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Is liberal democracy in terminal decline?
- gnosis67 10mo ago[flagged]
- mstank 10mo agoThe pendulum is swinging back slightly, but I wouldn’t pronounce it dead just yet. We are seeing a decline of American hegemony, accelerated by this current regime. And the ascendancy of a non-democratic superpower. However, the largest chunk of GDP and growth still sits firmly in democratic countries and very consequential American elections are happening this year, and in 2028. The real question is, will Europe find its spine?
- mjanx123 10mo agoThe European countries leaderships were each put in place by its responsible CIA compartment supporting liberal candidates/parties and undermining the competition. With the current conservative US admin they are supposed to interact with they don't know what to do and likely will do nothing.
- kreetx 10mo agoWhere would you say the "CIA influence" is the strongest, so I could see better what you mean? I've observed that it's the messy process of democracy that has put the people in power. Sure, big countries (i.e, mostly Russia) would like to tilt governments their way, but it isn't succeeding. I can tell you though that local Facebook pages for newspapers are full of strange comments, seemingly Russian trolls (but I have no proof).
- pyuser583 10mo agoCIA is fanatical about following the State Department's foreign policy. Aside from gathering intelligence, they just take the State Department's lead. A lot "CIA influence" isn't the CIA at all, but the US Government, usually State or DoD, projecting soft power. I know this sounds pendantic. But whenever someone starts talking about the CIA like it's responsible for "supporting liberal candidates" - all seriousness leaves the room.
- alephnerd 10mo ago> CIA is fanatical about following the State Department's foreign policy From past personal experience, inter-service autonomy over policymaking is tightly guarded, and arguments always end up with the NSA (advisor, not the agency) where the president essentially becomes the tiebreaker. Under the current administration, this rivalry has gotten much more intense due to the relatively hands-off management style that has been adopted.
- pyuser583 10mo agoI'm sure fights happen all the time over inter-service autonomy. There was a book written recently about very nasty fighting between the CIA and DEA over whether to support a group of anti-communist guerillas who financed by running drugs. The CIA and DEA switched positions repeatedly: one day the CIA wanted to support them to fight communism, and the DEA wanted to cut them off to stop the supply of drugs. When communism fell, the CIA saw the group as a liability who knew too much, while the the DEA wanted to pay them to destroy their drug labs and plant licit crops. The group ended up destroying their drug labs, and focusing on money laundering, ransomware, and crypto-scams, which neither the CIA nor DEA cared about. But the CIA is very consistent in following state department policies. They jealously guard their ability to delivery intelligence that conflicts with State Department priorities, but they don't have any strong priorities that conflict with those of State. I'm sure things need to be ironed about by the NSA/NSC. That's normal. But the CIA isn't going fight the State department like they fight the DEA. I'm open to correction on this. Maybe I'm just not understanding the situation.
- alephnerd 10mo agoHungary isn't the only illiberal democracy within the EU - France, Italy, Slovakia, Romania, Poland, Cyprus, Malta, Slovenia, Latvia, Belgium, Lithuania, Croatia, and Bulgaria are all either Illiberal/Flawed Democracies or Hybrid Regimes according to the EIU ranking [0]. Now that Babis is back in power with the backing of SPD and AUTO, it will also revert back into an Illiberal/Flawed Democracy. Furthermore, all states on the cusp of EU membership (Albania, Montenegro) are also Illiberal/Flawed Democracies. > largest chunk of GDP and growth still sits firmly in democratic countries The only Full Democracies in the 10 largest GDPs are Germany, Japan, and the UK. Japan under Takaichi Sanae is pro-Trump and Germany is likely to see the AfD break it's cordon sanitare by 2029. [0] - https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/democracy-index-eiu https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/democracy-index-eiu
- pydry 10mo agoThe Economist (who runs the EIU) celebrated the Romanian democratic vote being canceled: https://www.economist.com/europe/2025/05/18/maga-misses-the-mark-in-romania https://www.economist.com/europe/2025/05/18/maga-misses-the-... When they refer to liberalism or democratic values they mean neither. These are bywords for western hegemony, which is what they really care about. This is what was under threat when they celebrated Romania's democratic first choice of president being denied.
- anon291 10mo agoReminder that in the full democracy of the UK , you can be prosecuted for social media posts questioning the governments immigration policy.
