Read what you wrote, Roger. The hungarians are not rebelling against liberal democracy. They're rebelling against billionaires buying democracy.
23
If we fixed income inequality and civic ignorance, we'd have an enlightened society living without fear of others.
As it is, government and capitalism work together to promote social division and concentration of wealth. Too much money in politics and not enough in education.
The best signs of recent weeks: #MeToo, #NeverAgain, teachers' strikes and the blue wave.
11
Well written piece, Mr. Cohen. There was never any doubt in my mind that antisemtism exists in Europe, especially in countries like Poland and Hungary. One simple proof is the number of Jews who died in their camps. The religious countries also are more antisemitic than non-religious liberal ones. Its very easy to get votes in Hungary, now that they are not atheists anymore, by photo-shopping Soros nose! A cheap shot that plays well, like Trumps racial "bad hombres"!
8
"Neutralize an independent judiciary. Subjugate much of the media. Demonize migrants. Create loyal new elites through crony capitalism. Energize a national narrative of victimhood and heroism through the manipulation of historical memory. Claim the “people’s will” overrides constitutional checks and balances."
Just exactly what country is Cohen writing about?
F3
19
Two words to explain it all, Income Inequality.
7
If the migrants were handsome white people, would there even be the public backlash that’s being exploited so artfully by Orban and others? Neoliberal economics imposed by a condescending elite is painful and creates resentment, but allowing mass migration of nonwhites, with a different culture no less, provokes outrage and enables the rise of dictators. I saw this coming nearly 30 years ago, and after the migrant flood of 2015, it has come.
8
Mr. Cohen is unduly alarmed at events in Hungary and Poland. This paper post-2016 election stated 'liberal post war values 'are now in the hands of Chancellor Merkel...' Many here, as well as I am sure eastern Europe, could never accept that Germany, the perpetrator of the greatest crimes of the twentieth century is ever to be trusted. What our President promised and is doing is to focus on the threat of radical Islamic terrorism, all too real also for Europe, ignored by the EU to its peril. He spoke as well to the Poles, defining the battle of good and evil in the world, these words resonate not only there but at home. Mr. Soros is not opposed substantively on 'anti-Semitic riffs...' as the author has it, but he joins other elites, the media here, and the EU bureaucrats, forces unchallenged for too long. As a New York lawyer I am not intimidated by accusations in these pages, so to hurl accusations that PM Orban and Mr. Kaczynski made 'democracy the enemy' remind me more of 'news' of our President I must regularly evaluate from biased network and cable news sources here at home.
20
Mr. Cohen - great article.
There are only two systems of government around the world. It is either free market capitalist or socialist based economics. What we are seeing is both systems are exploited by individuals for selfish and distorted reasons.
In the capitalist system, most of the time, the wealthy are always on the beneficial side. Complaints of not properly paying their share of taxes. The rich get richer, and the poor staying poorer.
Disparity in income and livelihood levels encourage various individuals who suddenly wear the uniforms of 'saviors', to convince people that nationalism and populism are solutions to people's grievances. We can call it Socialism, Communism or whatever name.
It is not just Hungary and Poland, formerly under the umbrella of Socialist/Communist USSR, there are countries in other parts of the world, like in Asia and Africa. It is the same play book, being borrowed and played. We are seeing history being repeated, and lessons not learnt.
1
Mr Cohen does not adress the role of the Catholic Church in those countries. He should.
4
It's disturbing that Cohen, knowing as much as he does and getting so much right, ignores what might be the most important cause. Sure, globalism has hurt many people and they are justifiable angry. But the solution they're being offered has been pushed relentlessly by the real "globalizing elites." Here in America, they've have used propaganda (Fox, Sinclair etc), agents-of-influence like ALEC and the Federalist Society and various forms of suppressing the vote for decades. That's how the tyrants of the WWII era did it too. The "liberal elites" aren't the ones pushing austerity, it's the right. The American version is cutting the safety net that sustains those "moochers." Trump is the buffoonish distraction. Putin, the Koch brothers, the Mercers, and all the other self-appointed übermensch of the world are the man behind the curtain. Democracy is their enemy and always has been. That someone as astute as Cohen parrots their propaganda about liberal elites shows how successful their propaganda has been.
60
Is it really any of our concern whether or not Hungary and Poland are open or closed to immigration? Perhaps the majorities of the two countries feel the West is declining into cultural decadence and disintegration. Perhaps they look at current American culture and society, and recoil with revulsion. Who are we to judge and attempt to impose some sort of opinion control? " Life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness " ... let them go about it in their own way. We in the U.S. certainly have enough to occupy our attention here at home.
27
What we are seeing is a reaction to a decades-long policy in Europe - the rejection of the nation-state in favor of the multicultural state.
The liberal West has hedged its bets on a policy of multiculturalism, which destroys cultural, racial, ethnic, religious and necessarily, national identity.
These things are the fabric of every nation in Europe, not to mention most of the world and liberals thought they would attach their fortunes to the dismantling of this fabric without any kind of push-back?
What in God's name were they thinking?
22
I have been to the old countries. It is no wonder they would like to preserve their way of life. Who are we (or they) to tell them that they cannot. Multiculturalism may be of benefit to some, but what if it comes at another's expense. You seem to have forgotten that the norms and mores of one society do not always run in parallel with those of another. When the inevitable conflict comes, it will be reduced to winners and losers.............and thus it has always been......I don't like it.....but until you completely remove the aggressiveness of mankind the conflict will arise.......and are you sure that you want to live in that world?
22
The notion of the national state is collapsing. Why have borders? This article points out that borders are the problem. Why should someone sacrifice for their country? Why have a country? Finance capitalism has managed to make it a borderless world for money. Why should it not be a borderless world for people. Why should someone be privileged to be born as a single or one of two children in Europe or the US when someone else is born as one of 12 in Nigeria or Pakistan. Why should women be forced to work for two dollars a day in Bangladesh or 5 dollars per day in Guatemala when they can come to Europe or the US? Borders are not just as this article points out. If borders were eliminated labor arbitrage would be eliminated. Moving a plant to India would not be profitable and it would just make more sense to move the Indian workers to the plant, be it in Bremen or Cleveland. And as the Times reports American workers are simply not as motivated as third world workers.
1
“The West is the site of European cultural suicide, the place where family, church, nation and traditional notions of marriage and gender go to die.”
Isn’t that essentially the liberal platform? I try to read liberal media, including the NY Times, and keep a circle of liberal friends and acquaintances. I think that they would proudly say that they would like to transform traditional/conservative beliefs about gender, marriage, and families. They tend to view religious faith and patriotism as regressive dangers to their secular, globalist values. They openly support a transformational agenda pushed through all forms of media and the educational system. True liberals don’t reject these ideals, they embrace them as the pinnacle of progressivism.
So, basically, Orban is completely correct on this issue. The liberal establishment shouldn’t pretend otherwise. They should make a vigorous and honest defense of their beliefs and goals, and let the voting populace decide.
16
Does the Catholic Church offer a modifying, chastening antidote to this reactionary agenda? Pope John Paul was a patriotic Pole and a towering international figure, while Pope. Francis has expressed firm support for a compassionate response to refugees fleeing war and persecution as well as sympathy for migrants wishing a better life. It is hard to balance shifting and contentious forces in society, as we well know, since we are both a nation of immigrants as well as a country that wishes to control immigration and provide for its own citizens. Poland suffered much from Russian and German occupation and has managed to affirm its cultural. Identity. How tragic that patriotism degenerates into ethnocentrism.
3
Russian Poland endured almost two centuries of religious and cultural discrimination. Hungary's Magyars have historically discriminated against all minorities, and even under the fairly liberal Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Magyars suppressed the voting rights and cultural expression of its minorities. This does not excuse anything in either case, but it points to a possibility that Poland and Hungary's initial push for democracy and "liberal" values may have been opportunistic, superficial, and sown on stoney ground.
The real problems in the EU and the US are two dogmatic certitudes antithetical to one another, a rigid "liberalism" and "nationalism" that seek to survive by annihilating each other. Each are in themselves sterile; liberals live to eat and spend as their vision of the future, nationalists live to defend the past. It is difficult to live a productive life that one might find useful at either of these poles.
5
My Polish, Catholic grandmother, who lost much of her family in WWII, used to say to me that, "the Poles were born to suffer." Maybe she was right. It seems that, as a group, Poles have decided to fulfill that sad promise instead of accepting and embracing change.
3
I am disturbed by the trends in Hungary and Poland that the author points out. But I am equally disturbed by the author's failure to mark out any differences in Polish and Hungarian societies between citizens who are on board with far-right policies and citizens who oppose them. There is a large counter-movement among young people in both societies. And perhaps more disturbing is the casual conflation of "Central Europe" with Hungary and Poland. The Czech Republic, for example, is its own country and little evidence is offered for the claim that the Czech Republic is in the same boat. Perhaps illuminating would have been a comparison between Central European countries and why, in places like Prague and Ostrava, the right-wing movement has taken less of a foothold.
8
Until Mr. Cohen and others like him exercise empathy and true understanding, they will continue to write slanted, myopic, and ethnocentric propaganda pieces like this one. Ask yourselves these questions and tell me if Cohen et al have answered them correctly: Do nations have the right to self-preservation? Do billionaires who have made their money by creating human misery like the sovereign debt crisis have everyone's best interests at heart? Do liberals with fantasies about the benevolence of the USA have any responsibility for the looting and suffering inflicted on post-communist Europe? Multiculturalism is a myth when the migrants refuse to acclimate and are fundamentally opposed to the values and laws of their hosts. Telford. Rotherham.
25
Multiculturalism is the future of the world. We are no longer in ancient tribalism and nationalism will eventually die out, slowly but nevertheless, it will. Democracy, real democratic governance, where the people choose, and when rational, will choose for the well-being of the people, not the elites, will also triumph and will be the authority whereby people can live lives that offers human advancement.
3
Until 1945 European history was a monotonous story of war, each new one bloodier than the last. Do the European leaders preaching nationalism and xenophobia really believe that a return to tribalism will ultimately yield a good result, or are they so cynical that they will say anything to find more power for themselves?
Has the peace Europeans enjoyed for the past 73 years erased their memory of history? How can anybody ignore the victory of the EU and all the prosperity it has brought?
11
It turns out that real democracy and freedom (like the freedom to fail) is hard and not anything like the movies Hollywood puts out. One thinks of the Polish immigrants who were featured in these pages some years ago who were welcomed as bar-tenders and servers in Irish pubs and restaurants after their country joined the EU. Some of the Irish grumbled at their funny accents, but few questioned that if they wanted to work, they were welcome. It is sad that the Poles (my ancestors, I'm embarrassed to say) are not willing to return the favor when others needing a place to live and work arrive.
Just like the Russians, who turned their backs on the effort it would take to create a free society, the Poles seem to have only wanted free stuff, rather than a free life. As we often see on bumper stickers, freedom isn't free--and it can take a lot of hard work. So much easier to let Putin's brute squads keep order and tell you what to do. The EU should stop subsidizing these eastern false democracies and let them fall back under Putin's ugly umbrella. Seems they miss the good old days of communism. At least then, no one expected them to get along with others.
11
This article is a little scary as it shows what Trump's ambition is: to be the first oligarch of America, but it also shows hope. Just as the Poles have had to fight hard for their freedoms and their national being, they have never been an unkind people. Just as the Americans have had to fight for their freedoms and national being, we have overcome our worst instincts and move forward with fits and starts. Some Americans are operating out of fear of the other, but most of us want to operate with hope and goodwill. I believe that and hope I am not wrong.
5
On 12/29/15 the NYT had an article titled "For the Wealthiest, a Private Tax System That Saves Them Billions: The very richest are able to quietly shape tax policy that will allow them to shield billions in income”. It said, “ In recent years, this apparatus has become one of the most powerful avenues of influence for wealthy Americans of all political stripes, including … the liberal billionaire George Soros, who has called for higher levies on the rich while at the same time using tax loopholes to bolster his own fortune.”
Soros does not pay his fair share in taxes. And, he lowers his tax bill further by donating to his foundation. He then uses the foundation to tell Americans that we should accept illegal immigrants, and to tell Hungarians to accept Muslim refugees. The vast majority of illegal immigrants and Muslim refugees are poorly educated. They cost taxpayers a fortune. And yet, Soros does not think he should have to pay his fair share in taxes.
14
And Americans will never know if their so-called president pays any taxes at all, keeping his legitimate income a secret.
4
New York City just hit 8million inhabitants a couple of weeks ago. Hungry ‘s entire population is somewhere between 6 and 8 million people. My questions is how many Syrian refugees did New York City accept in the timeframe in which Hungary was supposed to accept?
20
This is not the Europe I remember. That democracy is in decline and authoritarian pseudo-democratic regimes are on the rise sickens me heart and soul. That this insidious hatred of other is nurtured disgusts me. It baffles me how an individual or a nation would surrender their freedoms.
I must admit the rise of trumpian politics and values is something I did not see coming. I knew there were divisions among but I didn’t believe it was so bad that trump or his ilk could be elected. I thought surely after this country had twice elected Obama to the presidency that we were finally moving forward towards a more interconnected society. I expected this movement to continue, to grow. I couldn’t have been more wrong. I underestimated just how xenophobic, racist, homophobic, bigoted, and anti-feminist this country really is.
We have met the enemy and it is us, has never been so true.
So I’ll keep working to replace the Trump enablers with senators and representatives that represent we the people, not corporations and special interest groups.
4
People never learn and history repeats itself. I sadly believe that people prefer rule by strongmen and that democracy is the aberation. Perhaps this is rooted in biology.
As social primates we evolved not only sexual dimorphism, but a tendency to defer to and follow alpha males who could hunt for and protect the group. On a more benign level, we see this daily in the near universal popularity of male athletes. More malignantly, we see in it a willingness to follow brutal strongmen throughout history. Our times are no different.
8
America First is the battlecry of the emerging authoritarian nationalism successfully espoused by Trump, for whom Putin was and is the model dictator. It worked. So it's being emulated in Europe, which should come as no surprise because American campaign themes and methods have for decades been exported, often with the help of American political consultants. Trump would still be just a TV personality he didn't have the unwavering support of whites, those with little to lose and those with a lot to gain in less taxes and regulation.
2
Cohen fails to address the elephant in the room. And that is the failure of the market based capitalist economy to spread the wealth more equitably to all participants. The capitalist economy creates winners (capital owners) and losers (wage earners). With globalization, the income disparity becomes exaggerated and extremely widen. Government policies, even in the more liberal Western European countries, were inadequate and failed to shield the wage earners from the ravages of globalization. The discontent of the masses give rise to demagogues like Trump and Orban. To fight against the enemy of democracy, it takes nothing less than the imposition of a strongly regulated capitalist economy and the will to redistribute income in the forms of high taxation on the wealthy and generous social programs. Unfortunately, the very wealthy has won the propaganda war and so the grievances of the masses are aimed at the immigrants, minorities and Jews.
6
A sad and frightening narrative and to think that the US has a president cut out of this cloth with little resistance within his own party is scary
3
All this dislocation from wars is breeding right-wing nationalism and all that entails to sideline out voices of inclusion and compassion. How ironic the picture of that demonstrator with Jesus on the cross. Nothing Christian at all about this nationalism.
2
If only he actually read books, Trump would certainly seem to be following the playbook of Prime Minister Viktor Orban: his Hungary First sloganeering, his demonization of immigrants and refugees, his building a southern barricade to keep them out, and his embrace of Russia, Unfortunately, would-be-dictators think alike.
2
Perhaps Poland and Hungary see the unaccountable, elitist power of the EU as a reflection of their days under the thumb of the former Soviet Union. They want the relations and trading partnerships but not the smug self righteous dictates especially when it comes to unfettered migration from the Middle East and Africa.
Call it xenophobic if you want but its also a choice they want to make for their countries that are not yet wealthy enough to sustain the mass influx of poor uneducated migrants with very different religious and cultural beliefs.
Poland and Hungary want a vote; a say in the direction of their national sovereignty and that is democracy at work.
10
Excellent column. As others below have astutely pointed out, this backlash is likely the result of the liberal West's extremism. What would countries such as Poland and Hungary think of us, a nation in which one of our major political parties does not genuinely believe in any sort of coherent immigration policy whatsoever -- a nation that has allowed more illegal immigrants in than the entire population of Hungary.
Places like Hungary and Poland see the insidiousness of "progress." Underneath it all, our country is on a trajectory toward secularism, but not just secularism, chaos: When was the last time you heard a politician authentically reinforce the idea that the family was the basic building block of society? The out-of-wedlock birth rate has shot from 1% in 1950 to 35% today. In some minority communities, much higher. Nobody cares. We are hurtling toward secular oblivion.
If you hold this model up for communities that have been based on a singular religion, tradition, and relative ethnic homogeneous populations for thousands of years, what would it look like to you?
The entire world led by the UN should have stepped up to help Syrian refugees and ideally stopped the war in the first place. Dumping tens of thousands of Muslims into Central European farm towns and hoping that the local populations respond like editors of the New York Times is ludicrous.
22
The experiment with mass immigration and open borders will continue even with this backlash. The funny thing is, no one actually asked for it. Those who let it happen imagined (without any evidence at all) that there would be no backlash and that assimilation would just happen naturally. That has turned out to have been a naive assumption. You'd think there would be at least a small acknowledgement that it was all to fast. Oh well... it's too late now.
