrats becomes the main actor behind Nordic model is the one we can use as an example for “good populism”. I’m picked Sweden for specific examples as a part of Scandinavian countries who practicing the “good populism” in the democratic system.
Social democrats were ruling Sweden since the foundation of Social Democratic Party (Swedish: Sveriges Socialdemokratiska Arbetareparti) in 1889 and they shaped the country system including the economy policy to the center by adopting the welfare state and multi-level collective bargaining based on the foundation of social corporatism. This policy was adopted by Sweden in 1930s and adopted by its neighbors (Norway, Finland, Denmark and Iceland) aftermath World War II which led to the prosperity and economic development of Scandinavian region along with the regional stability due to the democratic environment. Sweden political environment (along with the neighbor countries) had adapting the democratic system where the government parties and the opposition parties were understand the principles of democracy and they are willingly working together to prevent the rise of the “bad populism”. The example of “good populism” from Scandinavian countries is a prove that the democratic system could be implemented in America and elsewhere around the world. Its not about the democracy is a bad system, its about the people who were unfaithful and easily disappointed that drives the rise of populism and it will be a bad for the political stability in a country.
I’m already talked about the populism and now I’m talking about democracy which in our present context, the word is sickening for the populist especially on Trump supporters. I understand why these peoples were sick when they heard or read something about democracy and I get it. We are tired with the mere campaign promises made by the politicians which led to the unrealized policies which is why they were hate the government and the politicians based on the democratic system. Apart from that, they viewed that the election as a tool of the democracy were useless to screening and preventing the unreliable and corrupt candidates to enter politics. Throughout the history, democracy is heavily criticized because there are different sides between the people who viewed that democracy were limitless and it can’t be limited by rule while other view suggest that democracy need boundaries in order to keep people in check and if there is no boundaries in democracy, then it is called as anarchy.
The main debate for now is populism versus democracy. It is a weird thing for me since both these item are to be needed in order to build a democratic system. However, there were distrust by many people regarding these principles either they hate democracy or they had populism. This chaotic situation is caused by President Donald Trump who instigated the war against the democracy — and you know where this is gonna headed, right? — which led to the government based on the people’s demand period. Remember, democracy means the government from the people, by the people and for the people (according to President Abraham Lincoln) which means there must a law and order. Populist are tended to giving a reason why they hate democracy because there is too much rules, no freedom and liberty. Well, here is my view: if the democratic system must be free from the rules, then we are nothing to compare with the jungle rule which is no rule, no boundaries, only anarchy. Even the anarchist themselves are still believing the principles of democracy although they do not trusting the government.
But, on the other hand, the democracy supporters were viewing populism as the root of fascism and dictatorship as they comparing it with the rise of Nazism based on the populism. This is something that every politicians, political scientist, think-tanks need to be straightened out before the division gap become more wide and bigger. Populism become a good tool for keeping check on the government in order to grow a healthy democracy system. People can use mass media as a tool for the people’s aspiration to their government and demanding a reformation if it is necessary. People can use demonstration and protest as a means for conveying their aspiration to the government and legislative. Democracy can be a tool for the people to keep extremists out of the government before they’re gonna destroying the democratic system just like Germany 1930s and the United States under Trump.
I understand that even this system were having their own deficiency and even the failure. Both populism and democracy is under criticism and needs to be repaired, but it doesn’t mean that we become skeptic and apathetic on it. We can still had a role to repaired it. How? There is an election every year, which means it is the right time to use your rights to cast your vote and choose carefully and wisely on candidates in the ballot. If that is not enough for you, you can relying your message by making a campaign in social media or convey your concerns and aspirations directly to your representatives (MPs, senators, congressmen) or you can use the opinion space on newspaper. There is no perfect ideology or system in this mortal world, but we had the chance to improving these system more better and restore the people confidence in the democratic system.
*This article is part of my presentation on Foreign Policy Talks Group Discussion which was held virtual on October 16th, 2021.
Well, this is just my Thoughts from the Closet.