- pjc50 10mo agoNo, you can't. You can be prosecuted for encouraging people to burn down a hotel though.
- pydry 10mo agoThere are hundreds of elderly people in prison right now in the UK charged with supporting terrorism because they opposed a racism inspired nazi-style genocide. Greta was among them. 0 have ever threatened or supported any kind of violence against any person ever. Social media posts on this topic are treated the same way as holding up a poster in public.
- latexr 10mo ago> very consequential American elections are happening this year, and in 2028. Let’s hope they are (happening).
- tdb7893 10mo agoThere's no way to stop them federally without a full coup since they are administered by the states. The US has a long history of not cancelling election but suppressing votes (e.g. literacy tests, gerrymandering, closing polling locations, etc). I would look more for voting place shenanigans, voter ID laws with only a weird subset of IDs allowed, radical gerrymandering, and stuff like that. Some of it will be blatantly partisan but also people are using justifications like "restoring trust in elections" to advocate for things that reduce the general franchise. They don't need to do a lot since a few percent is enough to swing the general balance of things.
- AnimalMuppet 10mo agoA few percent may not be enough to swing 2026. What there are also going to be are allegations, claims of cheating, lawsuits...
- tcb678 10mo agoYour contention only works in a functioning democracy. Republicans currently control ~55% of all state legislative seats nationally and hold governing majorities in most states. In some of these states, they are incredibly partisan and just don't care - they will burn it all down to stay in power (MO, TX, etc.) Congress is required to certify the results of presidential elections, but state and congressional elections are a different matter. Those are certified at the state level, by state officials. So what happens if Republican led states simply decide to declare, "We certify that the incumbent representative has been reelected," regardless of the actual vote count, or play other games e.g. discarding votes, eligibility, etc? It would be wildly illegal, of course. It would almost certainly trigger lawsuits, protests, and significant political repercussions within each state. But here's the problem: in many of these jurisdictions, the federal district courts are controlled by Republican-appointed judges. The circuit courts are too. If the state officials certifying the results are Republican, the state courts and legislatures are friendly, and the federal courts that would hear any challenge are also sympathetic, how exactly would anyone stop them? Who enforces the ruling if the courts themselves are part of the alignment? The U.S. DOJ will not take up these cases on anyone's behalf. And in such a circumstance, you're unlikely to find a Congress willing to impeach the officials failing to do that. More importantly, the National Guard and/or the Army gets activated under the Insurrection Act. So. That's the ballgame.
- idibiks 10mo agoThat so many people still think we're in a recoverable state for a near- or even mid-term return to "normal" is part of why we're definitely not. The fundamental fixes we need to make, and even awareness of what those problems are that need to be fixed, remain nerd-shit that normal people aren't even aware of, let alone pushing their representatives to achieve. If you want a primer on where we're already moving into, and likely to remain for some time, this wikipedia article is the place to start: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_regime https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_regime In a decade, the year most scholars of political science will say the US slipped fully into this will likely be either 2025 or 2026. But yes, we'll probably still have elections. Functionally nobody's talking about what those elections would need to be laser-focused on achieving to turn us from this path, though. Court reform, eliminating much of the post-9/11 security apparatus, revoking a great deal of authority congress has ceded to the president. Even the democrats won't have the votes to get a majority on most of that, even if they didn't have to worry about a veto and if they took a slim majority in both chambers. They won't get more than 90% of their own members on board with any of that, in many cases, probably not even 50%. We're toast. The very best we might get is a little push-back on tariff power and, if we're very lucky, a substantial reduction in ICE funding. No restructuring the absurd and dangerous under-the-executive(?!) immigration courts to fall under the judiciary instead. No court reform. No undoing large parts of the USA PATRIOT Act. No full abolition of our paramilitary domestic police force. We'll relieve a few symptoms, maybe, in the very best case, but not treat any part of the disease. And that's the best plausible outcome.
- LightBug1 10mo agoTerminal velocity achieved ... The only question is whether it'll hit the ground before the next US election. Any emergency 'chute's available?