12
Roger Cohen eloquently describes the problem and suggests a solution, when he writes that “the arrogance of liberal elites and the disruptions of globalization have played a role…. The democratic West needs to awaken from its slumber….Europe cannot open its doors to everyone. It needs a shared immigration policy that works, economic policies that offset rather than accentuate inequality and a Brussels bureaucracy that delivers tangible results to a half-billion Europeans.”
If those ideas can become a reality, then the situation Cohen describes with such insight can be corrected, not only here in Europe, but in a similar fashion, in the United States as well.
33
This has been going down for only 2500 years - the cradle of democracy Athens was defeated by authoritarian Sparta , even Pericles the father of Greek self-government was exiled.
2
The presidents of the United States were the stalwarts in defending Democracy. Mr. Trump seems to share a wish for a world dominated by authoritarian leaders who favor fascism.
3
That Hungary is adopting this politics - is surprising only to the dewy eyed dreamers. A 1000 years of authoritarianism, deep antisemitism in a homogeneous society cannot produce democracy unless it is Norway with a rich spigot of oil, and a small population.
Hungarians were okay as long as everyone was poor, and hated Russians who unfailingly arrested and sent to the gulag, their neighbor (and not them). Or so it seems.
But the unmistakable global trend, that is disrupting entire sociopolitical orders, and getting ordinary people to choose authoritarian, dystopia-promising, vacuous despots, is refugees and immigration of people who are less white.
Do the pointy heads in elevated pol sci departments have an estimate on the relative contribution of refugees in explaining this rush toward authoritarianism? Is it a small or a big impact? Is it a significant or insignificant impact?
Hungary is not the U.S., Americans don't want someone in power to kill the neighbor's cow. Or not yet anyway. But, we seem to be getting there. The parallels between our strongman, and their strongman, are powerfully disturbing.
Kalidan
2
>>>"o counter it, the Hungarian prime minister has established a template: Neutralize an independent judiciary. Subjugate much of the media. Demonize migrants. Create loyal new elites through crony capitalism. Energize a national narrative of victimhood and heroism through the manipulation of historical memory. Claim the “people’s will” overrides constitutional checks and balances."<<<
This paragraph stood out in bold technicolor. As has been observed before, and perhaps elsewhere in the rest of these comments as well, this is *precisely* the action plan that Trump is following. To the letter. And while that is cause for serious alarm, what is worse is the portion of the populace that supports him and chooses this authoritarian shift out of tribal impulse, more than perhaps anything, as well as clinging to false notions about democracy and patriotism as peddled on muckraker media.
3
"To counter it [the danger coming from the West], the Hungarian prime minister has established a template: Neutralize an independent judiciary. Subjugate much of the media. Demonize migrants. Create loyal new elites through crony capitalism. Energize a national narrative of victimhood and heroism through the manipulation of historical memory. Claim the “people’s will” overrides constitutional checks and balances."
Sounds like Trumpism and fascism to me.
2
Americans seem to forget, "American" isn't an ethnicity. "Hungarian" and "Polish" are, for the most part. Assimilating immigrants is a real fear and they have only to look at France and Germany for examples of assimilation that frighten them. That's reality.
15
This analysis scarily gibes with Garry kasparov's book Winter is Coming which talks in depth abut how the US and Western Europe have substituted financial engagement with Putin's autocratic state and cannot see the dangers of anti-democratic movements.
Why is it that the American South still lags the rest of our country by any measure of quality of life ? It is because — for a century — the presence of “the other” allowed right-wing politicians an easy path to power that never asked that they serve those who gave them power, so long as they oppressed “the other”. To anyone growing up in the American South, this right-wing ascendancy in Europe, flowing out of the refugee crisis, and in America flowing out of migration across our southwestern border, were entirely predictable. The various tactical weaknesses of democratic liberalism need to be recognized and overcome by its adherents and supporters.
1
Mr. Cohen brilliantly documents the threat against democracy. What is so frightening is that men like Orban and Trump are actually succeeding. Every day Trump and his horrible Cabinet undermine our democratic way of life. After 15 short months in office and 10,000 sickening tweets, he has destroyed our place in the world and all that we stand for. I want to believe that those like Trump, Orban, and Kaczynski will, in the end, be defeated by truth and that democracy will win; it can only happen if we all participate, vote, and demand to be heard.
52
Poland and Hungary wanted to merge with Europe, not with the Middle East or Africa. They are not rejecting Europe. If Hungary had not built the wall, Germany and Sweden would have twice as many migrants and would be in very deep trouble now -- the wall has saved Germany more money than it sends to Hungary every year. There is probably more freedom of speech on issues like multiculturalism in either country than there is in Sweden, where no one can be employed by the main media without a wholehearted embrace of it.
10
Two thoughts:
1. The surprising worldwide turn to fascism proves again that neither politicians, historians, pundits nor SF writers are any good at predicting the future.
2. Modern democratic republics are based to a large extent on the ancient Roman republic with its innovative separation of powers. When the republic broke down into a series of alternating left-right dictators and endless civil wars, peace was established only by the wily Augustus, first emperor, who disguised his dictatorship behind the facade of restoring the republic. The forms of democracy were left in place without the actual substance. This seems to be the solution today’s tyrants have stumbled upon. Unfortunately for liberal democracy, Augustus’ solution bequeathed 300 years of peace and prosperity.
"A mood of high nationalist righteousness has taken hold. Poland recently passed an absurd 'Death Camp' law that makes it a crime to accuse “the Polish nation” of complicity in any 'Nazi crimes committed by the Third Reich.'”
Cohen and the NYT need to check their prejudice.
The world betrayed Poland after WWII and continues to malign it and its people. The propaganda against Poland has been intense.
Poland's law only prohibits defamatory remarks. Other countries have more restrictive laws. They prohibit speech they just deem offensive.
8
Insecurity because of immigration and job loss drives popularism. This emotion become indignity when people are told "Old men, old women, uneducated people...adapt yourself to globalization or screw you."
Why can't immigration and global commerce be slowed down to a pace that is more acceptable to most people?
7
Where is the E.U.? Why hasn't the E.U. started expulsions of these countries? Could it be the elites are willing to gamble then spare a few million of their billions to kick these countries out of the E.U.? Could it be that liberal democracy isn't all that important to Europe, still a relatively new concept in its history. What would it take for the U.S. to end up like this? Two very right wing justices that could interpret the constitution in such a way to limit liberty and freedom of the press? Anxious times indeed.
3
Because the EU has no constitutional method to expel a member. It can suspend them, perhaps indefinitely, but not expel. And as we've seen with the UK, leaving of your own will is just as problematic.
The central issue is, of course, that liberal democracy here and in many other countries, has failed to deliver much to most of the population--the broad middle and the poor segments. Through gerrymandering, no term limits and unlimited campaign financing, the rich and well connected pretty much run their countries for their benefit. Globalization hurt many workers, immigrants and refugees have abounded and caused some problems, and for most people the idea of a bright future and a better one for their children faded away.
That democracy is being challenged should not be any more a surprise than that Kodak went out of business--neither delivered what the people wanted. Until we in the US wrest the control of the country from the easily manipulated system of representation we have, and make government deliver decent wages, medical care and schooling to the people, we will drift towards the ever so slight erosion of freedom now seen in many countries. To paraphrase the great economist Heller, 'the mist of incipient fascism has turned into a light rain."
11
Excellent analysis, as usual, by R. Cohen. It is reassuring from a European perspective to see that knowledgeable journalists in well informed US media can dissect the vulnerabilities of the European political scene. Too bad indeed that the American pillar of upholding democratic principles across the world has collapsed.
3
"There’s no totalitarian secret police. Nobody disappears in the night. "
But never mind. "Progressive values" are not fostered, so it is not really a democracy and what the people want is irrelevant.
11
Best editorial insight that I've seen in a while--really enhanced my perspective on what is happening in the US. God bless our free press.
3
The Western establishment has taken too extreme a stand, one that is simply not compatible with needs of the average person. If they had been willing to moderate their ideology, and accommodate those who are not highly educated and wealthy, they could have continued.
The Communist Party that ruled in Eastern Europe thought they could change human nature, and create a utopia, but found that it was not so. The present rulers of Europe offer a more humane version of the same thing, but will come to the same unsuccessful end. Their schemes are not viable, and the European Union will eventually go the way of the Soviet Union.
9
I think much of this return to nationalism that we're seeing all around the world is people's response to the fast and rapid pace at which globalization is occurring. We went from where traveling (and moving) to other countries was a rare phenomenon to where massive amounts of people are moving around the globe in just a few decades. Every country sees their own culture deteriorating (for better and worse), at least a little, as other cultures make their way into their borders. I can't help but think that if globalization didn't happen as fast as it did, if people didn't feel that their culture was eroding as fast as they feared, if all of this took a few hundred years instead of 20-30 years, maybe we wouldn't have this wave of nationalism that we see today.
12
I never thought much about my liberalism---I took for granted by university training, my reading habits, my acquaintances, both conservative and liberal, who left me questioning some of my beliefs on the drive home. In watching Trump and now these right-wing European parties, I now understand how my profile would naturally be repelled by right-wing ideologies and talking points, but also, see how appealing simple slogans and identifying evil doers is for voters who have little time or training to question these slogans or McCarthy like blacklists ---especially if you are a voter who is out of work or barely making a livable wage. I will admit that after WW II I never thought I would see the origins of totalitarianism play out so vividly in my lifetime.
7
As a California conservative I too never thought I'd live to see the level of totalitarianism that exists in my state. I am of hispanic origin and routinely am "shamed" by liberal family members because I refuse to call myself Mexican-American as opposed to what I am....an American.
I live in a state where I am told what kind of light bulbs I can buy, how much water I can use in my toilet, what kind of car I can drive by virtue of punitive smog laws on older cars that are otherwise perfectly fine and inexpensive to drive.
Free speech on our college campuses is under attack and western culture is demonized while personal freedom deemed outdated. I work in a place where more than half the workforce speeks little or no English despite the fact that it's to their advantage to learn it. I live in a state with insurmountable debt and the highest rates of homelessness and poverty.
Despite the fact that you took your liberalism for granted you can take stock in the fact that many of your like minded friends did not.
9
Horrifying...and I see Trump setting up the chess pieces to consolidate his own authoritarian power, in the judiciary, his cabinet, his constant fear mongering of the "other" immigrants legal or illegal that are not of white western European lineages. The checks and balances are not to be found in the Republican Congress and only a reversal in the midterm elections can stem the power grab underway.
46
Just another essay demonizing Western cultural and rationalizing globalization and the EU at all costs. Enforced immigration, lack luster economies that provide limited employment opportunities for the majority of citizens, trade agreements that favor the investment class, the imposition of progressive cultural values and the destruction of national heritage are not the liberal democratic goals that existing post WWII. They are in fact a new form of oppression of the global elite.
24
Trump's America is the the agonizing and obvious parallel to what's going on in Poland and Hungary. He and his acolytes are packing the Supreme Court, who are indeed the arbiters of who wins major elections in the US (e.g. Gore-Bush in 2000). He is giving a broad platform to nationalism and creating enemies using a playbook strictly out of George Orwell's 1984. In essence, he is creating an America which exists as a permission slip for eastern Europe to revert to the late 1930s - and we all know how "well" that turned out. I have great fear for those nations of but especially for our own, which needs to do everything that can to stop this descent into an authoritarian nightmare. The first step: vote in every election for every pro-democracy and anti-authoritarian candidate. That's the least - and, sadly, most - we can do. It's now or never.
10
Democracy, for it to work, requires an engaged population with the ability to actually participate beyond the sloganeering of parties. It also needs a population, comfortable making their own choices. Since the end of WW2, the world as absorbed a rate of change that is unprecedented. That pace has left huge numbers of people behind with virtually no possibility of catching up. That is terrifying. Free market capitalism is very much a kind of social Darwinism and it's quite comfortable leaving people behind. Those frightened people vote for people who the believe will help them get back to where they were. They largely have no interest in moving forward into a terrifying unknown. Trump promises his followers exactly that. The budding autocrats of Poland and Hungary are doing the same thing. It's incredibly profitable for a few, devastating for the rest.
18
"The European nations most enamored of freedom — those released three decades ago from the withering grip of the Soviet empire — have transformed into those most skeptical that liberal democracy provides it. It’s an extraordinary turn."
Not extraordinary when you realize what actually happened. Yes, the former Soviet satellites were liberated from their oppressor - and then turned into third world status by western capitalists. Cohen mentions production of German cars in Hungary - here's a report on Hungarian auto industry wages:
"Car production and export by foreign automakers is a key driver of economic growth in Hungary, where skilled workers are paid much less than their counterparts in western Europe.
"Hungarians earned a gross 260,800 forints ($900) per month in the January-November period, according to official statistics, which compares with an average monthly salary in Germany was 3,612 euros ($3,838) in 2015."
https://www.reuters.com/article/audi-hungary-wages/hungarian-union-reach...
Neoliberalism has created the conditions under which phony populist right wing leaders are flourishing. The economic statistics may look appealing, but these countries all sport highly unequal GINI numbers.
People tend to know when they're being exploited - but they don't always make rational decisions in response to that exploitation. Desperation tends to have negative effects on rationality.
21
Currently our own country is not really a democratic republic because the people who run for office need to take money from those who own and operate this country. A real democracy is the last thing our owners want. They want fewer people to vote and they buy deceptive ads and use their own TV network to make sure that certain Americans are discouraged from actually showing up to vote. So we need to look in the mirror..we, here, now are living in a plutocracy...owned by the oil and war biz and a few others.
22
I strongly favor social democracy. That is not "liberal democracy" in the sense neo-liberals use "liberal" in the right wing of the Democratic Party. It is unlike anything Republican since Lincoln, although he himself was more of that than generally realized.
Still, I value democracy more. The system that allows people to govern themselves as they see fit has virtues far beyond the specific answers they see fit at any given time.
It brings the peace of legitimacy, meaning acceptance of the governed. "Consent of the Governed" was how the Founders termed it, and it is far more important than to what they choose to grant their consent in any given election.
It was wrong to support dictatorship to replace democracy, even where we feared the outcome of the election, such as supporting Sisi to overthrow Morsi in Egypt. That was a fundamental mistake, no matter what we may think of Morsi.
It is wrong to reject the choice of the governed, even when we don't like it. They can learn their own lessons. Maybe we can learn a few too. That was true in Honduras, and it is true in Venezuela, and it is true in Hungary and the rest of Eastern Europe too.
I do not defend their choices. I defend their right to make them. It is like free speech in that regard. The answer to an election is another election, not a coup or other force to impose change on the choice.
20
Democracy is failing for the same reasons as in 1918-1939. It only serves the well off. I am amazed that Mr. Cohen would have any European country emulate our America over the last decade or two. We are clearly a broken society with both far right and far left feeding off each other and destroying the center as in the 1930s.
26
Congratulations on this excellent article. I taught English at the University of Łódź in 1974 and 1975 and I speak Polish. The paradox about Polish xenophobia is that Poland claims to be a Christian nation, and yet a fundamental commandment of Christ is to welcome strangers (Matthew 25).
21
That all sound well and good, but try this at home before you judge. Take in every homeless person you meet. When you have, say, 50 strangers living in your home who may or may not share any of your values etc, your charity may have limits. The west is not obligated to take in every unhappy person from every failed state. At some point these countries have to be fixed by someone if they are not to become simply reservoirs of endless numbers of immigrants.
9
The "stranger" in the 1st century for Christ bears no relation to Muslims who by and large have no use whatsoever for Catholicism definitely not liberal Protestantism or secularism. Besides the biblical Jesus said a lot of things that can be considered naive and dangerous today.
3
Seeing all te upheaval in the US about the marginal influence of some Russian oligarch on its electoral process I cannot understand why Cohen is amazed when there is a reaction in Hungary and Poland against the much more forceful interventions of an American oligarch.
Like it or hate it but these are conservative countries that certainly aren't ready for gay marriage and all the other signs of Western liberal modernity. We should accept that. After all this is how we were just a few decades ago.
Yes, this is partly the reaction of the local equivalent of flyover country. But isn't this what democracy is about. Or does mr. Cohen want to go back to the 1800s when only the higher classes were allowed to vote?
21
From the tone of this article and of the Trump Administration, we have already made it back to the 1930s. So what's a few more decades?
Central Europe and Eastern Europe have a very long history of facing invasions. Usually, the invaders have come from the East, but they have come from all points of the compass. The countries comprising this area typically have not been the ultimate targets of the invaders – just strategic first steps to a larger goal.
Whether or not the invading armies reached their ultimate goal, they were always victorious over the smaller countries along the way. The people in those countries suffered from the conquests and occupations, which often lasted for decades.
This long history of defeat has created a mentality which makes Central Europe fertile ground for the rise of authoritarian, nationalistic strongmen, who promise protection from new invaders – real or imagined.
12
Democracy is being undermined because people don't have faith in the market economy. A pure market economy tends to concentrate wealth. That should cause the less-wealthy to vote against free-market policies. Getting the less-wealthy to vote against democracy is done by political judo, in which the impacts of an excessively free market are blamed on government. This leaves the wealthy free to further indulge themselves using the advantages that accrue to those with better information and access in a pure free market economy.
