How precious is it that President Joe Biden still seems to genuinely believe that the United States is the ultimate guardian and arbiter of democracy worldwide? It's not like the U.S. itself isn't struggling with the concept - and Biden really isn't making things better.
American voters have long realized that those who are ultimately elected have the kind of financial hurdles to overcome that make it incredibly difficult for the Average Joe to participate, let alone win. Then, once they get to Washington, these elected representatives often succumb to the seductive siren song of special interests with deep pockets and an agenda that serves the elites to the detriment of the average citizen's interests.
The average voter ends up feeling like the democratic process and those selected through it are serving other masters. They sense that there's an ever-growing discrepancy between the daily lives of the people and the focus of those who are supposed to represent them. They've grown skeptical of lawmakers' motivations. All of this bears out in the hard data.
As Biden himself pointed out in his opening remarks at his inaugural "Democracy Summit" last week, "more than half of all democracies have experienced a decline in at least one aspect of their democracy over the last 10 years, including the United States."
It's no thanks to Biden himself, frankly, that democracy in the U.S. has taken a hit. Consider, for example, the COVID-19 vaccine mandates that Biden tried to unilaterally foist on private-sector workers -- a move that was ultimately clawed back by the U.S. courts. Thankfully, Republican-appointed judges seem to be acting as the true gatekeepers of U.S. democracy and its associated freedoms these days.
But instead of giving himself a spanking for his own attempt at undermining democratic freedoms, or admitting that Washington hasn't done itself any favors when it comes to inspiring confidence in the American system of governance, Biden found a scapegoat for the current failures of democracy, both in the U.S. and abroad: "outside pressure from autocrats." Seriously. "They seek to advance their own power, export and expand their influence around the world, and justify their repressive policies and practices as a more efficient way to address today's challenges," Biden said, in what actually sounds like a pretty accurate description of Washington's own foreign policy.
Washington has advanced and expanded its own power worldwide to the point of provoking endless foreign wars in attempts to ultimately upend the apple carts in various countries enough to hoard and sell all the apples. And Biden has used his own unilateral COVID mandates as a means of imposing his own will on those who deviate from the official Washington narrative, using necessity and efficiency of pandemic management as justification for these repressive measures that infringe on basic rights and freedoms. So how about cleaning up your own room first before tackling the rest of the world, Joe?
Biden used his "Democracy Summit" as a sort of in-crowd slumber party, divvying up the world into bad guys and good guys (strictly according to Washington ethos). Except the world is far more complex and interconnected than that. For example, uninvited Russia is a bad guy, except apparently for all those times when their government space agency was needed to carry American astronauts to and from the International Space Station. China is also a bad guy, except for when it's needed to make, say, iPhones that make U.S. shareholders rich. Turkey, a NATO ally that was also left on the other side of the velvet rope outside the Democracy Summit, is apparently good enough to purchase U.S. weapons, but not good enough to be included in Biden's virtual sleepover.
And if all this isn't hypocritical enough, Biden didn't miss the chance to announce more spending of U.S. taxpayer money -- $424 million of it, to be exact -- on what sounds a lot like propaganda and interference initiatives. Biden said that the funding, which would be funneled through organizations and agencies close to the federal government, would all happen "in the next year to shore up transparent and accountable governance, including supporting media freedom, fighting international corruption, standing with democratic reformers, promoting technology that advances democracy, and defining and defending what a fair election is."
Look, the average person doesn't need or want their reality filtered or denatured by and through government agencies, arms-length proxies, or "reformers" as part of some misguided effort to save democracy. Biden, apparently, however well-intentioned he may be, doesn't understand that it's exactly the sort of interference that he's proposing that has fueled the skepticism that caused this western democratic crisis in the first place. And as long as Washington keeps playing the people for fools, "democracy" still has many miles of rough road ahead.
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