- roromainmain 10mo agoI can’t access the article… but honestly, I’ve been asking myself the same question for the past ten years. The best answer I’ve found is: not yet — but the current backlash and drift toward authoritarianism in many democracies is actually the sign that something real is shifting. In a way, the situation looks weirdly similar to Europe before WWII. Democracies were starting to integrate some of the socialist ideas that had emerged in the 19th century, and the dominant forces of capitalism pushed back hard. They let fascists rise, sometimes even supported them. That led to a war, millions of deaths, and then a massive change of mindset: after WWII, every European country implemented strong social protection and regulation. Today, the shift is less about social security and more about cultural transformation — the end of patriarchy, and with it the decline of imperialism and Western dominance. Those foundations started being seriously questioned in the 60s. The dominant forces are resisting because, deep down, they’ve already lost — there’s no going back. But as always, they can still cause immense damage on the way out. And yes, if they refuse to let go peacefully, it could lead to conflict, and a lot of casualties. But after, democracy will make a come back. I may be too optimist.
- alephnerd 10mo agoThe article's argument follows your track of logic but is much more pessimistic: "Is liberal democracy, then, in terminal decline? The rise of Carney himself offers a glimmer of hope, fuelled as it was by a reaction against Trump. But electoral trends in Europe do not suggest a repeat. A broad-based recovery of the liberal order will probably depend on a turnaround in the underlying trends, and here the signs are less promising. Attempts to soften the impact of worsening demographics are routinely rejected by voters and parties on both left and right. And the most promising source of renewed economic dynamism — AI — is likely to worsen inequality and increase societal instability, further undermining faith in democracy and hastening the slide into a zero-sum world. Events of the past year have shocked the democratic world out of its daze, but it is these more powerful and slow-moving forces that should be the lasting cause for concern. Trump may fade from view in a few years, but any expectation that the liberal order will snap back flies in the face of the evidence. The old system was one that worked under a particular set of conditions. Those conditions are no longer present."
- Havoc 10mo agoUnfortunately I suspect yes - for practical reasons not directly linked to demographics It’s hard to beat the raw power of central control when you need something specific done sharpish at any cost. See chinas quest for catching up with asml. Asml arose under the western order certainly but I don’t think the western order could will it into existence the way an autocratic government can. And that i think is going to become a big problem as progress speeds up and more of these pivotal junctures come up in quick succession
- rawgabbit 10mo agoIn the US, we are witnessing one of the flaws of the Constitution. The Executive branch, which is supposed to carry out the laws, is ignoring the law. Both Congress and the Supreme Court are acquiescing. The only people who are pushing back are the lower courts (which again are ignored by the Executive branch). This is dysfunction on a national level.
- gregbot 10mo agoSo do you oppose DACA? That was the executive deliberately refusing to enforce the law as passed by congress. Edit: Here’s what a federal judge had to say in 2023: "The solution for these deficiencies lies with the legislature, not the executive or judicial branches. Congress, for any number of reasons, has decided not to pass DACA-like legislation ... The Executive Branch cannot usurp the power bestowed on Congress by the Constitution — even to fill a void." https://www.npr.org/2023/09/14/1199428038/federal-judge-again-declares-that-daca-is-illegal https://www.npr.org/2023/09/14/1199428038/federal-judge-agai... > Also, as an aside, if the bad actors in government who were screeching about DACA's constitutionality put even a fraction of that effort into protecting the Constitution when the First and Fourth Amendments were on the line, that would be great. This is actual whataboutism
- aappleby 10mo agoOh boy, whataboutism!
- plagiarist 10mo agoI'm reading through the Wikipedia and you'll have to explain this because it looks like that version of the federal government respected injunctions that were issued. Or we can drop the pretense that you want to start a discussion in good faith with this whataboutism, that's fine with me too. Also, as an aside, if the bad actors in government who were screeching about DACA's constitutionality put even a fraction of that effort into protecting the Constitution when the First and Fourth Amendments were on the line, that would be great.
- wan23 10mo ago
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- ultropolis 10mo agoA trick I learned recently that you can apply here is the following: If a headline asks a yes/no question, the answer is "no".
- blenderob 10mo agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline... > "Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no."
- ultropolis 10mo agoI immediately tested the premise in my newsreader, and saw that modern clickbait gives us headlines like "How many weeks till Blandars Gnob is released?", So I added that it must be a binary question.