13
First of all, sorry to say, I have to comment that Hungary and Poland are no Western countries. This is a grave error. Both countries were not independent for most of their history. The k.u.k monarchy and the Russian czar respectively had a firm hand on these people. Everything "Western" was imported, from architecture to agricultural progress. Budapest and Warschau were (and are) overdrawn cities that not represented the landscape surrounding them.
Why the EU decided to take these nations into the community remains an enigma to me.
7
When Cohen writes ,and I quote: "For such a project, Orban needs enemies. " would he know that the creation of ennemies is a politicians most important task to hold on to power, not only in Hungary? In the USA ennemies like communism, drugs, terror and Russia do the same job of legitimising a political class that is taking care of itself. Of itself and its power.
13
There is no such thing as free market democracy. The people of Eastern Europe wanted democracy and took socialism, even the distorted bureaucratic version, for granted. They got capitalism instead and quite rightly don't like it. Democratic socialism was driven off the field. But it has reappeared in the US (Sanders 14 million votes) and UK (Corbyn) the very countries that led the neoliberal counter-revolution.
19
This boils down to globalization and EU bureaucracy - not a rejection of democracy.
Hungary and Poland are rejecting aspects of the globalist model in favor of putting their citizens first. There is absolutely no crime in that.
The West has changed the rules. In 2015, Angela Merkel, who is now weakened politically, invited hoards of people from a continent away and from another culture and demanded that all EU countries take in a % that she and Brussels would dictate. Taking in mass migrants was never a condition of joining the EU or NATO, so why should these counties capitulate to her dictates? And how can you call this dictate democratic? It is only natural that sovereign countries would push back.
If there were to be a referendum on migration across the West, the majority of Westerners would vote to implement much tighter control on it. The majority do not agree with open borders. There were 4 recent elections in the West that demonstrated this - Brexit, and the elections in the US, Austria, and Italy. Even the Sept 2017 election in Germany partly demonstrated this, where Merkel had reduced support, although she managed to cling to power after 5+ months of coalition talks; and significantly, an anti-immigration party is now her main opposition.
The democratically elected governments of Poland and Hungary are in alignment with their citizens, it is a fair question to ask why Merkel and Brussels are not in alignment with theirs.
34
Angela Merkel did not change anything all those movements were there before 2015. Globalization has raised in general the standard of live but has also created pools of poverty that need to be addressed through fiscal measures. But rich don´t want to do that they want to get the benefits and no pay the cost.
8
> it is a fair question to ask why Merkel and Brussels are not in alignment with theirs.
Absolutely - and the answer is "no".
4
What Mr. Cohen discribed and that it is breaking apart Europe, it is also breaking apart nations from inside. The American First, the Hungry First or the Polonia First it is the same than the Catalonia First that we are seeing in Spain these days. The exaltation of their own roots, the love of the homogenous, lack of solidarity from the winners of globalization to help the losers, the exclusion of the difference even if those differences have been living together for 500 years is what we are seeing in Europe today and what For Independency parties are demanding in Catalonia. The result could be the end of Europe and the end of nations as we know it, sending us back in time like Acemoglu and Robinson explained in their Why Nations Fail. Spain is the first battle camp, and we are fighting this alone, like it always have had. Nations looked the other way in 36, nations are looking the other way now.
8
Cohen's op ed parallels in a chilling way the argument made in Levitsky and Ziblatt's superb "How Democracies Die." Globalization once meant free everything (trade, speech, the works). Today, globalization has a new and authoritarian character. As Cohen reminds us, our own president is a beneficiary of this movement. He echoes almost every one of the themes Cohen finds in Poland and Hungary. Welcome to a century of authoritarians.
7
Until almost exactly 100 years ago, Europe was a Balkanized (sorry) patchwork of ethno-national enclaves. The ensuing decades have seen empires disintegrate and “blocs” consolidate, and disintegrate again, and re-consolidate in new forms. But throughout, the ethno-national enclaves have survived. (Who in the west had heard of Kosovo 50 years ago?). It turns out that lots of people like ethno-nationalism, and when they see their comfort zones invaded by those unlike themselves, they rebel. The future doesn’t bode well.
15
Cohen's passing reference to Poland's Solidarity movement is a strange bit of revisionism.
A movement of "workers and intelliectuals"? It was a far-Right party based on the Catholic Church, and vehemently anti-socialist.
6
Not really, it was a labor union that started the movement. It was anti-communist and based on the catholic church's social justice, which is a liberal movement.
But Solidarity has lost it's strength since then. And the fascists have been winning. Solidarity is not in power anymore.
1
Overall the article is fear mongering, demonizing the eastern European countries, and falsely ascribing to them and their citizens all nastiness the world has ever had.
The Polish judiciary reform aims to make the organization and operation of judiciary more similar to that found in other democracies, including American. The American judges have never enjoyed the level of independence granted to Polish judges by the fact they elect themselves from among their own with no democratic oversight whatsoever. It is disputable if this kind of system of judges election actually promotes the judiciary independence, and clearly the Polish people want one with more democratic oversight into these elections, which the current constitution allows them to adjust.
In economic terms the change of ruling party only made things better in Poland. The proportion of budget deficit has shrunk for the first time since 1989, tax collection efficiency has improved, the economy is growing faster than in previous years, unemployment is at an all time low, and even the child tax credit for the second child gave boost to internal consumption.
16
So it's fake news to you. Sorry, it is the truth about what is happening in those countries.
Just because they give tax credits and the economy is improving, doesn't mean they haven't become a more bigoted country trying to keep everyone else out.
1
„In October 2015, the month after the train station ordeal, Kaczynski’s Law and Justice Party swept to victory in Poland with an absolute majority. “
And in May 2015, way before the migrant crisis following Russian direct military involvement in Syria starting in August 2015 the Law and Justice candidate swept to victory in presidential elections. That despite confidence of the ruling Civic Platform party in their incumbent candidate, and to their complete surprise.
The change in power was coming to Poland, regardless of international, or migrant situation, and had more to do with “The policy of Civic Platform(…) to concentrate European Union funds in the big cities”.
The Poles did not want a colonial, or South American type of policy, where abjectly poor inhabitants of the small towns and rural areas flock to the big city favelas, while the government policy is to encourage them to emigrate abroad. The gap between average income in the cities, compared to the towns has doubled, it means that was where Poland was going under Civic Platform. That may be associated not with economic development of the cities, but also unproductive fight for grants, overgrown bureaucracy, more red tape for entrepreneurs, and associated corruption. In fact Poland was growing faster in the 1990-ties, before the EU access. The opportunities for Poland related to EU lay with the open market, and not with Euro-bureaucracy, common currency or common internal policy, or even the funding from EU.
8
This column by Roger Cohen is little more than a rant. It does not explore in any serious way the underlying causes of the authoritarianism he denounces.
The Times has done a good job of presenting such exploratory pieces over the last two years, but this is not one of them. For starters, I recommend the following:
• "When and Why Nationalism Beats Globalism," Jonathan Haidt, The American Interest, June 10, 2016 http://wp.me/p4ja0Z-Apc
• "Why Poland Is Turning Away From the West," Ivan Krastev, NYTimes, Dec. 11, 2015 http://tinyurl.com/mv2a4rf
7
"Was all the sacrifice, in this nation whose self-image is of heroes and martyrs, just for shopping malls and German cars?"
If democracy only brings a market economy, without the rest of the machinery of democracy, the result looks a lot like what we see in Poland and Hungary, doesn't it?
You say that the European Union rests, by treaty on the principles of "democracy, equality, the rule of law, and respect for human rights," yet all the Union has brought was yes, the ability to vote (marching ever more towards one person, one vote, just this once), but nothing much for the other 3 tenets of its principles. What is to be done for strengthening equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights? No one seemed to be concerned, while some were becoming very wealthy. Then the house of cards fell. And the prescription after the ones who became rich had their wealth threatened, was austerity.
Now we are here. What did you expect?
Europe has currency union, and economic union, but no real political union.
Democracy can either be a source of noise, or it can be a source of progress. Which do you think it is so far, over the last couple decades? As long as democracy remains a source of noise, expect things to become worse. Without generalized progress for all citizens, the openings for the likes of Orban, Kaczinski and their ilk, as well as Trump, become ever wider.
7
Opportunism is the omnipresent desire TO ATTAIN fortune/power. Otherwise great people believe that ITS RISING front men will use innovation to fulfill the people's opportunities.
No, opportunism just means that a new self-serving cadre is prying its way in, binding itself through use of fear and hope, and subjugating a people with EVERY CHEER for demonizing the different, for attacking the opposition, for dismantling the known, and for creating the unknown.
Whether it's THE CHAOS of Brexit or of Trade War, billion-dollar hedge fund managers PROFIT when new pressures change markets as they 'predicted'.
Coincidence? .. that a hedge fund billionaire bankrolled Cambridge Analytica which "exploited Facebook to harvest millions of people’s profiles and built models to exploit what we knew about them and target their inner demons."
"Records show the Trump campaign paid Cambridge Analytica $5.9 million, although the Trump campaign said the data it used came from the Republican National Committee instead."
https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/04/05/robert-mercer-funded-group-that-r...
3
Thank you Mr. Cohen. My, my how history rhymes.
1
Democracy has never really been compatible with capitalism. One posits equality while the other clearly benefits elites. When working people can be exploited by capitalists who conspire to keep wages low and to buy candidates who will do their bidding, democracy has already been undermined.
20
This conflation of capitalism and democracy is a relic of the Cold War, which was advertised in the West as a battle between good and evil, embodied as [freedom-loving] democracy vs [godless] communism, two competing political systems. The problem comes in when capitalism is added to the mix. Capitalism and socialism are competing economic systems. But in the West, communism is equated with socialism, and capitalism is equated with democracy. Thus capitalism is sold as the opposite to godless communism. Capitalism, however, is not a political system, it is an economic system - a system that has been hijacked, played, and exploited by godless power elites the world over. Democracy it ain't.
14
Good post.
But capitalism has hardly been hijacked. It's always been the economic philosophy that greed is the means to progress.
What we're seeing are the checks against the excesses of capitalism being torn down, revealing more clearly its true nature.
3
Hungary's past is more complicated. It was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire until the end of WWI, when Wilson et al took away 2/3rds of its territory as a result of the Kaiser's flexing his muscles and new-found state. Hungary as part of the Empire had no real choice but to enter the war. The resulting years of history with WWII did not fare well, either, in spite of Hungary trying to no avail to separate from the Axis. After the 1956 Hungarian revolution, the Soviets allowed more freedom to Poland in the matter of religion and to Hungary to the matter of what was termed "goulash communism," meaning the Hungarians were able to advance in certain economic areas of trade, mfg., etc. After the 1989 fall of the wall, the exuberance of the promises of capitalism led soon from romance to reality: from a command economy with state support for many areas from Russia to the real shock of adjusting to the market. The real division in Hungary has been, historically and now, between the country folk of peasants and the city, with education and more liberal ideas. The leader of the Fidesz party illustrates that a former liberal is now a born-again right-winger. This plays into his base of those who have less no doubt in income and education, are "true" Magyars who value their Catholic faith which represents for Hungary more of a kinship to the West than to the East from where the seven tribes arrived. Yes, the trend here, in Poland, in Hungary not good.
6
If I understand correctly the subtle Roger Cohen analysis, the Hungarian government destroyes democracy and is anti-semitic because it opposes George Soros who supports free access to the West of mostly Muslim immigrants . Recent events in Europe show thet these people are ready to sacrifice themselves to bring to the host countries the proven solution for freedom and human rights as already successfully implemented in the Middle East and North Africa.
16
No, those people are fleeing repression to seek freedom, which is promised by the west.
4
What is happening around the western world is people are asking why their countries have to accept migrants and unbridled immigration.
Why were the people never asked if they wanted more immigration? Why were they never consulted or told what the purpose was.
33
Well then they should have been told what war does to nations. Oh but they should know that already considering all the wars in europe. People tend to flee wars and go elsewhere.
And the west is responsible for destabilizing the middle east with its' colonial control of the middle east.
Great look at the region. Pretty sure the world will never figure this out. As population increases, the desire for land and survival will be strained until it breaks. Soros and people that think like him will eventually run out of Earth and if enough people tire of their ideology, bad things happen just like in the past. There is no doubt America has lost its unity and it has devolved into a exponentially facturing society ripe for authoritarianism. That is what makes Poland, Russia, in some cases the Middle East attractive to Americans that are simply spinning with no foundation. It's called Exodus for a reason.
2
First of all, Mr Cohen, thank you for using "normality" and not the slipshod "normalcy."
Between the response to Michelle Goldberg's expose of QAnon and its believers today and this thoughtful analysis, I am despondent that our world is in ruins. It is incredible that these states, whose people suffered so much under both extremes of political despotism, Nazi fascism and Soviet communism, are turning now to authoritarian demagogues using the same techniques as the leaders who destroyed these two countries for decades. While Poland was attacked by the Nazis to start WW II in the West, Hungary's leaders staunchly stood by the Third Reich, never changing sides while the war was on. Both peoples suffered under Nazi rule, nonetheless. As Mr Cohen notes, during the Cold War both nations were subjugated to the Soviet Union, resulting in more tragedy for their people. Now they are willfully returning, apparently, to the worst of their past. If this is in the name of Christianity, then Christianity has a lot to answer for. These new strongmen seem to have nothing in common with Christ; much like Trump in our own country. How today's white "Christians" around the world can rationalize this disconnect is beyond me. I believe the world is headed for a huge disaster. Maybe the probable upcoming nuclear holocaust will cleanse Mother Earth so she can start again. Humanity is apparently a failed experiment.
8
How fascism became popular. Democracy is not an enemy.
Cohen is concerned about the "independent" judiciary in Poland and Hungary being neutralized.
How independent is an "independent" judiciary?
Consider this analogy. Suppose the U.S. government shuttered the NY Times, the Washington Post and the Wikileaks news organization, and then set up its own news organization, publishing on government websites. Suppose all its reporters and editors are chosen by the president with the approval of the Senate, appointed for life with good behavior. Would you call these journalists "independent"? Would you call their publication "independent journalism"?
Over the centuries the American government has exterminated millions and millions of innocent people, using everything from cluster bombs to nuclear bombs. I call its behavior, "zurder" "zerrorism" and "evilism".
How many presidents and other rulers have been tried for these zurders and zerrorisms, convicted, and put to sleep? Zero.
Rejecting the correct standards, the "independent" judges follow the law made by the rulers, in effect, whitewashing the evilism of government. They are aiding and abetting its horrific evilism.
Instead of trying to get your readers to glibly endorse this type of "independent" judiciary, shouldn't we question and reject its claims of legitimacy?
8
Judicial system free of communist deposits just start. The road to this is based on the system as it is in the USA and EU.
You are correct.
Saddam Hussein was put to death for killing thousands with chemical weapons, and some want the same for Bashar al-Assad, but American officials who used atomic bombs were not put to death. This is a double standard.
What is your plan to make the judiciary truly independent?
2
The problem facing liberal inclusive multiculturalism is the form globalization has taken to this day. It should be a device to spread understanding of others and the wealth of the world to all. However, globalization has been hijacked by the wealthy to go around the world finding ever increasing profit margins, leaving lowered standards of living in its wake. It has produced another gilded age. That is why liberal thought is under attack from the "populists". Although these people are not really populists at all but rather they are fascists, circling the wagons to, as they perceive it, defend themselves.
7
There's an odd phenomenon at work. Poland and Hungary owe much to their identities as smaller countries constantly stuck in the middle between much larger warring neighbors, getting trampled in the process. They love their historical role as a bullied underdog. Much of their nationalism probably results from justful pride from not being swallowed up entirely and disappearing into Russia or Prussia. Particularly in Hungary's case, this is heightened by having a language entirely different than any spoken in the rest of Europe. Lose your language, lose your national identity. That's why conquerors have always tried to erase the native tongues of the vanquished.
Yet as constantly conquered countries stuck between more powerful warring rivals, both have always shown a strange tolerance for xenophobia and right-wing leaders. Hungary was the first country to go fascist following WWI, and both countries gladly collaborated with the Nazis to get rid of their undesirable minorities. It's almost like a delayed Stockholm syndrome, doing to their own what they complained was being done to them.
That said, this universalism is strangely one-sided. It's always the white European countries that have to become more Asian and African. There's no comparable flow in the other direction. Ditto for religion, Europe must become more Muslim while the Islamic countries remain the same.
Now who would have ever thought that might generate resentment and a backlash?
24
America is not nor was it ever intended to be a democracy. America is a divided limited power constitutional republic.
The only persons who had the right to vote for their representative were white men who owned property. And the only representative that they could originally directly vote for was in the House.
America was born and bred proclaiming the divine natural equal certain unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness while enslaving Africans denying their humanity and treating them separate and unequal.
The 2.3 million Americans in prison are 25% of the world's prisoners with only 5% of humanity. While only 13% of Americans are black 40% of the incarcerated are black.
Blacks are persecuted for doing the same as whites perform without any criminal justice consequences. Prison is the carefully cleverly cynically carved exception to the 13th Amendment's abolition of slavery and involuntary servitude. Unlike faith color aka race is self-evident.
There is nothing more antithetical to democracy or a republic than prisons.
7
In Hungary, the people, through democracy, seem to have decided on a Magyar, Chrisitian republic with the legal system informed by the doctrines of the Catholic Church. There is nothing whatever wrong with that.
10
Less than 40% of Hungarians are Catholic. They are the largest single religious group, but not the majority of the country. I doubt those other 60% are eager to live under Catholic rules.
