Since animals appeared on this earth, “the strong dominate the weak and the weak submit” has been the natural law until this day. It had also been the law for humans with probably a brief interruption when Thomas Jefferson issued the Declaration of Independence, which was probably the first written document declaring that all men were equal, seemingly asserting that that law was invalid: there was no divine right of kings. The Declaration and the Constitution formed the foundation of the American Democracy – in fact the foundation of many countries’ political systems – which has enabled ordinary people a say in governing their own life.
Democracy has been a political system to address the imbalance of power between the strong, the wealthy and the controllers of police power, and the ordinary people. The mass with its numbers makes up for the lack of energy due to a lack of wealth and police power. Still, such balance of power has always been in the realm of the same law, and Democracy is still trying to find a better means to enhance and protect the balance.
More than 300 years of thriving Democracy in America, and in some other places, may turn out to be a lull in the grip of the SDWS law.
Democracy was a counterforce against the law. The power of the kings was overwhelming and the populace, scattered around, did not have much. But when they came together, in the American 1776 Revolution and the French 1789 Revolution, the energy was strong enough to subvert the power of the kings and their cohorts, the privileged, and the wealthy. Democracy was a means to make ordinary people’s life safer and better.
In the Twenty First Century, immense energy, in the form of wealth and money, accumulated lopsidedly, so hugely and so fast with the wealthy and privileged getting the most of it. The balance of power is now tilted decidedly toward them, and the multitude is losing out. The law takes hold again and is enforced relentlessly and brutally. Society is again controlled and dictated by the wealthy, and the mass is again obedient servants.
That is not the only major problem for Democracy.
The backbone of Democracy, the middle class, does not seem to be worried. They say to themselves, if I am paid millions of dollars to say in writing or on broadcast media things the strong want me to say, why should I act au contraire? What does Democracy mean to me? Why do I care? When I was scratching the earth in the winter to make ends meet and the strong were frolicking in the snow on a Swiss mountain with their fur coats on, I am not idealistic, mind you, but Democracy made a lot of sense. If my job required support in terms of influence and financially, why should I betray a guy with tons of money who knocks on my door? When my stock value keeps increasing thanks to the billionaires keeping the stock market, artificial or not, at an all-time high, why should I not listen to them? What can Democracy do for me to offset the benefits the billionaires bestow on me? I, a member of the middle class, have two or three cars in the garage, my children in college, the bills paid and money left enough for a vacation or two a year, if Democracy is wounded, it is too abstract for me to be concerned. What if the strong get abusive down the line? I don’t feel like being threatened and don’t want to sacrifice my well-to-do status quo by going against the strong in anticipation of their potential abusive behavior.
What if the American Middle Class does not consider Democracy an ideal anymore because the purposes it is supposed to serve, providing a good life, safeguarding liberty with acceptable exceptions, and creating opportunities for the people to pursue happiness, are already here? What else can Democracy offer so enticing that the American Middle Class will sacrifice their status quo and fight to protect it? A political framework to prevent bullying and abuses? What if the powerful and their AIs create a world where the bullied and abused would be somebody else at somewhere else?
The MAGA U.S.A. is now run, seemingly, like a small town with a chief of police supposedly overseen by the town’s council. The chief runs rough shots at real or perceived criminals or law violators all over town. The town’s council has so far let the chief have free rein, assuming the town “U.S.A.” has a council. He is so free to act that he does not feel obliged to give a reason or an explanation for his acts.
The most alarming aspect of the current state of American Democracy is the complete silence of the council. It did not do anything even when one of its members, a U.S. senator, was publicly tackled down on the concrete surface of the street for daring to ask one of the chief’s underlings a question. Even if the town agreed to the policy of cleaning up the town’s streets, rectifying the immigration problem, etc., the conduct of the police in carrying out the policies left much to be desired, cruel, rough, and unnecessary, the expected behavior of the bullying strong. The council said nothing.
The cruelty, roughness, and soldiers with combat gears appearing in cities across the nation are probably not unintentionally incompetent but calculated. Some fear impressed on the mind of the populace could be a good thing that pre-empt any attempt to object or protest. After more than 300 years of staying in the background honing their skills and let ordinary people run American politics, the strong, probably with the help of the best AIs money can buy, not only know how to seize power, but more importantly how to keep power – for good. Shouldn’t Democracy seek an alliance with non-MAGA billionaires with their AIs hopefully as effective as the ones possibly being used by those going against Democracy?
Many have criticized Professor Francis Fukuyama’s thesis and asked: Is Democracy really the end of history?
America is seemingly asking: Is Democracy at its end?
JOHN P. LE PHONG (This article appears on X, Facebook, and thelephongjournal.com)
