A huge sign humanity is moving in the right direction showed up in my inbox in January: A major global organization which heralds capitalism and democracy, downgraded the standard-bearer of democracy.
The Economist’s Intellegence Unit downgraded the United States from a “full” to a “flawed” democracy. In it’s report: Revenge of the Deplorables, the Intelligence Unit described the long-eroding decline of “democracy” in the US, something that has been fomenting long before Trump took office:
“The US, a standard-bearer of democracy for the world, has become a ‘flawed democracy,’ as popular confidence in the functioning of public institutions has declined…The decline in the US democracy score reflects an erosion of confidence in government and public institutions over many years. According to the Pew Research Centre, public trust in government has been on a steady downward trend since shortly after the September 11th attacks in 2001. Donald Trump won the November 2016 presidential election by exploiting this trust deficit and tapping into Americans’ anger and frustration with the functioning of their democratic institutions and representatives. He positioned himself as the insurgent candidate, a political outsider taking on a “rigged system” who would “drain the swamp” in Washington, DC. However, his candidacy was not the cause of the deterioration in trust but rather a consequence of it.”
Now, smart Americans know that the United States is not a real democracy. It is a federal republic. However, colloquially, and in political perspectives held the world over, the United States IS seen as a democracy whether it is in function or not. Also, The Economist’s Intelligence Unite uses a broad brush to define “democracy”, analyzing a country’s electoral process and pluralism, civil liberties, the functioning of government, political participation and political culture to measure how “functional” a democracy is.
So while purists may justify ignoring the report as irrelevant to the US because the US is not a democracy, such a view doesn’t discredit the report’s veracity.
There’s a lot in the report and I’ll make a broader analysis over several posts. This report may represent the first meta-analysis of public consciousness/willingness for what Copiosis offers: it may be good news for earlyvangelists like me who believe capitalism (and democracy) must go: the rest of humanity may be beginning to agree.