4
This article is a brilliant history lesson for us all, the story in a nutshell of the death of liberal government, and the return to tribal, racial, political, and religious xenophobia. Tony Judt pointed to evidence of the death of the European project in his book Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945. But America has its own history of xenophobia, and the thumb on the world scale now is the Trump regime. Our growing absence from international civil society, our abandonment of the European project, our devastating treatment of people of color and different cultures, the destruction of our central government and the courts, the effort to silence the press--the Trump regime shows that we no longer stand for anything of value. The world has stopped listening to us, looking to us, expecting anything from us. What amazes me is how
quickly this is happening, how deliberately paralyzed Congress has made itself, and how much freedom we are losing every single day the Trump regime is in power. Even if he and his crony capitalists disappeared tomorrow, I wonder if Americans could recover and rebuild. Who will want to immigrate to our morally devastated country? Who will want to serve in our government? I give thanks for the younger men and women of courage and intelligence who are rising up to run for office in this blasted landscape. Quick, quick, to the polls! We have everything to lose and we are losing it fast.
158
There are literally millions who want to immigrate to our 'decadent' republic in despite all its faults and contradictions. I will never accept that our nation is irredeemably compromised, inherently evil, and wholly indistinct from today's despots and strongmen.
It is a pity that Tony Judt is no longer around to stiffen our collective resolve to resist the barbarity of the right ...and the suicidal cynicism and acquiesce with darkness is popular among some on the left.
1
An excellent assessment of the trend of Western Democracy in the era of ISIS and large scale immigration of Islamic people from Middle East to Europe. The two important questions are why this shift in the minds of average rural white people in Europe and America - the fear of unknown and change. All over the world the non Muslim people are afraid of Islam and wants to keep them away from their society - Europe, America, Asia same story. The second is the technology powered assault on the prevailing cultures of the society - it may be Christian cultures in Europe and America, Buddhist cultures in Myanmar or Hindu culture in India. Liberal Democracies take the lead on this effort through human rights, multiculturalism, globalization and constitutional rights. These efforts are based on the "Enlightment" - driven by the reason, meritocracy and capitalism and ignored the subtle human experiences of emotions, inequality, uncertainty. The backlash has happened and liberals started crying about the peril of Western liberal democracy. There is no danger to Western democracy, the liberal has to understand that to move forward with their ideas they need to carry the rural people, and they are emotionally not yet ready to accept their ideas. More efforts are needed to remove their concerns without demonizing them. Human emotions closely linked to Church and Temples - you can not eliminate these institutions from your social reform plan.
3
Mass murder and mass rapes (of even children) are not the same as "the fear of unknown and change."
Woody Guthrie made a great line in his famous song. It went, "This land is made for you and me". The meaning of the line can vary greatly according to time and place it seems.
If a given society in a given place does not want strangers to immigrate into their space who are we to tell them what to do?
It is tragic that masses of people need to leave their homeland because of intolerable circumstances but that does not justify creating great hardships in other peoples as a result. The truth is that the United Nations is a misnomer. We are not united and there is no consensus on how to jointly prevent the human misery caused by wars' famines' epidemics, and natural disasters.
13
It's one world.
If people in one place are being made to suffer it should affect us all.
Democracy, by definition, is the rule of the people. The people of Hungary, rightly or wrongly, do not want to be ruled by faceless bureaucrats from Belgium telling them who to let in to their country and how to run it.
This may well be a failure of liberalism, but it is a success for democracy when what the people want is implemented.
42
But yes, how Poland and Hungary benefit from the EU’s largesse...
9
The people of Hungary have of course every right to decide they "do not want to be ruled by faceless bureaucrats from Belgium" (I let that mischaracterization slide) - if so, they should follow the UK and hand in their notice.
I would certainly celebrate if they do.
15
Seems the people of Hungary and Poland do not accept the values shared by the EU members but rather back their corrupt leaders. Why should the EU continue pouring billions of EU-Euros in these countries year after year? They are free to follow GB's example and go their own way.
1
Having lived in a Germany that was once divided by a Wall and the Soviet Sektor, I remember the time when Hungary was seen as the 'promised land' to East Germans longing to escape to the West, and Poland was defiant of its Communist rulers by staging strikes and protests in the streets under threat of martial law.
So it's interesting if not a bit unsettling, to see how both countries have manged to revert back to their xenophobic and nativist pasts in such a comparitively short amount of time, especially since both countries one held the standards of the West in such high regard.
Then again, one only need to take a closer look at what's happening in this country under the current administration to better understand the perils of authoritarian rule as opposed to living in a society with free and democratic elections.
And the differences between the two appears to grow smaller every day.
10
N-Smith--Failure to learn history makes us doomed to repeat it. Education must also be failing in Hungary and Poland, as it is in the U.S. Ill educated people is the hallmark of right wing policy.
4
@ChesBay
That may be be true, but there's also the fact that Hungary and Poland never once styled themselves as free and democratic societies.
Excellent column. What I think is happening is that we in the West have, in a way, reached the endpoint of free market capitalism and found it wanting. I see the term 'late capitalism' bandied about a lot these days, and this is what it refers to. We've achieved material abundance, unprecedented consumer choice, and relatively unimpeded movement of of people and capital. And in the end it's all so...empty. People need more than a $400 giant television.
8
I agree that “late capitalism” (or what I like to call hyper-capitalism) has failed to provide citizens the world over with security & meaning.
However, capitalism is not democracy. The problem is that we have conflated the two so that now the failure of capitalism also means the failure of democracy. This false equivalency explains the growth of populism and autocrats.
We need to start talking about capitalism and democracy as separate ideas to avoid our march towards autocracy.
2
A brilliant assessment of the growing and unsettling trend toward authoritarian capitalism and nationalist / anti-globalist sentiment around the globe.
While every nation has a right to protect its national culture, identity and borders, the means of doing so by current-day strongmen -- xenophobic rhetoric, victimization, propaganda, suppression of the media, and concentrating power in the hands a few -- are no different than the means employed by Hitler and Mussolini in the early days of fascism in the 1930s.
The end result was trade wars, depression, chaos, wars, deaths galore and massive destruction.
We should remind ourselves daily that the very EU that is being vilified by the Hungarian and Polish right-winged parties has been and still is one of the greatest "peace and prosperity" regimes in the history of mankind.
And here in America, we should heed the call of Madeleine Albright and STOP Trump dead in his tracks before it is too late.
39
Add to Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic, Brexit, the Trump phenomenon, the rightward shift toward incompetent intolerance in Germany, Italy and other Western European countries, and we have created for ourselves quite a pretty pickle of global leadership and followership.
As older generations of people who actually experienced the abominations of political extremism in the 20th Century die out, so goes the collective memory that resist a repeat of the self-inflcted carnage. Here, I mean real carnage, not demagogic carnage invoked by President Trump during his divisive inaugural address.
It doesn't have to be this way. The countries mentioned above have democratic constitutions. In order for those Constitution to be protected, however, decent people need to get out and vote.
8
I wish people would define their terms before giving their opinions. I, personally, would like to know how Mr. Cohen defines "democracy" and how those who use the term "fascism" define it.
One cannot understand arguments until there is an understood definition of the terms on which the argument rests.
It would seem to me that as long as candidates are not preselected, all qualified voters are allowed to vote freely if they chose to vote, and all votes are counted, democracy is thriving, no matter what the object of the election.
4
Goodness, you must be right! After all, the Nazis came to power through plurality support in elections in 1932 and 1933, so German democracy must have been thriving! It doesn't matter that the majority of voters didn't vote for them.
1
This has been an argument against democracy if it is simply mob rule via election. That's why we have a Constitution, so that the rights and whims of a majority cannot trample the rights of minorities.
2
The Constitution's protection of minorities is only quantitative.
Through the amendment process it is very possible for the majority to oppress the minority.
I despise these fascists. But who can blame the people for opposing an influx of Muslim migrants that will never assimilate into their society. I also despise Trumpism, but I'm glad that Trump, Obama, and Bush did not open the flood gates to immigration from the Middle East, even though the US precipitated this mess with Bush's Iraq war.
20
Since immigration is so bad, should the US and other Western countries be deporting the Hungarians and their descendants that fled in 1956 to escape a foreign invasion much like Syrians do today? How about all the Hungarians and Poles who have to go those awful cosmopolitan and Muslim-ridden cities like London, Paris and Berlin for work- I assume Orban is returning any cuts of salary they send home? I bet those Berliners are jealous of Hungary, wishing they only had state run media and and a subservient judiciary as well.
Just like how here in the US, no one wants to live in NYC or San Fran or LA, everyone wants in on Mississippi and Kentucky and all the big opportunities small government and xenophobia have brought them.
10
There are only two absolute necessities for a a nations survival: to repel invaders and reproduce.
They see their more liberal neighbors unwilling to do either and don’t want to drink the same slow poison. What is wrong with that?
17
And the other way for a nation to survive is to welcome immigrants -- aka talent, knowledge, ideas, innovation, entrepreneurs, workers, etc. -- as the America has done since its inception
We have welcomed the Dutch, English, Germans, Irish, Italians, Poles, Eastern Europeans, Portuguese, Mexicans, Indians and Asians.
And we are so much better and stronger for it.
(Suggestion: read American history).
9
Democracy in both Poland and Hungary was only vibrant for about 20 years after the collapse of the Warsaw pact. However, look at history since these counties were recreated as independent national entities with the dissolution of the Hapsburg Empire after WWI. Liberal democracy was not the norm. Especially, in Hungary! First, the short-lived Bolshevik regime of Bela Kuhn, then the fascistic dictatorship of Admiral Horthy (which allied itself with Nazi Germany during WWII) and finally Communism until 1989. Why would one expect these countries to espouse political liberalism? It is not part of their history.
5
You are wrong about the democracy in Hungary and Poland. They have democratic government, but just not from the part of political spectrum you like better.
1
My comment pointing out your erroneous description of the 500+ program as simply "150$ handout to every family with more than one child" was censored ...
The correct description would have said that the family receives PLN500 monthly for EVERY child born after the first child.
3
Great article. Would fit well in a collection of essays on related subjects. Ten thousand years ago the population of the world may have been 10 million. Around that time, agriculture was discovered, populations grew faster, and towns and cities evolved. Now, we are largely an urban race, cut off from the millennia of foraging and wandering experienced by our forebears. More significantly, we are approaching the 10 billion population mark. And we are altering our world from the one our forebears knew. Drought causes migration, which causes unrest and war. Syria is an amalgam of problems old and new: religious, ethnic, and climate change. While governments of powerful nations refuse to discuss these issues meaningfully, the unscrupulous will grab the reins. McConnell blocked Obama, and we got Trump. Europe is reverting to a nasty nationalism that fails to shine any light of saving ethnic grace, though it is there in abundance. Fear, hatred, and petty meanness rule. Houston, we have a problem.
6
How come McConnell could block Obama, but Schumer can't block Trump?
7
McConnell's party is still the majority, that's why Schumer can't block the GOP's horrible policies.
Schumer--a Brooklyn man, no?--is not majority leader of the US Senate. McConnell was majority leader for six of Obama's years. McConnell refused hearings and votes for a lot of Obama nominees to the judiciary. (Now, Trump boasts of filling so many vacancies.) In a first for political lows, McConnell even kept an open vacancy on the SCOTUS--not even allowing an up or down vote for the nominee of the POTUS. Current affairs 101, no?
The EU needs to grow a spine, declare Poland and Hungary in total violation of the European treaty, and heave them out, and CUT THEM OFF! They are certainly willing to engage in a trade war with the US due to Trump's ill-conceived knee-jerk punitive trade barriers. My mother's father and her mother's parents fled Hungary when it was still part of the Austria-Hungary due to the rampant anti-Semitism over 120 years ago, that now is back. At the end of "Schindler's List" there is the shocking statistic that there are more Jews who are descendants of the Jews Schindler saved than are living in Poland, where Schindler was from.
People risk their lives to vote in free elections and to watch nations throw that away so cavalierly is agonizing. And we seem to be on the brink of doing it here, with the rise of Trumpism.
10
Having destroyed the Socialist societies of the Eastern Bloc, and virtually eliminated Socialism as a political alternative in their home countries, why are Liberals so shocked and surprised when the workers turn to racist Fascism?
What other alternative is ever presented to them, but the fake Socialism of right-wing Populism?
And this is just as true in the USA of Donald Trump as it is in Eastern Europe.
3
Excellent comparison.
They don’t want the EU forcing Muslim immigrants and gay marriage on them. They want to control their borders and keep their languages and culture. It is unfortunate these wishes are sullied by antisemitism. But, no one should begrudge the Hungarians and Poles the right to keep their countries Hungarian and Polish.
11
So 7000 people are going to change their "culture?" And how is antisemitism any different from anti-Islam?
One day these countries will wake up to the fact that they sullied their own pants with hate and fear. There's nothing Christian in these traits. If that's what being Hungarian or Polish is, I'm so sorry for their loss of civilization.
6
It is not "unfortunate" that antisemitism emerges - it is in the nature of European culture and history.
5
Being a member of the European Union, I would change your last sentence: ...the right to keep their countries European. One major idea of the EU is that people from member countries can freely move around, that they are free to live and work in other EU countries, e.g. leave countries with few job opportunities for those that have the jobs. Having said this, i am kind of happy that not every country in the EU Irresponsibly opens the doors for mainly young guys from Africa and the Arab world; this means that I can easily leave Western Europe for the East if it gets too multi-kulti here for my taste.
4
Probably because the foundation of democracy is both morally and factually bankrupt. Equality is a social construct. A regressive and generally undesirable one at that.
The difference between the west and the rest is that you lack self-criticism and spend your whole lives believing liberal democracy is better than everything else. It isn't.
Equality stems from the civilized notion that if you are taller and stronger than me, that doesn't give you the right to kill me for profit. Of course it's a social construct, a fundamentally civilizing one.
6
All of society is a social construct. It is what humans constructed so they could live peacefully with others. Without that, we would still be living in small tribal groups of hunter-gatherers.
And it is better than any other kind of government, it's not perfect, but it is better than any other system.
2
Hungary and Poland know Marxism when they see it. The neo-Marxist threat is from the west.
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This is scary. Mr. Cohen did not use the N-word, but this kind of thinking eventually leads to cleanse the world of lesser peoples and Nazism.
2
“We'll always have Paris.”---
Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) to Ilsa Lund (Ingrid Bergman).
I watched Casablanca again last night. And it occurred to me that while my generation will always have Rick and Ilsa, the one growing up today will have to make do with always having a mentally challenged President to serve as their role model for what to avoid in looking for a President.
Whether this will prove to be an altogether sufficient basis for rebuilding our country as a better place after he is gone is something I cannot tell you, but it is something and quite possibly the only good thing he will ever be remembered for.
4
Was and is George Soros a financial speculator? Well, he did not get the title ‘the man who broke the Bank of England' for nothing. Look back to Black Wednesday (Sept.16, 1992) which is known as the day that Soros broke the UK currency. So rather than in an anodyne way give the impression
that he is a speculator only in Republican or fascistic Hungarian(Orban) eyes, fact: fact: Soros is a speculator In the months leading up to ‘Black Wednesday’, George Soros had been building a huge short position in pounds sterling that would become immensely profitable if the pound fell below the lower band of the ERM. Soros recognized the unfavourable position at which the United Kingdom joined the ERM, believing the rate at which the UK was brought into the Exchange Rate Mechanism was too high, their inflation was also much too high (triple the German rate), and British interest rates were hurting their asset prices. Soros made over £1 billion in profit by short selling sterling though he avoided an insider trading scandal.
In the West the site of European cultural suicide? Have you been to Paris recently, I won’t go on about the tents and excreta on the once beautiful Boulevards, Paris has changed beyond recognition; have you been to London recently; tents and food banks mushrooming all over the city and now more murders than in New York. Fact: London has a Liberal Mayor. I have lived in both cities for many years and it is deeply sad to see their decline.
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I lived in Paris a long time, and the "excreta" mainly comes from dogs and owners who don't pick up, even and especially in the toniest areas. Paris has always been a bit dirty, and in the 1970s and 1980s was gray and polluted. What's more, it always has had tents and always welcomed refugees, from Russians fleeing Bolshevism to Syrians fleeing Assad. Why are today's tents different? Ah, the religion thing.
4
London exceeded New York in murders by a small number for all of two months.
In the long run New York far outstrips London, and will probably continue to do so.
1
I fear that Mr. Cohen doesn't understand what is going on here. He blames liberal elites and the EU for income inequality in Poland and Hungary. No, it is the plutocrats and their apologists, the free market ideologues who are responsible for income inequality. They are happy to blame immigrants, liberal elites and, yes, Jews for what they themselves orchestrated. But Mr. Cohen should not be fooled by this strategy. Or maybe he is not fooled but works for the plutocrats and pretends otherwise.
3
This what we are experiencing nowadays in Poland is a vicious circle of history!
'90ties were the years of fighting for freedom and independence which have been a luxury to few.
The first decade of XXI century was focused on catching up with the rest of EU in the free market economy.
Now, in Kaczynski's era, not surprisingly many call him Duce, the aim is to divide society by turning people against each other.
It's like suffering from autoimmune disease which gradually destroys nation in order to draw back the attention from more relevant problems and introduce chaos. Once this is achieved manipulation will succeed in ruling Poland out from democracy!!!
