Page 8 - aruba-today-20181215

A8 WORLD NEWS
Saturday 15 december 2018

Analysis: In democracies’ political chaos, new model emerges

By NIKO PRICE thoughts. To be clear, this the unspoken guarantee large numbers and voted stepped up the following
Associated Press isn’t a weakening of de- that had kept the political narrowly to leave the Euro- May, when a young banker
LONDON (AP) — Bickering mocracy. In a way, it’s the establishment in place for pean Union, sending shock- and former economy min-
in the Oval Office. Shout- ister managed to persuade
ing at the Houses of Par- voters that he was an out-
liament. Rioting on the sider. Emmanuel Macron’s
Champs-Elysees. hyperglobalism contrasted
It’s a chaotic moment for with Trump’s xenopho-
the countries that have bia, but he too argued he
long underpinned the would drain the swamp
global order, a time of in- and stand up for common
stability for the balance of people. That promise fad-
power that has reigned for ed quickly. Macron soon
decades. became known as the
Across the world, people “president of the rich,” an
are questioning truths they image not helped by his ar-
had long held to be self- rogant proclamation that
evident, and they are dis- France needs a “Jupiter,”
missing some of them as chief of the Roman gods.
fake news. They are replac- Anger peaked when, in an
ing traditions they had long ostensibly environmentalist
seen as immutable with move, he pledged to raise
haphazard reinvention. already exorbitant taxes
In France, people who feel on gasoline. People fed up
left behind by a globalizing over high taxes and high
world have spent the last cost of living spilled into the
few weeks marching and streets, some violently, in
rioting to protest a govern- In this Nov. 24, 2018 file photo, a demonstrator waves the French flag on a burning barricade on protests that have shaken
ment they call elitist and the Champs-Elysees avenue with the Arc de Triomphe in background, during a demonstration the country and forced
out of touch. The govern- against the rise of fuel taxes. Macron to backtrack.
ment, whose initial dismis- Associated Press UP NEXT: MORE UNCERTAIN-
siveness seemed to confirm TY
their suspicions, was finally opposite. decades: that each gen- waves through the political The chaos doesn’t end
forced to change tack. IS CONSENSUS OUTDATED? eration would be better off establishment. there. Across the world,
Britain is still shuddering The flavor of democracy than the last. “We haven’t Cameron resigned, leaving politicians are reading from
from a referendum that most familiar to the West is forgotten 2008,” reads graf- successor Theresa May the a new playbook. From
its government called to an indirect one, with voters’ fiti on a bank near Paris’ unenviable task of trying to the Philippines’ Rodrigo
muzzle naysayers, only to desires helping to shape riot-scarred Champs-Ely- navigate an elegant de- Duterte to Brazil’s Jair Bol-
see those naysayers win the institutions that do the sees. “Give us our money parture amid gleeful “Brexi- sonaro, candidates are
the day. Now, as politicians governing — and that of- back.” teers,” panicking “remain- winning elections despite
go through awkward con- ten act as mannered buf- Add to that disruptive tech- ers” and exasperated Eu- — or perhaps because of
tortions to deliver on that fers that calm stormy politi- nology that is replacing ac- ropean frenemies. She nar- — statements and actions
vote, the government is on cal waters. countants with algorithms, rowly survived a leadership so politically incorrect that
the verge of collapse. The emerging models, secretaries with Siri and challenge Wednesday, but until recently they would
And in the United States, though, summon a more drivers with their own trucks. her government could fall have guaranteed defeat.
a president who some ac- fundamental, sometimes Mix in the ubiquity of social at any time as she tries to And the newly jumbled
cuse of upending ideals brasher form of democra- media, which has removed prevent a potentially cata- landscape provides open-
that the nation holds dear cy in which votes and other the filters of truthfulness strophic “no-deal” Brexit ings for nations like China,
is aggressively abandoning political expressions have and civility that once mod- on March 29. In Novem- which are looking to ex-
protocol and customs that a more direct effect, or in erated political discourse. ber 2016, it was America’s tend their influences into
have prevailed through which they empower an Top it off with a campaign turn to buck tradition. After fresh corners of the planet.
a dozen of his predeces- individual who can bypass of hacking, promoted by an uncivil campaign that Is this a pivot point in mod-
sors. His core followers are those institutions. enemies of the West and broke the Internet, Donald ern political history? West-
thrilled; many others are In the process, these dem- designed to misinform, ele- Trump won a bitter vote to ern liberal democracy
getting vertigo. ocratic nations risk losing vate suspicions and create become leader of the free seems almost quaint now,
What’s more, these events a tradition of consensus ruckus. That combustible world. Pretty much every- loitering quietly in the cor-
are playing out not only in decades old — an agree- mix exploded in 2016, and thing that has happened ner as its most prominent
the lands of Liberty, Equal- ment among one another the mushroom cloud is still since has continued off standing proponent, Ger-
ity and Fraternity, of the about how to live, how to rising. In June of that year, script. man Chancellor Angela
Magna Carta and of the govern and how to inter- after more than four de- From his impetuous foreign Merkel, steps slowly out of
Declaration of Indepen- act with others that has cades of ambivalent mem- policy to his testing of the the limelight.
dence, but across the prevailed since the end of bership in the European American tradition of sepa- The themes of Western
Western world. World War II. club, Britain held a referen- ration of powers, Trump’s democratic revolutions re-
It’s a similar narrative in How did this all happen? dum that intended — in the entire palette of activities main more relevant than
each place: People out- Let’s back up a decade, words of then-Prime Minis- has drawn questions about ever, even in new forms.
side the centers of pow- to when the Ponzi scheme ter David Cameron — “to whether he — and by ex- Whether these sharp new
er are rejecting political of low-deposit, high-risk settle this European ques- tension the United States — voices represent new paths
elites they feel take them mortgages brought the tion” once and for all. will stick to long-held princi- to liberty remains an open
for granted, and backing global financial system to After a campaign filled ples and commitments. For question, as does whether
new movements that es- its knees. The resulting years with xenophobic fearmon- the most powerful nation the result will be the greater
chew the rules and that of recession and austerity gering and finance viola- on Earth, that uncertainty equality that so many say
often play to their basest added up to a betrayal of tions, Britons turned out in is no small matter. France they crave.q