- latexr 10mo agoEither way, research suggests it’s not true. See the “Studies” section in the linked Wikipedia page. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines#Studies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline... > A 2016 study of a sample of academic journals (not news publications) (…) were more often answered "yes" in the body of the article rather than "no". > A 2018 study of 2,585 articles in four academic journals in the field of ecology (…). Of the yes/no questions, 44 percent were answered "yes", 34 percent "maybe", and only 22 percent were answered "no". > In 2015, a study of 26,000 articles from 13 news sites on the World Wide Web (…) divided into 20 percent "yes" answers, 17 percent "no" answers and 16 percent whose answers he could not determine.
- inanutshellus 10mo ago> research suggests it’s not true You misread. Betteridge's law says it can be "no"... I think though his "law" is referring to clickbait that imply a falsehood to get you to read it. "New Research asks - Can your baby live entirely off of kelp?!" ... "wow can she? that's nuts! lemme read! oh. no."
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- paganel 10mo agoHopefully, yes. Also hilarious how even on this downward trajectory the liberal order's main propaganda entities (like the FT here) run with geeky and nerdy stuff like charts (?!), that will show 'em!! A true sign that they know nothing of the real (ideological world). Just the other day they (the FT, that is) were also running with that mantra of "Trump is invading Greenland only on account of him getting messed up by the Mercator map projection!!", which was straight West Wing [1 ]heavy-liberal territory. Like I've said, they know nothing of the real world. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLqC3FNNOaI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLqC3FNNOaI
- thomassmith65 10mo agoSocial media incentivizes small 'creators' to espouse outrageous views that mainstream media does not, and that seem vitally important. An easy way to pump out a stream of unacceptable, important-sounding views is to (a) be outrageously wrong or offensive, and (b) claim everything mainstream is part of an evil plan to ruin the world. This leads to constant messaging against whatever the underpinnings of a society happen to be. So liberal democracy is in decline where it has been healthiest. I have hope that liberal democracy will rise in regions where it is scarce. The Middle East first, then perhaps China, which we have all written off based on a couple decades (the blink of an eye, in the long run)
- prometheus76 10mo agoLiberal democracy is rooted in Christian ethics. It does not make sense to a Muslim culture or the Chinese culture.
- wat10000 10mo agoI imagine the people of Malaysia and Taiwan would be surprised to learn this.
- red-iron-pine 10mo agoOr Indonesia. Or Turkey, which has a long history of Democracy stemming from Attaturk
- thomassmith65 10mo agoDemocracy is pre-Christian. Liberalism is rooted in Christian sectarianism.
- red-iron-pine 10mo agoAncient Greece sure as hell wasn't Christian
- 1718627440 10mo ago
- OutOfHere 10mo agoLiberal democracy was in practice never about the people. Its existence made the rich richer and the poor poorer. The poor would be better off being more enterprising and putting their savings in inflation-resistant assets, e.g. gold, stock indexes, and major cryptocurrencies, rather than relying on liberal democracy to safeguard them. Don't call it investing because it should be the default vehicle. The rich of course don't want the poor to do anything of the sort, so that the poor can continue to remain exploited.
- mise_en_place 10mo ago[flagged]
- mothballed 10mo agoIt is interesting to note Liberia has(had) a similar constitution, although they seem to have done better at preserving freedom, and overall a quite different result in what they've got. You can build a house without code psychopaths condemning it because you broke some silly rule, you can raise your children mostly as you see fit without fascist CPS agents who pretend to be the ultimate parent scrutinizing you, they do not have much of any functioning immigration police, not much of any enforcement on the "war on drugs", the government is overall a pretty low % of GDP, and they only have 10% the amount of prisoners per capita as the US.
- rune-dev 10mo agoCan you elaborate on this? Surely you don’t mean only white people can form/sustain liberal democracies…
- mise_en_place 10mo ago[flagged]
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- AnimalMuppet 10mo agoIf that's Spangler, why would I want to read more of it? Why is it that all of these "profound" philosophers can't write worth a lick?
- rune-dev 10mo agoRight… So very thinly veiled racism. Got it
- direwolf20 10mo agoOn a surface reading that's exactly what it says.