Sad but true.
4
Cohen's Article Acts as if Hungary, Poland, and Trump are a reaction to nothing. This ignores the fact that the Center Left that has, until recently been culturally and politically ascendant in the West, ditched it's actual beliefs in Democracy long ago. It has repeatedly told the people whose consent they say legitimizes the system that they have no right to have any say in many matters that directly effect their daily lives. The implicit anti-democratic beliefs of the center left include:
1) People have no right to have any say about their countries immigration policies. We shall move towards ever more open borders no matter the consequence or objections, otherwise, it's racist.
2) Trade deals are negotiated secretly and objecting makes you an economically illiterate cretin. Please ignore the fact some of these deals have basically created an authoritarian super power.
3) Your culture and way of life will be dictated to you by the people who are "on the right side of history". You don't have the right to a private life because "the personal is political".
4) Your lack of consent to international agreements that take away power from your national government is not to be taken seriously (see the shenanigans that accompany EU referenda). Power must be placed in the hands of transnational experts who are above parochial interest.
There are many others. The point is that for the left mourn the loss of democracy is extremely hypocritical.
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What I'd like to see is that people who object to the free movement of people be confined to their home countries, and then we'll see how it feels to be chained to your "culture." Why is it that Americans can travel wherever they please but want an closed border where anyone is first presumed a criminal with their fingerprints and iris taken in photo? Alright, close your borders. In return, no travel to any tourist destination, no foreign students excelling at MIT, and no new markets. The alternative you advocate is simply hegemony and empire, where you can go but they can't come, and that's what racism is - exactly.
4
Making America fascist
That’s what trump and his deplorables are doing
4
Democracy is the enemy to American conservatives too. It produced Bill Clinton and then Barack Obama, whom conservatives hated as much or more than today's liberals hate Donald Trump. Both sides are thinking about changing the system permanently to make the election of their opponents impossible even if that means letting the incumbent President select his opponents, as happens in Russia today.
1
Mr. Cohn is describing neoliberal collectivism under the banner of liberal democracy. He includes thinly veiled insults to non-believers; easier than explaining the benefits of mass migration to, you know, voters. Morality and compassion have no monetary value.
Millions of people decided something wasn't working. And, instead of self-reflection, political leaders shame. Hungarians falling back on totalitarian impulse? Mr. Cohn is saying they’re inherently corrupt and defective. We've heard that before, it didn't end well for Europe.
There’s delicious irony when our moral betters lecture on the benefits of multicultural immigration. While it sounds good, America is not multicultural. It’s multi-racial and multi-ethnic.
To become American you must renounce, in entirety, fidelity to anything foreign. It’s right there in the Oath of Allegiance and deeply rooted in our history. It wouldn’t surprise me if that changes soon though. Somebody probably thinks it’s racist or culturally insensitive.
9
That's not true.
The US allows dual citizenship.
And of course the US is multicultural.
Many groups participate both in mainstream culture and their own ethnic cultures.
A simple question: At this moment in time, what exactly would look attractive about the West to Hungary and Poland these days?
A weakened EU, essential lorded over by Germany, whose members seem to be either leaving (the UK) or in difficult financial straits (Greece, Italy, Spain)?
A feckless NATO whose ability and will to live up to its commitments is questionable?
The West's collective inability to punish evildoers, like Assad in Syria, Kim in North Korea and Putin in Russia?
The current trend of racist populists gaining stature and, in some cases, positions of power?
And when Hungary looks at the U.S., the so-called leader of the West, what do they see?
--A Trump-led country, now known for instability, anti-immigrant racism, nasty vitriol, and threatening to ignore commitments and treaties it has made?
--The rise of the narcissistic uber-wealthy, like the Kochs, Mercers and their ilk, and single issue advocacy groups, like the NRA, who buy and sell U.S. politicians like trinkets at a flea market?
--The fact that the U.S. is currently run by a party that has implemented laws and policies that aim to concentrate wealth in the hands of a relatively few while ignoring basic needs of its citizens, like health care?
--Commencing trade wars, which our president says "can easily be won"?
--Our president's attempts to shame and quash the legitimate media?
So, again, what exactly would be attractive to Hungary and Poland right now about the West?
4
Cohen conveniently ignores the many problems "liberal democracy" has created.He praises open borders with limitless immigration with no acknowledgement of the economic,legal,and cultural that result.
Any society that loses its values degenerates.
Cohen uses the terms "liberal" and "democracy" as if they are inherently linked when they are not.In the past liberal thought cherished the free exchange of differing views but has increasingly morphed into thought control and thought suppression which is the enemy of "democracy".
11
You forget that the free movement of capital must entail the free movement of people, or it must stop. Without the free movement of capital, western economies, including that of the United States, would go into a Depression that would make the 1930s look like a walk in the park. Free movement of capital without open borders is exactly racist, supremacist, fascist, and colonial empire. The alternative is either world war or a Depression. Given these two dire alternatives, I'd much rather work towards open borders.
4
“We'll always have Paris.”---
Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) to Ilsa Lund (Ingrid Bergman).
I watched "Casablanca" again last light. And it occurred to me that while my generation will always have Rick and Ilsa and Paris, the one growing up today will always have a mentally challenged President to serve as their role model for what to avoid in looking for a President.
Whether this will prove to be an altogether sufficient basis for rebuilding our country as a better place after he is gone is something I cannot tell you, but it is something and quite possibly the only good thing he will ever be remembered for.
2
Make that: last night.
1
The problem with Cohen's argument is that it is precisely democracy that has allowed Orban and others like him to rise to power. Perhaps the real enemy of democracy is not Orban, but neoliberal fanatics like Cohen. For them democracy is just fine as long as you elect the "right" people. Some democracy you got there, Roger . . .
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I thought a democracy and its institutions are taught in school here.
Elections alone are not democracy. The separation of powers, separation of religion and state, the appeals system, decentralized political power, a free press, an enlightened citizenry are the fundamentals of democracy, and then you can have elections. What Orban is doing is undermining all of the former. How is advocating what the US constitution calls for becoming "neoliberal fanaticism?"
Here's a thought experiment: ok, close your borders to Latin Americans and Muslims; that's about a couple of billion people. In return, the US and Europe get shut out of these markets. That's only fair. Enter China, and there you have it, Chinese soldiers at the San Diego border crossing.
The paradox of empire is that to exploit, you must do it gently and sometimes kindly. Closing borders in neither gentle, nor kind, nor sensible.
5
Democracy is a problem when people are controlled by lack of information and misinformation.
EU has plenty of leverage to nudge Poland away from autocratic tendencies. And Poland is heavily dependent on Western tech firms. There too pressure can be applied.
1
Orban is not the disease. He is a symptom. The syndromes that afflict the West are rooted in our loss of understanding what true liberalism is and our lack of commitment to our most fundamental values. In the sense that American Founding Fathers were liberals, liberalism is about human rights and freedom. It is not about democracy. In fact, the Americans who founded a republic knew that democracy was too often an enemy of human rights. They passionately declared that whatever form of government protects human rights is the best form of government. If the majority are systematically taking the property of the minority, that is not liberalism--it is tyranny. John Locke understood that if you could take a person's property arbitrarily, their life and liberty would soon follow. Russia and Venezuela are democratic, but they have no respect for human rights.
Orban and his ilk have a point. A country should be allowed to control its own borders. Opposition to being invaded by hordes of people who do not share your values does not equate with racism. I do not want a single person who opposes freedom speech, freedom of religion, or the rights of women to immigrate to the United States. That does not make me a bigot, to the contrary it is consistent with my absolute commitment to human rights, regardless of race, ethnicity or creed.
17
"Hordes" is the word that gives away a racist, supremacist attitude. As a corollary, if you do not accept anyone who opposes freedom of speech, religion and the rights of women, then you need to deport them. It is not up to you to decide who does or does not hold these views: there needs - and there is - an impartial, fair system to do so, and it works pretty well. It is called the citizenship interview by immigration authorities, and the pledge of allegiance to the American constitution at naturalization. A permanent resident who is not ready to be questioned about the American system of government and pledge allegiance to the constitution - they may have other ideas or are opposed - still should have the right to reside here if they qualify through job or family, given that the American economy is in principle open but also regulated. So now people on a business trip or coming here to study need to declare allegiance to your views on the what is freedom and who should have it?
The United States benefits immensely from residents and visitors who are not citizens, and as a matter of respect and morality, if you're going to ask people when they get off the plane about their social and political views, you should be barred from, say, majority Catholic countries if you're not a Catholic, such as in Poland, or not allowed to do business in countries where women and men have different rights and privileges. But you benefit so much from the Saudi regime, it would be a shame...
3
@Yasser: I claimed no privilege of being the arbiter of who enters the country. Anyone who comes to our country legally and processes through our immigration system, I welcome with open arms, and value the richness they bring to our society. I also expect them to respect our most fundamental values--which are really the universal values of human rights. There are two principles at play here, both of which I stand by. First, every citizen and resident of the United States should be afforded the their unalienable rights, regardless of their race, ethnicity, gender, or religion. Presumably, you agree with that. If you do not, then it is you who is the bigot. These rights include freedom of religion and freedom of speech and the right to be treated equally under the law. The second principle is that the citizens of a country, any country, should through their government have the right to set the terms of immigration into their country. The Hungarians, not you or me, have the right to set the terms of immigration to their country. I absolutely agree with you that immigration enriches our nation, but our laws still need to be respected, and if Hungary disagrees with me it is their right to do so.
Unfortunately, my prescription for Poland and Hungary is the same for the Red states in the US. Cut the money off!
These states are descending into autocratic rule and we are enabling the with our subsidies. It won’t change them, it will only enable them to avoid reality. We are depriving our own citizens of the fruits of their own labor and enterprise and enabling their enemies - their rhetoric not mine.
3
Earlier noticed that Roger Cohen has been absent from the Times, if not the times we are living, and decided that he was traveling the Globe.
At first when an international children's agency was in transit from New York, Malaysia was one site mentioned as a possibility until the transfer ended in Budapest, where a Hungarian uncle once lived. Koeves wrote 'Satan in a Top Hat', and joined The United Nations after WWII.
He was in charge of my welfare one memorable summer when I was experiencing the rebellious years and tried to make myself invisible. Tibor, as I remember him, was bright, make that profound, given to tears in unexpected moments, and somebody to be taken seriously.
If Mr. Cohen were to announce that all was well with Democracy in Hungary and Poland, let alone the western promised land of Liberalism, I would tell him to have a glass of ouzo and charge it to my account.
It was 'bloody beautiful' was a thought that came to mind when watching On Body and Soul by a Hungarian film director in 2017, and Americans do not realize how fortunate We could be.
Our Allies and Civilized Nations across the borders will as a rule, follow in America's footsteps and yet watching the demolition of Democracy taking place in Our Country, the divided states once United, our Now and Future are on hold until further notice.
Calling 'Austria' with her love for America, her realism and fortitude to welcome her back and listen to what she has to say of latest Snow News report.
Orbán saw his moment in 2015. Most of us in Budapest saw the situation in Keleti, the rest saw it on the news. The image stuck in people's heads and it mattered little that it was a crisis manufactured by Orbán, and that elswehere in Hungary you were virtually assured of not seeing a single refugee. It's tribal (and racist), as in the US, but it's a different sort of tribalism -- it's more Hungarian Christian tribal and it accommodates cycling vegetarians, university professors, mechanics and business people. Be careful of assuming there's much of a country/city or working class/educated divide. There is, but not like in the US. In Hungary, it's those who are comfortable with and even enjoy diversity and those who don't. But it matters how your family was treated under the communists. And how they were treated under Horthy. Those two periods are a heavy weight. Anyway, if you divert EU funds away from Hungary, Orbán will rush into Putin's arms and bitter Hungarians will go along with it. For Europe's sake, the EU should not do it. I don't know what the solution is, but not that.
4
"Neutralize an independent judiciary. Subjugate much of the media. Demonize migrants. Create loyal new elites through crony capitalism. Energize a national narrative of victimhood and heroism through the manipulation of historical memory. Claim the “people’s will” overrides constitutional checks and balances."
Isn't all of this essentially Trump's blueprint for America's future? This is exactly where he'd like to take us, which, of course, explains his obvious fascination with dictators/authoritarians around the world.
3
Roger,
My father arrived from Poland with his Jesuit education in 1926. He was the first Jew in his town to receive a Jesuit education and he loved Poland and his Polish friends. My father however was a Jew and only respected authority when he felt authority deserved respect.
There is an op-ed in today's NYT on Canadian clinical psychologist Jordan Peterson. I have read and listened to many hours of Jordan Peterson and Dr Peterson manages to put into words what too many liberals try to deny, the response to authoritarianism is innate.
Dr Peterson is a Deist like Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin who founded a country based on science and a billion year old universe where evolution is real and omnipresent.
Dr Peterson has spent years as a clinical psychologist and is focused on male adolescent behaviour and what drives the need for authoritarian rule and the need to find order in a seemingly chaotic universe.
These are chaotic times and Hungary, Poland and much of America is behaving exactly the way my father, my grandfather who sent all his children to North America and Dr Peterson expect people with an authoritarian disposition to behave when order is threatened.
I have never understood the need to place 1984 in the desolation of post war England when Utah, suburban Dallas and modern Hungary seem perfect spots for Emmanuel Goldstein and his threat to apple pie, motherhood and the American way.
3
The complexity of this is beyond Mr Cohen and beyond me. But a couple of things:
One broad question is if the consumer economy delivers happiness. In many senses it does, certainly, but at the extreme, the consumer is a lonely person hooked on getting satisfaction and can easily become the prey of "desiring". It is when desiring becomes chronic that we lose our selves, lose the present, lose reality. It is a disease. A disease that consumerism generates. So other, grander stories take over to fill the void. Enter bigotry, enter unreason, enter fake news.
Other factors are at play in the defection of Eastern Europe from the model of the democratic market economy: immigrants the first. Of course they need help. But why can't they stay home in the first place? For instance, why have the US & the EU and the bloody Russians not ended the tyranny of Assad and allowed Syrians to live in peace in Syria?
Nobody considers this root cause of immigration: that the countries of origin are allowed to be tyrannies. The world has become too crowded to tolerate bad governments. The liberals in America & Europe have been asleep for ages.
Then there are the left-behind populations, in the US and Eastern Europe, fodder for the populists. If their situation is not addressed vigorously, their hatred will compound. It is no accident that the epidemic affecting them in the United States is an epidemic of pain. It's not just physical: they have lost their places in the world. Why does nobody care?
2
The keyword is austerity. When the EU was faced the financial crash and needed to decide to help the helpless or make them the scapegoat they chose the latter. When tough times come and the masters of the union choose themselves over the union itself, the game is up. You describe Europe on the backside of that curve. In the US it's the trickle down that never comes. It doesn't look good.
3
The problem with the EU is it's pretentiousness. Of course close collaboration between European countries is is a very good thing & so is the trend towards convergency. But is takes generations to build a proper 'Union' as even the USA so clearly demonstrates nowadays. The European Union should redefine itself along more realistic lines towards a Confederation at best. We obviously do not share enough democratic (and economic) values to be a cohesive nation with 1 currency . To pretend otherwise will be counterproductive in the end.
4
Why this renewed compulsion to homogeneous, monolithic cultures, after we have multiplied ourselves beyond seven billion and counting on a finite planet? This modern European phenomenon looks a lot like the excellent long article yesterday about life under ISIS.
Only Sunni Muslims counted as people in the short-lived faux caliphate. The property of everyone else, from apostates to Jews to Shia to every non-Sunni simply stolen and redistributed to Sunnis. Isn't this demand that Hungary and Poland "remain" white and Christian of the same cloth, albeit a little less starkly effectuated?
Living in a relatively white rural area of diverse California, but having lived for more than a decade in our coastal cities, I am constantly grateful for the diversity we embrace here, and I regret that my region is not as diverse as more urban areas I visit and have lived in.
Diversity is healthier, more interesting, and is unquestionably the future of human existence. Those who want to erect walls and expel the infidels and "other" are throwbacks, and their ugly experiments in exclusion will not likely long endure.
4
Another comment. Just quickly, since some commenters truly don't seem to understand that the immigrant crisis in Hungary is manufactured. The EU wanted Hungary to take in about 2000 refugees from Syria. Hungary has a population of just under 10 million. Two thousand is NOTHING! Meanwhile, in Hungary you can't find a plumber because they've all gone to Germany where they get higher wagers. If Hungary were wise they would ask the refugees: Are you a plumber, painter, mechanic, electrician, nurse, sicence teacher, or doctor? Yes? Then please, come in and from your wages we can support a few more retirees. Not too terrible a deal in my opinion.
6
We are less susceptible to this simply because we are not a homogeneous society. Diversity really is strength, and Trump's support really is minority. What we have to worry about is the competent version of Trump: someone not erratic, who can pull the wool over the eyes of white people who can find it in their hearts to "look the other way".
If western democracy as we know it is to survive, we need massive wealth and income redistribution, and we need it yesterday. We need free and fair elections where everyone is not only able to vote, but WANTS to vote. We need representative government so that no matter how gerrymandered your district, you still *have a choice* of whom to vote for (like California's jungle primary system).
Good governance is what the Democratic Party needs to run on. Not just "we're not crazy", but a clear and convincing message that they're interested not only in redistributing wealth, but also political power, from the few back to the many.
