In a world in which even nightmarishly totalitarian countries like North Korea call themselves “democratic republics,” people who are avowedly against democracy as such and want to see it replaced by something else are thin on the ground, but this does not mean that those who swear fealty to the democratic ideal are always willing to do what the local majority demands of them. On the contrary, almost everywhere politicians look the other way when most of their compatriots start clamouring for measures that do not meet with their approval. Instead of dutifully applying them as in theory they should, they tell themselves that all important issues should be left to “experts” who, as usually seems to be the case, happen to share their points of view.
When the local standard of living steadily improved, politicians could get away with such an aloof approach, but with economic conditions deteriorating in large swathes of the industrialised world, they will not be able to do so for much longer. In many European countries, a popular or, if you prefer, populist rebellion against the well-heeled elites that have run them for many decades is fast gathering strength. Those behind it accuse what are still seen as mainstream politicians of betraying the demos by embracing doctrines that subordinate the interests of their fellow countrymen to abstractions such as globalism, which for its most enthusiastic devotees entails the transfer to international bodies of powers vested in the nation state, and ecological concerns which oblige them to do whatever it takes to ensure the well-being of some obscure fish or insect species that could face extinction even if saving it inconveniences mere humans.
By and large, “ordinary people” in relatively prosperous parts of the planet have long been strongly opposed to mass immigration from places that are far poorer, in which religious beliefs are very different and nepotism among clannish extended families is rampant, which is why upstart politicians who demand that it be put into reverse and many newcomers get sent home are riding high in the opinion polls.
Ordinary folk have also learned that attempts to replace old-fashioned fossil fuels by large numbers of windmills and solar panels are destroying industry and driving down their standard of living, as are efforts to put an end to traditional agricultural practices by, among other things, getting rid of those methane-producing bovines; throughout Europe, farmers are up in arms.
In addition to all this, people without academic credentials are fed up with just about everything connected with “diversity.” They think it is terribly unfair that individuals belonging to groups of alleged victims of prejudices in the rapidly receding past receive favours that are denied to those members of the working class who are told that, as beneficiaries of the patriarchal or ethnic privileges bequeathed on them by their forefathers, they deserve to be put at the back of every queue so they can learn what it is like to be mistreated.
In the United States, Donald Trump rose to power by exploiting the feeling that his country was being subjected to a series of harmful, and on occasion bizarre, experiments by an assortment of supposedly progressive cliques whose members wield costly university diplomas that are of dubious value in the “real world.” On the other side of the Atlantic, there are plenty of people who want their own political leaders to apply big doses of the medicine patented by Trump and his supporters.
This greatly alarms all those who are associated with the established order, but they cannot be that surprised by what is going on; the institutions that were set up for what became the European Union were designed to ensure that the authorities did not have to take into account the ebb and flow of popular opinion which, as all right-minded politicians know, tends to be so unreliable that it should not be allowed to interfere with their decisions.
Of course, it can be argued – and, sotto voce, it often is – that in today’s complicated world there are many thorny problems that only qualified experts could possibly understand, let alone be able to come up with rational suggestions about how to solve them. That is true enough; those who are in a position to say what would have to be done to prevent Artificial Intelligence or other technological innovations from damaging society are few and far between. Even so, while there are plenty of somewhat less recondite matters which even the fairly well-informed would rather entrust to experts, the fact that most of these have ideological or party-political axes to grind does nothing to encourage faith in their judgement. The by no means unreasonable suspicion that allusions to “the Science” – like those to God in previous ages – are usually made in order to justify what are merely personal viewpoints, is one reason why regimes that are wedded to some form of technocracy are now in such bad odour.
For over two-and-a-half millennia, believers in democracy have faced critics who tell them that it is foolish to allow an ignorant and often downright stupid populace to elect the people who manage public affairs. Perhaps the best answer to such legitimate concerns was given by Winston Churchill when he said democracy was the worst form of government except for all the others that have been tried. However, those in power have always tried to insulate themselves from the common herd which, after putting up with it for a while, often comes to the conclusion that the time has come to narrow the gap between those at the top and the rest of the population.
In much of the West, the pendulum is swinging towards the “right” because for years the ruling elites have spoken like leftists in the belief that it would allow them to assume a posture of unassailable moral superiority. This tempted them into behaving like the aristocrats of former times who openly despised members of lower orders whom they regarded as barely human creatures prone to be led astray by vulgar demagogues whose ridiculous opinions deserved to be treated with contempt.
Unfortunately for the many who think this way, their determination to distance themselves from the unruly plebs succeeded to such an extent that in many European countries they now face an electoral reckoning that for them could be even more painful than the one that overcame their North American counterparts just over a year ago when, to their dismay, Trump swaggered back into the White House.
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