- mindcrime 10mo agoTerminal? Hard to be sure, but I think there are glimmers of hope that the answer is "no" in the short-term. Corollary question: should it be? Eg, is "liberal democracy" really the best we can possibly do? My take is that the long-term goal should be a society based on Voluntaryism with no use of force for anything other than self-defense. But if we ever get there, it won't be soon, and in the near-term the collapse of liberal democracy is trending towards the full-on advent of fascism and totalitarianism. So at least for now, I believe liberal democracy is something worth fighting to protect.
- vfclists 10mo agoHow can liberal democracy not be in decline if it can only be discussed or seen behind a paywall which costs £59 a month to get over? Are the voters a joke to the people who write such articles? Am I a joke to them? Is there a browser addon which can mark links on HN as behind paywalls? Some sub-reddits tag them as such.
- pjc50 10mo agoThe paradox is that, because it earns a decent amount of money from readers, the FT provides generally sound content. Free media tends to be ideological advertising for whoever's funding it.
- tim333 10mo agoThere's a browser addon that lets you read them - works on this one https://gitflic.ru/project/magnolia1234/bpc_uploads https://gitflic.ru/project/magnolia1234/bpc_uploads
- Yizahi 10mo agoYes it is, partly because it was never democratic, and more like a an elective oligarchy. While people's and oligarchy intentions roughly aligned, we thought that "yay, democracy is working!". But as soon as the intentions diverged, this social order is slowly being exposed for what it is. Why is it not democratic, you may ask? Because not a single one of us across the world had ever voted for or against any of the laws we must comply with (except for some lucky blokes in Switzerland). Laws were written and approved by a small number of individuals and not people.
- mothballed 10mo agoI think it's drifting further from even that. The people have discovered they can vote OPM to themselves and their pet causes. ICE now has a budget 4x the size of the marine corps. SS fund is on its way to bankruptcy. Corporations get all kinds of subsidies. Farmers get their own subsidies. And it goes on and on. Meanwhile the national debt just keeps going up. As each guy pays more OPM to the next guy he keeps asking more for more OPM for himself to cover the OPM he's losing to others. Eventually the portion of the economy that is one big circle jerk ratchets up and then if it goes on too long the whole thing collapses.
- direwolf20 10mo agoDebt is the flip side of money, and most governments make sure they have enough debt so that everyone has money. The US is the global reserve, so it has to print enough money for the whole world, not just its own citizens.
- wat10000 10mo agoDemocracy has been a pretty consistent desire among large numbers of people for a long time now. I don't see that ending any time soon. I do think things will get worse before they get better, because we have a hard time learning from history. The reasons for wanting democracy are too abstract right now. Once enough people get smacked in the face by them and learn why democracy is good, it will turn around. Unfortunately, those of us who do understand history have to learn this lesson alongside them.
- josefritzishere 10mo agoI'm surprised this hasn't been flagged yet.
- PaulHoule 10mo ago"...Democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried..." https://winstonchurchill.org/resources/quotes/the-worst-form-of-government/ https://winstonchurchill.org/resources/quotes/the-worst-form...
- _DeadFred_ 10mo agoIn the US most Americans just don't matter to the economy like they once did (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43298862 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43298862) We have reached not just Dead internet theory, but also Dead Civilization theory. The top feel like they don't need half of civilization, and in fact half of civilization are now a weight/burden on society. Liberal democracy was able to take power from authority because it was supported by enough people with enough power but that dynamic no longer exists. Authority has finally reached a point where that power has/is being taken back because it no longer needs those people's labor/participation/existence/buy in in society.
- keernan 10mo ago1. Has there ever been a society - regardless of political type - in which the 'power elite' did not define the rules of society to their benefit and to the detriment of the non-elite? 2. As for the US Constitution: (a) It's original design limited participation to (i) white (ii) men (iii) who owned land (wealth). I would argue not much has changed in 250 years. How many billionaires can pick up the telephone and speak directly to the President or Senator or Governor that same day? And how many of you can do the same? (b) The design of the US Constitution did not provide SCOTUS or CONGRESS with any mechanism to control an Executive who appointed officials swearing allegiance to the President ( the man ) as opposed to the President ( the office ). Once the President successfully appoints heads of every department, especially FBI, DOJ, and military who are loyalists to the MAN, then there is absolutely nothing SCOTUS can do to force the President to comply with its rulings; nor is there anything the Senate can do when the President laughs when the convict the President of Articles of Impeachment.