There are worse things than what's happened in Hungary and Poland. It was the young revolutionaries, the "liberals" of Tahrir Square, who put Sisi in power, because there were no lengths they would not go to in order to stop the reactionary right. This authoritarian tendency has already reared its head on the left. The only way to squash it is by rebalancing the scales of power in this society.
2
When a lie becomes superior to the truth, nothing else really matters. Can democracy be explained as a regression to the mean? If so, is that the reason why the ugliest among us somehow, someway wind up in power?
I've noticed how shrewdness of language and in use of fallacies of logic, such as : Taking things out of context and equivocation have given way to the out and out ugliness of the Ad Hominem. The Polish and the Hungarian leaders you mentioned seem to have become enamored with Trump's Art of The Insult.
In the end it's the same old, same old ploy : Splaying, collective reasoning and confirmation bias.
3
This article completely sidesteps the key issue -- massive immigration into western Europe has substantially lowered the quality of life there, particularly for the poor and working class. Eastern Europeans can see that is true, and do not want the same outcome imposed upon them by the global elite. No need to call that fascism; for the poor and working class it seems more like enlightened self-interest.
10
Please show us the evidence that the quality of life has been lowered by immigration.
And please remember that you said "substantially."
"Good fences make good neighbors."
Maybe. It all depends what you think about your neighbors. Do you believe they want your property, have different values or physical appearance than you, are taking advantage of you? If you believe your neighbors are out to get you, then most likely you'll never be good neighbors, wall or no wall. If they really are out to get you, then a fence could be a good thing. You still won't be good neighbors, but at least you'll feel safer. This is why demagogues are so dangerous. They exploit the gray areas of doubt and suspicions and manipulate our perceptions. They cause us to resent and demonize neighbors who might harbor no ill will toward us. They promote conspiracies where there are none. In that case, we might begin to believe we need a wall that's 30 feet tall instead of a useful and attractive waist-high stone wall of separation. Objectivity, facts, a free press, and the will to be civil toward one another have been and still are the best offsets to the growing demagoguery that's currently sweeping the planet.
Good description and analysis. Please write more about "the smug impugnity of globalizing elites", income inequality, and solutions to the rightward drift. It's one thing to point fingers at those who vote for authoritarians, while a whole other thing to work to turn it around.
3
The common thread is unrestricted immigration. Mr. Cohen admits that Europe needs "an immigration policy that works" but then condemns the populist evocation of "racial and religious purity." If European and American governments could deliver an immigration policy that works--i.e., one that adheres to the law and does not open borders to unrestricted immigration--we would find that Kaczynski, Orban, Trump, and the like would no longer be popular or necessary. These autocratic demagogues have been able to hijack democracy because democratic governments have failed to restrict immigration. And as long as liberals continue to lable those who want a strict legal process for immigration as racists, nativists, and other epithets--democracy will continue to lose ground. On the other hand, if our governments could simply enforce our laws--"the will of the people"--this whole problem would disappear.
10
That's almost like saying that democracy has lost ground because liberals have refued to behave more like autocrats.
If catering to bigotry is the road to power of what value is democracy?
The moment the EU cuts off its subsidies and excludes Hungary and Poland from the free movement of the single market, Hungarian and Polish voters will wake up to the fact that illiberal democracy has nothing to offer them but a return to Putin's version of the Warsaw Pact.
The EU has been subsidizing its own demise in the east in the form of Orban's crony capitalism.
So what's our role model now?
The GOP, our dominant party now, also loathes the liberal Soros.
What’s the US excuse for our rw lurch? We were once the world's role model of democracy, unlike Soviet bloc nations.
But our GOP couldn’t block Trump’s nomination. Our rw extremist party dominates our 3 branches and most states. Our last 2 Dem presidents had to collaborate with the GOP in health care, Wall St regulations, and much more.
We differ from other democracies in our blatant voter suppression, gerrymandering, and GOP blocking of CDC research into gun violence. The NRA lobbyists call the shots. Our rw GOP media apparatus, Fox News influences millions. Other democracies don’t have such rw media monopolies.
The GINI Index of economical inequality ranks the US behind many other democracies. We’ve offshored more US jobs than other countries did. Our health care is the world’s most profitable, still leaving out millions.
Other democracies don’t on depend on corporate billions to elect leaders. They ban US type privately paid campaign ads to prevent special interests flooding the media.
Big money is slowly poisoning our democracy day by day. Resentments flare as we all compete for fewer resources. This fits into the GOP plan.
After our anti democratic S. Court’s Citizen United decision, what’s united are the corporate donors & congress. What’s disunited is our citizen majority who can’t compete. Enter Trump. The system worked.
4
Do you honestly want a political party -- whether GOP or Democrat -- to BLOCK the nomination of a candidate who wins the most votes, because the "powers that be" in that party prefer someone else?
What if Bernie Sanders had stayed the course and won the most primary votes? would you argue that the DNC should have pushed him off, and nominated Hillary anyways?
2
I first heard the notion of authoritarian populism applied to the Thatcher government by sociologist Stuart Hall in the 1990s. The family, Victorian values, and the nation were combined with privatising the state and liberalising the economy. But by the 1990s the Washington Consensus prevailed. When Eastern European countries left the grip of the the Soviet Union, they were presented with the hybrid ideology of liberal democracy and the market. The social was devalued, even though social democracy had underpinned the West's post-war stability. The market would solve everything, even the political processes of decision-making, and that was non-negotiable, according to the third way of Clinton and Blair. Thatcher's combo of conservative Victorian values and the primacy of the nation was discarded. Perhaps we are seeing the return of Thatcherism and its appeal of authoritarian populism in Eastern Europe.
2
We need a way to restructure the economies of democracies so that some are not left out while others prosper beyond belief. Bill Gates' and Mercer's and Koch's billions should be guided by all those who made those billions possible through their work and their purchases. For this, we need a less private conception of property, so that those who win have to leave the playing field intact for the next game and there are referees who will make them do this.
At present, most property consists of an angle, such as carried interest, ethanol, disability, health insurance, the milk lobby, the industries that encourage people to be fat and then treat their diabetes, our "love affair with the automobile" with its attendant sprawl, traffic jams, and home imprisonment for anyone without a car, and the military-industrial complex with its too-expensive weapons system and extra military bases. Our social planning consists mainly of endless contests to buy votes and attract resources from other areas. In all these struggles, winners win and losers lose and everyone hangs on for dear life for whatever angle they have, making chronic problems virtually unfixable.
4
I don't know what happened to the study of history, both in secondary schools and universities, not to mention on all forms of television.
I was born in 1951. World War II and its horrors were a recent memory, and Stalin still lived. The recent war yielded a G.I. Bill which provided a higher education, and opportunity, for American combatants, leading to the leaps in technologies of the 1950s and 1960s. Broadcasters had the "fairness doctrine" and the responsibility to air public-service programs, such as CBS's "Twentieth Century" and NBC's "Victory at Sea."
The recent war, its lead-up, and its genocide were taught in my high school, as well as kept alive in the memories of survivors.
The future was to be better or more and more people, both here and abroad.
There was a cloud on the horizon: right-wing American politician McCarthy's inquisition into "communism" was essentially shrouded antisemitism. But it failed, as more and more Americans were living better lives.
Nowadays, the poison of McCarthyism--and Nazism--seems to infect the world as a byproduct of kleptocratic, authoritarian governments both by Trump and is collaborators here, as well as overseas.
When a nation cannot fulfill its promises to its people, and the resources of a nation have been stolen by connected people, all the authoritarian rulers have to offer is the cold meal of hating the "other."
Knowing this, more and more people can take positive steps to restore democracy.
9
When their environment is threatened, it seems inevitable that too many people turn to the self-professed "law and order" politicians for security and predictability. The problem is that those politicians are never quite satisfied with the laws they inherit. Those laws must be weakened or stricken. A little at first. Then a little more and a little more and, before the populace notices it, their freedoms are gone and opportunities to regain them peacefully have virtually vanished.
I fear the world we are leaving to our children. Unlike at any time in the past, we have the capacity now to destroy civilization. We have a president who openly wonders why, if we have so many nuclear bombs, we don't use them more. We have, in Putin, a man who now declares he has missiles that can't be shot down by the West. And, who knows how well protected the nuclear devices are in Pakistan.
It seems as if all the ingredients are present for freedoms to vanish, order to be imposed and the unthinkable to be something more akin to causal conversation than dreaded horror. There is more than enough blame to go around for this environment but far too few viable solutions. That may be because we now are incapable of even agreeing upon what is true.
How sad.
7
It is no secret that discrepancies of wealth have been increasing among and within nations throughout the world since the Thatcher/Reagan neoliberal revolution at the beginning of the 80s. Income gaps that had been shrinking from the 1920s to the 70s began expanding rapidly. This neoliberal turn, which has unleashed corporate greed and greatly diminished government power or faith in the common good, is eviscerating democracies, as is seen in the US, which incarcerates more people than anywhere in the history of the planet. Unregulated coroporate power is also destroying the planet. Although entirely misdirected, backlashes such as those described in the article are predictable and, in fact, inevitable.
10
I have not been to Hungary since 1995. When I was there my discussions with a number of Hungarians included comments about how a minority of Hungarians still had a strong streak of nationalism and "Hungarian superiority" in their desires to be free from Russian control. They warned me that there might be an upsurgence of those voices in a multi-party parliamentary democracy when Hungary was free from Soviet domination.
Sadly, those warnings have come true.
2
In 1995 Hungary was free from Soviet domination for the Soviet Union was dissolved in 1991.
1
I don''t like to play psychologist here, but it seems that the basic problem that Europe faces is that their governments are dominated by old reactionaries who just can tolerate the new world that is coming whether they like it or not. This is particularly acute in Eastern European counties that have a tradition of authoritarianism. It is also the problem of all Western Countries that have a high ratio of old to young who do not necessarily share the views of their elders, but have no real democratic clout because of their relatively small numbers.
6
Hey, I'd like for all of us to get along and be friends, and I would like to extend support to refugees from war-torn parts of the world. But immigrants from Muslim lands do themselves no favors by eschewing any acculturation with their host countries and living as a nation apart. The experiences of France, Germany, Sweden and the UK are not encouraging. This side of the equation needs to be acknowledged if we are going to wag our fingers at more reluctant nations.
24
Perhaps it is not as much a reflection on Democracy, per se, but the fact that Western Democracy has been to a large degree co-opted by global business interests. WWI was fought "to make the world safe for democracy".. not "to make the world safe for extreme capitalism".
31
That slogan was a lie to trick working people into fighting and dying for the interests of their own ruling class.
WWI was fought to realign the spheres of influence of the imperialist powers.
1
“Donald Trump’s election was part of a worldwide nationalist and autocratic lurch. A vigorous counterrevolution against the liberal-democratic orthodoxy of diversity and multiculturalism is underway.” All true, but there are significant differences between European and American affairs.
European countries tend to be more homogeneous culturally than is the US. There are strong differences only among areas in Germany, Italy and France that stem from religion and occupation. Moslem refugees from French colonial wars in North Africa are still seeking acceptance in France.
The US with all of its regional differences has been much more accepting of foreign refugees. Vietnam era Southeast Asian refugees have made much progress in the US. Even refugees from South and Central America have become recognized political forces here and are no longer called wet backs.
But corporations have grown on a relative scale and exercise much more power than they have at any time since World War II. Consumer redress is less likely to occur when corporations control the conversation. It has almost come to the point where buying a candy bar involves giving up the option of returning it if it has gone bad.
So, yes, democracy has been in retreat. There is hope, at least, that the diversity still to be found in the US will swing events to a pointy where democracy can stand again. This year’s election may be step 1.
8
I can't believe liberal democracy and free trade are wrong. I think the people and organizations in power are essentially fighting the last war. Liberal democracy takes it values for granted. They don't see what people want and believe today, so they don't respond. People aren't really objecting to liberal democracy, they are rejecting the tone-deaf, self-absorbed wonks who cannot seem to refresh their thinking, messages, audiences, strategies, prescriptions and policies.
7
Three cheers for Obama and Hillary. By having totally illegal wars that killed huge numbers of Muslims and sent countless numbers of refugees to Europe, they helped to destroy European democracy. They want free immigration to the US in order to destroy American democracy.
I thought Israel was the promised land. Not any more. Cohen should write about the racism of Netanyahu towards blacks and his policy of killing Palestinians in Gaza. Anything for diversion.
17
Jerry, you cannot hope for any credibility when you blame Obama and Hillary for the wars in the middle east. Obama inherited a mess that Bush and his cronies illegally created. Hillary was only one of far too many senators who voted to support the two wars for fear that not doing so would be viewed as unpatriotic. Cowardly perhaps, but she does not bear the blame either. Nope, the mess of the middle east falls squarely on the shoulders of YOUR neo-cons.
3
@Jerry Hough
You must mean three cheers for George W. Bush who started those illegal wars and set the refugee problem in motion.
2
You conveniently forgot to mention GWBush, the fabricator of WMD's as a pretext to war on Iraq for reasons unknown. That seems to be the right wing way.
3
Poland and Hungary resembles the USA, Western Europe and Japan after WWII. Democracies, but compared to today, illiberal. The fight for liberal democracies was arduous in the late 1950s and 1960s (especially in the US for African-Americans). For Japan, that transition never happened. Even in Western Europe, old "illiberalisms" still exists, and surfaces as they did against prejudice towards Southern Europeans during the eurozone debt crisis. The difference between the USA and Western Europe is that they've had more time to assimilate what multiculturalism means, and realize there is nothing to fear of it. For Poland and Hungary, the sense of national identity free of foreign involvement is new - when Merkel enforces EU-wide policy, it does bring back painful memories of foreign capitals deciding the fates of their own people. The prescription seems to be time. In time, they will develop openmindedness, like they are physically developing their countries. In the USA, there are places like Poland that never saw that full cultural development, or places adversely affected by globalization and dislocation. These localized economic depressions results in people fearing foreigners like a national depression did to Weimar Germany - fear of outsiders and the other. The solution is more equitable economic progress, and checking the power of the plutocracy.
7
"The difference between the USA and Western Europe is that they've had more time to assimilate what multiculturalism means, and realize there is nothing to fear of it."
While there may be some that welcome the destruction of national culture be assured that it is opposed by probably the majority of each nation being mongrelized. The rise of nationalism in Poland, Hungary and The Czech Republic has awakened other nations like the US. The US worked very hard to assimilate the incoming peoples, encouraging adoption of the unofficial "official" language and seeing the cultures of others as being just as valid as their own and encouraging them to join with the rest of us. It inhibited immigration from 1921 to 1965 to achieve this and eliminated the ghettos that had developed in the cities. I grew up in one. Today another culture has ghettoized itself into that area and does not intend to join us. What else can one think when you meet people there who after 30 years can only speak the language they came with?
Western Europe has allowed other cultures to enter that have no intentions of joining the national culture and in fact show contempt for it. The US has started on the same path with more than a few cities now representing only one culture that encourages others to leave. How else should they feel when the grocer doesn't carry food they recognize?
Trump's election is a sign that some here are willing to fight to preserve our culture just as the Slavs and Magyars are.
21
Our culture is an idea, not a supposed race, or creed, but an idea: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
"How else should they feel when the grocer doesn't carry food they recognize?" That's your grievance? I fell glad myself ...
Roger Cohen, whose writing I like , is a wonderful example of the global elite who feels equally at home in NY City, Johannesburg, London, Shanghai, Paris, or Buenos Aires.
But he would not feel at home in Syracuse NY, whose economy I study as an example how globalization destroyed a once thriving city.
Spending one month there would help him to understand Poland and Hungary workers better who do not want to travel the same economic path.
For readers interested in the political (as opposed to economic) forces at work I recommend to NY Times reades reading Isac on the rise of illiberal democracy
Is there illiberal democracy?
https://www.eurozine.com/is-there-illiberal-democracy/?pdf
"..The project of instituting a new form of ‘illiberal democracy’ in place of the supposedly outmoded form of liberal democracy is most closely linked to
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. But the idea is commonly associated with a broader range of
political leaders – Jarosław Kaczyński in Poland,..."
22
There is illiberal democracy!
During the Presidential campaign I had a friend come over and watch Trump's campaign rally in Rosenberg Texas.
My friend who escaped Hungary after High School said this was the Hungary he escaped and the Hungary he had just returned from after a family visit. Forty five years of living in Canada had taught him the difference between liberal democracy and illiberal democracy. My grandchildren live in the USA and.......
2
Seems another form of divide and conquer. Just how many political parties are good for democracy? Probably no more than 4. More than that and everyone is your enemy. No consensus achievable. No government. No democracy. Oh, DADDY, please save me!! And we get Putin and his Capos.
1
So in a nutshell, democracy became the enemy by declaring the opposite of what is obviously true to be false, and what is obviously false to be true. When people hear a forceful leader, like Orban, declare that black is white and up is down, they become confused and malleable, frightened and distrustful of their own eyes and ears. They assume that the bold and authoritarian tone of anger and indignation implies trustworthiness and disregard the sheer stupidity and wrecklessness of the content of his speech. Not only does that sound about right, it sounds familiar. I wonder if there was any Russian collusion there too.
Democracy is not a natural condition. There is no tradition of it anywhere. It requires we overcome our natural laziness. It demands that we respect each other, restrain our impulses, analyze facts, think, sacrifice and act for the greater good. In short, it demands a higher state of being and a higher standard of morals and behavior. By definition, it comes from the people, not from leaders. So by rights, it falls when the people become lazy and neglect their duty as citizens to think responsibly, lead themselves, and question authority.
107
Second paragraph is fantastic. I wish some Democrats would make this point. Obama did point out that change comes from us, not from him (alone), but especially now this needs to be hammered home.
2
April 6, 2018
Yes Democracy - as long as it's Domestic, but no if International - and thus we are reading herewith in Mr. Cohen insights that in the electronic global / satellite 24/7 coverage of world events Democratic ideas are in deep conflict for everyone and everywhere on how modern or even post modern political structure for Democratic values define the ' homeland.' and then more so how to appear universal and humanistic transparently to move on in the new era. But we have to and have adapt our language to the narrative that is best case scenario for all - indeed -
3
A very sobering essay by Roger Cohen. To Trump and his mesmerized followers I'll just say to Trump's quote:
“Do we have enough respect for our citizens to protect our borders?”
that it's another of Trump's demagogic ploys, to confuse facts to counter intelligent argument and rouse his poorly thinking followers. Were we to isolate ourselves, there would be only the geographical West, not an intercultural entity.
However, from Roger's cogent essay comes a pragmatic observation. There is a lot of demagoguery based on hatred of external cultures. The demagogue vilifies foreigners, right from the fascist playbook. It could be that liberal democracy is a bit too progressive with its ideal of social integration. A pragmatic approach would have been to ease off on bringing more immigrants into a Europe with such a racist past. First things first: unify Europe.
Whether immigration is the scapegoat, or the demagogue was inevitable and he'd find something else to rile the people, we don't know. Distributing the benefits from global cooperation to citizens should have been a priority before immigration.
But the U.S. reveals that, even with a great economy, but with a Fox News disingenuousness and with an Electoral College that supports its irrationality, the demagogue can have his day.
If a nation cannot publish the truth, it is doomed to suffer the consequences.
8
Superb reporting with astute commentary from a great foreign correspondent. Roger Cohen's elucidation of the authoritarian template is concise yet complete.
What will probably save the US from this authoritarian wave is that it is too disorganized. It is probably too late for the Trump administration to stamp out free elections next November.
But the US is living under the impacts of plutocratic control over too much of the government and the cronyism supporting this plutocratic power base will probably only strengthen in the future.
8
Liberalism reinvented as neoliberalism has wrought the most damage on democracies worldwide. Globalization as it was implemented created corporate states, not liberal democracies. Trump voters recognized that to an extent in their rejection of Clinton. But they fail to recognize that they themselves are simply indigenous refugees in a globalized economy, no different that any other refugee or immigrant. That lack of awareness and lack of class consciousness feeds the rise of the right and it will continue as long as our elected officials (Especially Democrats) fail to acknowledge this truth.
15
This is a brilliantly written article but I disagree with author on 1 fundamental point, that the worst enemies of "liberal democracy" are folks like JP JUNKER of EU, AM, political class of Sweden, all those who have imposed massive immigration on average citizens without asking their opinion, "bref" w./a referendum. Given the turmoil in Germany, especially in Cologne where women fear to walk the streets, In Sweden where rapes go unreported and there are no go zones for the citizenry, do you, Mr. Cohen,really think that if such decisions had been left to the voters, they would have opted FOR hundreds of thousands of refugees who did not share their values?Who r the anti Democrats here? A revolt against EU was the reason for BREXIT. U cannot tell folks that we r allowing a million migrants into the country, enroll them in welfare at your expense, but u will have no say, there will be no referendum.Sponsored a family from Iburri which enjoys life now in this land of abundance, but they waited their turn in line If the citizenry in Germany, Sweden, France, GB had been consulted, then I would agree that democracy was respected. Hungary and Poland have said negative to the imperious methods of those who live in gated communities, send their kids to private schools, yet ordain diversity for others but who don't practice it themselves. What's wrong with that?If an immigrant family set up housekeeping on Mr. Cohen's front lawn, would he be happy, or would he alert the authorities?
45
Sorry mate, I live in Germany and feel safer walking the streets at night here than any city in the US. And I'm American. I think mass immigration should be done thoughtfully but fascist nationalism isn't the answer. There have been elections in Germany and people can express their will. The German govt also invests in programs to try to offer livelihoods and opportunities in parts of the world so people have reason to see a future in their countries and not flee. The US would be wise to do the same, not retrench foreign aid.
19
just so you know, I live in Germany and women do not fear to walk the streets. Myth. And my Swedish friends cannot confirm what you say either. Stop already.
17
Flat out lies. Have you actually been to Sweden or Cologne? I was farely recently in Cologne and white, petite, prettyish me walked the streets alone just fine with no problems.
Seriously, what evidence that's not Fox News/Alt Right based can you show in support of your wild assertions? Have you been in these countries?
15
Except for about 20 years, when much of the country was concerned more about getting something to eat, Hungary has no history of Democracy. Hapsburg's, Romanov's, Prussians even Swedes and Ottoman's and Soviets moved back and forth across Hungary for almost 500 years. The notion that they should not now let their sovereignty slip to Brussels appears quite reasonable.
9
If - by my thirties - I have a million dollars in the bank...
And you have 3 million, or 10 million - or 30 million...
It doesn't feel that inequal...
If I have $100K in the bank - and you have $300K, or $1M - or $3M...
The ratio's the same - but I'd be facing financial concerns and constraints, more so than you...
Job loss, a medical catastrophe - or saving for children's college costs - all would loom more darkly for me than for you...
Now, suppose that - by my thirties - I'm still $100K in debt...
Non-dischargeable debt - with no nice house or good job to show for it...
If you have $100K, or $30K - or even $10K in the bank...
I may begin to resent you - even if I don't know you...
..........
The EU showered its Mediterranean members with Euros - but what did they buy...
Did Spain take $10B and build a deep-water global-scale container port or a deep-submicron global-scale chip factory...
Or was that metaphorical $10B for a 10 percent down payment on a $100B German-built train or wind-turbine system...
If it was, how much did said system cost to produce - and how many construction and consulting jobs went to Spanish companies, vs non-Spanish companies...
Said another way, if someone lends to a college student or country so that they can become a producer - great...
If the lending is so that same said student or sovereign entity can become a continually-bled debtor...
Never turns out well...
Know your history - or repeat it...
12
Sad state of affairs in Hungary and Poland, with closed-minded authoritarian regimes that have forgotten already the horrors of a savage Soviet domination....that used to choke off it's people's freedom. And now, slaves by choice?
4
There is a reason why Silicon Valley exists where it does. Just as there is a reason why the median home price in San Francisco is now 1.6 million and in rural Kentucky it's 25,000. So too, there is a reason why Eastern Europe has had the history of had.
the lessons are clear a liberal culture which in sconces democracy and cultural diversity is not only superior to the opposite but is rapidly diverging from the other side of the coin. Yes, it's true, Poland and Hungary are growing rapidly but that's because they were so far behind and provide cheap labor for German manufacturers. The problem is that has a man who evaluates manufacturing plants once told me, in 25 years of manufacturing plant will be 6 humans and a dog. The dogs job? To keep the humans awake.
So we all know how this story will end history will repeat itself as it so often does. the Chinese desperately try and rope them self off from World culture even while they seek to steal from that same culture because they cannot innovate themselves is therefore stuck in a free Information Age ghetto of their own making. I suspect the same is true of coal country in the US as it is of these Eastern European States which never amounted to anything until they were freed after America won the Cold War.
As Jim Carville would say, "It's the culture stupid."
3
Brussels and Merkel are seen as greater threats than Putin in today's Eastern Europe because Putin is doing nothing to mess with their lives, and he minds his own business in Russia. Nobody cares or talks about him. Sure he invaded Ukraine (to recoup the part that historically belonged to Russia), but this is local, over there, in no way messing with the Eastern European countries which were forcibly attached to USSR.
All Eastern Europeans want is NOT to be treated as colonies by the EU and the greater powers in it. They don't want to be treated as colonies by ANYBODY.
18
Mentioning "the part that historically belonged to Russia" as an excuse for Russia invading the Ukraine is dangerous in the extreme.
Poland, Finland and the Baltic countries also "used to be part of Russia". Or, maybe, you are arguing that Mexico should have the right to take back Texas, New Mexico and California (which "used to be part of Mexico"?)
12
The problem? The elites of the European Union, the mass media, and Roger cannot stand how Hungary refuses to allow hordes of unknown Muslims into its borders. THAT is the NY Times' crisis with the independent holdout nations of Europe.
17
L'osservatore, you can't have it both ways. Hungary refuses the "hordes" but takes the billions flowing east from the EU. In the US, red states take tax revenue (welfare?) generated in the blue states. If you're all about self determination and states' rights pay for it.
Mr Cohen
After reading your unsettling opinion piece on the Hungarians' and Poles' disaffection for democracy, I could not feel anything but regret for those in the West who bothered to extricate these ingrates out of the slough of communism. Let them fall prey to Russian tanks tomorrow, I would not lift a finger to help people so oblivious of their own nations' history.
7
You should know that the WEST gifted the Eastern European countries (all monarchies at the time with no communist inklings) to Russia after WWII as if they were slaves or cattle. Study what happened at Yalta...
8
They did fall to Russian tanks so you in France didn’t have to.
6
Thank you, Mr. Spencer, and a reminder for this reader to revisit 'Berlin Diaries' by Marie Vassiltchikov.
Obviously, the countries that suffered under the USSR fist feel that something is rotten in the state of Denmark. The West dictates its conditions similar to the Soviets to the level that the countries are not sovereign again.
3
Cohen writes, “The ‘market’ equaled globalization, good for the hyperconnected metropolis, less so for the hinterland. Poland and Hungary, too, have their Wisconsin and Ohio.” I detect in these words a contemptuous sneer, possibly unconscious, at the American Heartland where people grow the food which coastal urbanites eat. Rural America has been forgotten, just as rural Hungary and Poland were forgotten prior to the current governments of those two countries taking power. Cohen paraphrases Hungarian and Polish nationalists thinking that “The West is the site of European cultural suicide, the place where family, church, nation, and traditional notions of marriage and gender go to die.” The irony is that while Cohen condemns Hungarian and Polish nationalists for thinking this way, the truth is that this way of thinking is absolutely correct. What will it take for we Americans of the rural Heartland to help our fellow Americans in the coastal great cities understand that we regard globalization and multiculturalism to be the twin highways to Hell and the destruction of our American national character? Greetings from proudly cattle ranching Montana where much of your steak and hamburger comes from.
14
?? Coastal states grow food as well. Hinterland farmers sell their products on international markets. The arrogance of Montana ranchers claiming the moral high ground of being the only "true" Americans is insufferable.
8
To elaborate on what I wrote above, I beg urban coastal intellectuals to understand that people cannot live by i-phones, Starbucks, and trendy boutiques alone. People live by their feeling of identity with, and belonging to, their primary group. Economic prosperity and the latest pop-techno-waves are *not* the creators of happiness. Belief and belonging are. That is precisely why we in the Heartland consistently vote against our economic self-interest to the dismay of coastal elites. We are voting for something we value much higher than our economic prosperity—we are voting to protect our sense of belief and belonging. Tribalism is the prerequisite of human happiness. That goes for goulash in Hungary, colorful native dress in Poland, bagpipes and kilts in Scotland, berets and baguettes in France, lederhosen and beer in Germany, flamenco dancing and bullfighting in Spain, pasta and family in Italy, and Stetson hats and rodeo here in the American West. I *love* travelling to distant countries to enjoy the excitement of experiencing different, exotic cultures. That is why I want Hungary to be forever Hungary, Poland forever Poland, Scotland forever Scotland, France forever France, Germany forever Germany, Spain forever Spain, Italy forever Italy, and Heartland America forever Heartland America.
8
@S. Richey
..."and Stetson hats and rodeo here in the American West."
And I-phones, Starbucks, and trendy boutique stores here in the American urban coasts. Just like those Stetson hats and rodeos.
Well, it's going to get worse. Much worse. These things never stand still. Neither there, nor here in the US, for that matter. The idea that we/they will stand still, or simply reverse out of good sense or reason is simple not in the cards. Gotta bottom out first kids, then push off. See III Reich. See East Euro Communism as described in this very article.
Roger hits all the point well, I just don't think it stops here. It can't Once in power, power consolidates, then expands for the sake of self preservation.
If we here aren't rid of Trump soon, with a big '18 Dem win and a '20 Trump expulsion we are not coming back any time soon in any form we recognize.
Looking on the bright side; The III Reich only lasted about 11 years.
7
It appears that Duda and Orbán are showing increasing resistance to the EU and its policies. But we can also note how the EU doesn't seem to be doing much about it. Orbán is already seen as a dictator by the leftists in Hungary, and Duda looks to be aligning with him. Hungary should be a basis of concern for the EU.
2
What many Poles want is to be recognized as an exceptional, unique people, that deserves to be abundantly supported by EU billions (that disappear quickly in deep pocketed connected crooks, often educated in the west and sometimes the heirs of the Solidarnosc leaders), while trash talking about everybody besides their own borders, with the weird (given history) exception of Germany.
Racism and the old Christian antisemitism is unfortunately still very present in many Polish minds, even among those who move to western Europe in the 60 and 70s.
After supporting the war in Irak, now they refuse to accept its consequence which is a small influx of refugees (at the European scale). If they were half honest they would actually push for their "ally", the USA, to welcome a few millions, as with the UK they are the one responsible for all the largely predictable mess. But with the crazy politicians in power (the disturbed twin, seriously??), I doubt they are to gain an ounce of reason anytime soon.
Cut off EU funding, close the borders, and good luck, I m sure the Catholic church will be very helpful...
1
As for pushing their so-called American allied to take in the refugees... European should remember Beggars can't be choosers.
2
Dislike of "the other" in Europe is not restricted to dislike of Muslim refugees.
In the UK, a focus of the Brexit campaign was Polish immigrants. Hungary has long had a dislike for Roma immigrants. Serbs disliked both Croats and Bosnians. Even Czechoslovakia split in two because the Czechs and the Slovaks wanted separate countries.
Canada has gone in the opposite direction. In 1979, Canada introduced the concept of privately sponsored refugees (in which private citizen Canadians could accelerate our refugee programmes by agreeing to be financially responsible for refugee expenses for a limited duration). The uptake for our 1979 Indo-Chinese (boat people) refugee programme was impressive.
Today, our Syrian refugee programme is also benefiting from sponsorships) including some by "boat people" sponsored to Canada nearly 30 years ago who feel they should reciprocate.
Yes, to combat falling birthrates increased immigration is also necessary to stabilized Canada's social programme costs. That was recognized in 1986 and for the last 30 years Canada has adopted high immigration rates.
Those immigrants have changed the way Canada looks. Fortunately, our immigration experience has been good which shows up in continued high support for both our immigration and our refugee programmes - including by both my niece and my daughter.
4
Alas, we are probably just at the beginning of a shift toward greater authoritarianism, militarism, and nationalism. At its heart are two things: culture, and the distribution of scarce resources.
Culture, at bottom, is about one's tribe, it's customs, it's history, who's in and who's out. Humans are instinctively tribal. Anthropologist Robin Dunbar posited that the human brain can only handle about 150 relationships. Subsequent research puts the number between 150 and 250 -- and beyond that, more and more complex legal and social structures are required to manage the tensions created in a society of strangers. Particularly in times of perceived threat, humans fall back on their tribe of close relationships, those most like them.
On top of that, our globe faces an exploding human population with finite resources. The different tribes must then compete (and perhaps fight) for their share of those resources. Ideologies of welcome and sharing that work when resources are plentiful break down when there's not enough to go around. Small wonder then, that tribes (ethnic or cultural groups) around the world are closing ranks, refusing to share their piece of the pie with others, lest they become the ones left out. This could be addressed for a time with more equitable distribution, but as long as the third world, from Syria to South America, produces more children than their resources can support, expect the first world to fight to keep what they have for their own.
5
Thank you Mr. Cohen for your enlightening article . It is frightening to see countries descend into a miasma of nationalistic ideas , especially countries that were under the thumb of Soviet rule . It seems the trend is to trade one set of elitist educated robber barons for a set of loutish thieves . I agree globalization has engendered xenophobia and resentment by rural populations against those they see as the elitist liberals in the cities , pitting them against each other . There seems to be no middle way . The danger lies in the denial of facts and truth , the unwinding of checks and balances and complete takeover of the educational system and government of the people by authoritative rule . The end result will be hybrid version of fascist and communism , where only the leader and his cronies reap the benefits . Raw Capitalism vs Crony Capitalism .
4
SM: Who are the anti democrats:EU which has imposed massive immigration on citizenry without a referendum, or those who have said negative to such imperiousness?
10
Alexander , It's obvious where you're coming from , you've answered your own question . Look up the definition of Democracy. Rule by the majority of the people , wouldn't call what's happening in these countries when you have elected leaders denying historical facts because it doesn't fit their narrative. As far as the EU is concerned , if these countries want the aid then they have to agree to their conditions , like the bank when you borrow money.
Mr. Harrison , If indeed you are Mr. Harrison you should look up the definition of a democracy , it is very apparent where you stand , I say the EU should eject Hungary and Poland from the EU . Did you think it's all about getting financial aid and then negating on agreements? Would you in fact sign an agreement to buy a new car and then refuse to abide by the contract and refuse to make payments ? Maybe where you are you might !
Dump Poland and Hungary from the EU and NATO and let Russia's little green men invade and take over these countries. Let the rest of Europe, toying with authoritarianism, watch what happens to the people of these two new Russian satellites. History constantly repeats itself because of the stupidity of people. The rest of Europe needs a fresh reminder of why democracy, freedom and human rights is the only way the people of any country can thrive and be happy in the long run.
37
You'd be surprised but at this point, their populations will be happy to exit EU and even NATO, which costs too much.
4
"Dump Poland and Hungary from the EU and NATO and let Russia's little green men invade and take over these countries. Let the rest of Europe, toying with authoritarianism, watch what happens to the people of these two new Russian satellites.
Don't tempt them. Italy and Greece would probably join them. Both countries are sick and tired of being the gateways for these Middle Eastern and African intruders and being stuck cleaning up after them. `
4
Roger has been a voice of reason for years. In this era of Trump, it is needed more than ever. But an important ballot is coming this year. It is all-hands-on-deck for this one. I'm sure Roger will chime in to help.
5
It’s time to re-evaluate some of the cultural values many thought were self evident truths. We should all ask ourselves anew -
What truths do I hold to be self evident?
For me, it’s a return to the simpler equal rights for all dictum that served liberal enlightenment thinking so well for so long.
8
What else is new. All things come and go in circles, sometimes with a positive spin and some times a negative. Including loss of Democracies. A good politician sees that coming and jumps on the wagon be it Hungary, Poland, or USA.
2
The elite profits from immigration: Immigrants supplies people willing to build their mansions for less, tend their garden and children for less, and critically important, are willing to work for less in the factories they own through stocks and bonds from meet packing to construction,
The non-elite, that lost jobs to people willing to work is not amused. But until recently, it had no voice given the strangle hold of the elites on politics via campaign contributions.
Both Trump and Sanders broke that hold, one running on his own money , the other by millions of small donations from the dispossessed.
When will the global elite understand the anti-immigration stance of the non-elite is the democratic response of undemocratic liberalism imposed upon them by the political elites ?
57
Thanks for the great response!
7
I agree with your response, except that Trump did not run on his own money. Plenty of PAC and other dark money came into his campaign. The PACs and others also spent money on ads and other things for Trump. Con men don't spend their own money, and now he's spending ours.
17
The rise of popular fascism around the globe has two main causes.
1. For decades Nobel economist Joseph Stiglitz has warned about the dangers and ravages of neoliberal economics. He showed how repeatedly, when that economic regime was imposed on a developing nation, riots in the streets followed in about six months.
The version of globalization we have implemented is largely neoliberal. For the vast majority, that has meant economic stagnation. That leads to frustration and to support for a new generation of fascist leaders.
After WWI, an unworkable economic regime was imposed on Germany. That led to the rise of fascism. Déjà vu. Fascism is rising again due to the dysfunction of our current neoliberal economics.
The falsehoods of neoliberal economics are exposed in the books by Cambridge University economist Ha-Joon Chang, “23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism” and “Economics: The User’s Guide.” These books are written as historical narratives and are enjoyable reading. (Chang ranks high on a list of popular British intellectuals by Prospect magazine.)
2. In the US and elsewhere, conservative media has been used to spread fear and smear. In the US, that was led by Rupert Murdoch and others. In Russia, the campaign is directed by Putin. In other nations, such as Turkey, fascist leaning leaders get in and push the media to support them.
There is a third cause in Europe. Mass immigration of a large population from one nation into another is not a normal thing.
90
The only fascist I see comes from the global elites who are trying to corner nation states into becoming "multicultural" against their will.
34
Intolerance in Europe for the massive number of migrants is magnified due to lack of economic opportunity.
As soon as massive numbers of refuges began to pour out of collapsing Middle Eastern nations, we should have set up temporary refugee camps for them. They could move home when stability is achieved. Myself and others advocated that early on.
Instead, Obama did nothing. Local nations like Jordan bear a huge unfair burden. The refugees are living by roads, in fields, and under bridges. Many drowned trying to cross the Mediterranean.
If it cost the developed nations $20-40 billion dollars a year to maintain, we should together have spent that.
Instead, our cost was the break-up of the EU. Many of the votes for Brexit were in opposition to the mass migration. The rise of the hard right throughout Europe was vastly accelerated by popular revulsion to mass immigration.
Charity for individuals is not the same as the mass migration of the population of one nation into another.
12
What is your evidence that neo- liberal economics leads to fascism. All the evidence shows that globally, people are doing better economically. The fact that some people have been left behind is not a good argument against neo- liberalism. Fascism is usually led by power hungry people who convince enough naive young people to follow them, while nobody else is paying attention.
1
It seems like the global reaction to liberal tendencies may stem from fear. Fear of gays, fear of transgenders, fear of powerful women, fear of immigrants, fear that "minorities" are gaining power/access. All these rising tyrants preach fear. The tyrants need an overworked, under-educated populace for their fear mantras to take root. They also need right-leaning, "family values" religion to be a beacon of security.
The counter to this grotesque surge is education. Tyrants can't create fear if people are well read, smart, confident, engaged. Also, a nation of pagan atheists would never let drooling patriarchs steamroll to power. Dismantle religion and prop up world class education to defeat the tyrants. These regimes across Europe will try to gut education and fill it up with religion and hallow patriotism to keep control.
12
Without Russia’s enhancement of emigration from war torn Syria, the weaknesses of “diversity and multiculturalism” would not have been enough propel Poland,Hungary, and Turkey into this new-autocracy that’s spreading around the world.
On a level playing field the extremes of identity politics might have moderated and kept the autocrats off balance and struggling, as we will wish had been the case.
2
We may be seeing “democracy” morph into something different from what it was during most of the twentieth century. For the past week of comments here I’ve been exploring an idea in response to specific columns and op-eds that cry caution at an apparent move to less broadly representative but static governance models around the world; but really ideas that have intrigued me for years as we’ve all witnessed the increasingly pressing natures of emerging realities in all major societies.
There’s an argument that broad-based democracy is fine as long as the demands of forward movement can tolerate indecision born of opposed interests and inefficient governing modalities. But when those demands become insistent and time-sensitive, it tends to break down. If the world is moving very fast – along ALL axes, including environmental, class economics, large regional movements of people and the strains of clashing cultures, buccaneerism on a global scale and other factors, then … we may not be able to AFFORD the kind of free-wheeling democracy to which the West has become indentured.
A real question emerges: Is this purely a “bad” thing?
There may be a general trend emerging to limit the impact to governance of the most manipulable members of society. I see the broad potential for limits placed on the franchise. It wouldn’t be the first time – it’s been barely over one century that women won the right to vote in our society, and in earlier years the franchise was even more limited.
4
Societies may be concluding that we need a pause until we can sort out the challenges facing an increasingly complex and fraught world. That pause naturally would be filled with a more “authoritarian” approach to governance. Trump, Erdogan, Putin, Orban, and others, may not be the impellers of current trends, but merely socially self-defensive reactions to them.
Back to “Is this purely a ‘bad’ thing?”
Societies are splintering all over the West on opposed convictions and interests. It’s far easier to imagine re-creating cultural glue under “authoritarian” regimes, then gradually re-liberalizing once they’re again coherent, than it is to imagine what new thing might replace the splintering societies.
I only partly agree with Roger’s premise that Trump’s election was “part of a worldwide nationalist and autocratic lurch”. It was partially that, but it also was summoned by a very domestic recognition that our politics had not produced forward movement for years, and the belief that an historical discontinuity in our normal governance models of 4-8 years was necessary to catalyze change that made those politics functional again. That is unique and not experienced by other societies. What’s more, Trump’s ascension was spurred by a call to protect individual liberties, not their potential destruction that Roger foresees in Hungary, Poland and elsewhere.
Frankly, I don’t have an answer to the question “Is this purely a ‘bad’ thing?” But I suspect that we’re going to find out.
3
How are you defining democracy? Enfranchisement? Personal freedoms? Societal Equality? Some, none, or all of these? Limits placed on the franchise implies (or states) that you believe that certain restrictions merited and that we should remove the franchise from certain individuals or groups. Appealing to a past where there were fewer freedoms for some groups will not work. How would you justify renewed restrictions, and who gets to make those decisions?
6
IgnatzAndMehitabel:
Unlike your response, my comment didn't flog a particular ideology but sought to understand phenomena we're all observing. For the purposes of the comment and Roger's observations, I define democracy as all the elements you cite.
Here you are making up everyone's bed but your own. If you want to write about a country turning its back on democratic values, write about Israel. Write about the 700 plus Palestinians Israeli soldiers just sniped like cowards killing 15. Write about the corruption you know first hand. It seems that NO ONE has learned ANYTHING from WWII, including Jews; so why should Eastern Europe be any different?
9
What Jews learned from WWII was that they'd better look after their own interests and survival because absolutely nobody on Earth (including us) will do it for them.
When some interests are protected, other oxen, inevitably, will be gored. Long before the incident that cost 700-plus Palestinians to be fired on with 15 fatalities, Palestinians were calling for (and call for today) the extermination of Israel and its Jewish population.
24
Roger Cohen has written of the plight of the Palestinians repeatedly. You might bother to inform yourself before you make such accusations. Furthermore, his last name being "Cohen" doesnt make him reponsible for Israel's policies.
17
Israel would never exist as it does today without the massive economic and political assistance given by the US.
There is no question, IMHO, that the conditions and angst that is now effecting both weakening democracies and moderating authoritarian regimes throughout our world is the preface to a coming era which will decide whether our 'globalized' world in this 21st century will become an enlightened and peaceful form of 'Global Democracy' or a hell of 'Global Empire'.
'We the American people', since we live in the most influential, powerful, but also highest GINI measure of 'wealth-inequality' among the former nation-states of the world, would seem to be most responsible for firing a; loud, sustained, public, 'in-the-streets', but totally non-violent “Shout (not shot) heard round the world” to initiate and steer a Second American people's peaceful Political/economic and social “Revolution Against Empire” [Justin du Rivage] in leading both America and our fragile little globe to redirect the many academic (and valid) criticisms such as “Democracy in America?” and “How Democracies Die” on a safe and progressive path toward “Global Democracy” and away from “Global Empire”.
Liberty, democracy, justice, and equality
Over
Violent (and Vichy disguised)
Empire
4
Eastern Europe was long dominated by Czarist Russia and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Then much of territory fell under the control of the Soviet Union. Anyway you slice it, Eastern Europe has NO democratic traditions. Western Europe was stupid to have admitted the Eastern European countries without thinking about and planning for this.
12
The hypnosis exploited by internet manipulators is affecting our ability to see beyond our own miniature imaginary worlds. We no longer see ourselves as others see us, nor do we even try. Everything is a conspiracy and victim blaming is on the ascendant. Meanwhile, the planet is rebelling from universal exploitation.
Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. These new autocrats: Trump, Erdogan, Al Sisi, Duterte, Putin, and many others, are making Genghis Khan look civilized.
Those who destroy for a living will be destroyed. Make no mistake, our planet has the only seat at the table and it bats 1000. Corruption may save the few in power, but it will not last. Hatred is not the answer.
Reaching for the worst in ourselves is a deadly evil game.
16
A bit hyperbolic, no? Genghis Khan killed an estimated 15 million people in his conquests. I think what you are missing is the opposing point of view. For those backing Trump, Orban, etc., they believe it is the elites who are the destroyers. And they may not be wrong. The elites in the US have profited handsomely while the middle and lower classes have stagnated or worse. Which is the worse corruption, Trump or the CEOs making 300 times the average worker they employ? Don't expect people to make rational choices when they are being made peons. They will want change. Any change. You govern people in one of two ways: consent of the governed or by force. Brussels and Washington have decided they can do without the consent of large portions of the population. This is the inevitable result.
2
Trump and Republicans are certainly doing a whole lot of stuff "without the consent of the governed". Part of what they are doing is preventing millions from voting. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/23/us/kris-kobach-kansas-governor.html
"Vote: That's Just What They Don't Want You To Do" https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/10/opinion/sunday/go-vote.html
The billionaire Koch network is on the case.
4
The "Hungarian prime minister has established a template: Neutralize an independent judiciary. Subjugate much of the media. Demonize migrants. Create loyal new elites through crony capitalism. Energize a national narrative of victimhood and heroism through the manipulation of historical memory. Claim the “people’s will” overrides constitutional checks and balances."
Sounds just like the U.S. and Italy.
What a shock. (yawn)
10
That these nations, so recently escaped from totalitarianism, should be slipping back is very unfortunate. That this should occur to the cheers
of a demagogue and despot who lives in the White House is beyond tragic.
14
Too often such opinion writers as Mr Cohen conflate European ethnic pride in heritage & culture with xenophobia and racism. Too often they extend that same criticism to white American descendants of European cultures on matters of domestic race relations.
As should be evident by this time, Europeans do not want Islamic culture to be transplanted in their societies. Unlike America, Europeans have centuries of experience with expansionist Islam. Whether because of European indifference or hostility or the inability or the refusal of Muslims to adapt to a secular and Christian culture really doesn't matter. It doesn't matter to those Europeans who bear the tax burden, the social upheaval and, yes, the occasional terrorist incident.
Too often, such opinion writers as Mr Cohen conflate refugees from Syria with economic migrants who actually comprise the overwhelming majority of immigrants to Europe.
The problem with such writing is that over time, the Europeans most affected by Muslim migrants simply dismiss the attitudes as at best naive and at worst hostile. That means the EU and its proponents have lost credibility, perhaps not to regain it.
This does not mean that some Europeans are not racist, either subliminally or consciously. Just as some white Americans are.
But when all are branded with the same labels, those who are not racist simply tune out both the signal and the noise emanating from the self-designated social critics.
16
Good point.
When everyone is a racist, no one is.
2
I spent 1 ½ years in Poland as a State Department official, leaving in Autumn 2016. You don’t have to consume too many beers in serene town squares across Poland to become suspicious of statements like Cohen’s here:
“They have shown contempt for European solidarity in the name of racial and religious purity.”
Perhaps some. But others may resist accepting migrants and refugees in the pursuit of a social cohesion that they currently enjoy. The US is not a society at peace by any measure. Poland paid a steep price in blood for the peace I enjoyed in many city squares there.
Perhaps we need to find a middle ground by looking at Poland other than through the lens of our own racial divisions. I am suspicious of the laws abridging freedom of thought and speech in Poland. I cringe at the delegitimization of their courts (and think of poor Merrick Garland). But not everyone who resists migrants and refugees is a racist.
15
"A vigorous counterrevolution against the liberal-democratic orthodoxy of diversity and multiculturalism is underway."
No, it is a revolution against those who promote open borders and have allowed income inequality to take hold.
The liberal position is that Trump was elected by under educated white people who are scared of new faces and change. That is wrong. Trump was elected because just enough people know that our country, like other countries across Europe, are dying as their middle classes are hollowed out.
8
Illiberal democracy and nationalism and populism all coming together in a toxic environment that only historians of post World War II Eastern Europe have any inkling would follow the end of being states dependent upon the U.S.S.R.
When the Red Army swept the Germany and fascist military from Hungary, Poland, Ukraine, Yugoslavia, and Czech republics, massive expulsions and massacres of minority communities occurred in this region. These countries all became more homogenous after the war than they had been before the war. Neighbors turned on neighbors just because their ancestors came from other countries. The atrocities were massive and no ethnic group were innocent besides Jews and Gypsies.
The U.S. government has been dominated by idealists who always seem to believe that if one oppressive regime is eliminated harmony and cooperation will spring up and lead freed peoples into liberal democracy. Well, it seldom happens. What happens is that with the relaxations of autocratic controls, the diverse groups set upon each other with the intentions of driving the others out.
2
Why does the EU continue to fund these countries? Seems suicidal.
3
In this complex world with nations striving to reach economic stability with a society that appeases their people, one thing stands out: the world becomes smaller with each technological advancement, and, ironically with each natural disaster (global warming, e.g.)
As authoritarian leaders try to homogenize their populations our world is forever changing. We are not days away from each other but hours by jet travel, and a blink away on the internet. Isolation is impossible. There is and will be more suffering in our future and our moral compass will be called upon; just what kind of world do we want to live in?
4
A smaller world does not imply that it has no borders. In fact, in a smaller world, it is crucial to maintain both strong borders (with barbed wire) and a clear sense of national identity. That is what Hungary is doing.
8
Good luck!
The otherwise perceptive article by Cohen is lacking in historical perspective: the countries he has examined are just returning to the interwar period of Pilsudski and Horthy. The anti-Communism was instrumental in fostering a return to racism and religious bigotry that had been prevalent in these countries throughout their histories.
As for globalization, it is widely accepted, by those who study the problem, that a conflict exists between the maintenance of national sovereignty and the role of international organizations and financial institutions in policy creation.
The rulers of Hungary and Poland have chosen to impose national determination of policies over the rules and processes established by globalist powers. To recognize this conflict is not to defend these policies nor the authoritarian nature of the state authorities in these countries, but to recognize that nationalism remains a legitimate factor in the face of hyper-globalization.
In light of 20th century European history, Cohen seems to prefer the rule of international agencies and non-elected bureaucrats to curb the excesses of the sort of nationalism, but also denies the validity of national determination, democratic or authoritarian.
9
Please explain why you state that "racism and religious bigotry" was prevalent in Polish history.
3
Do you think the Warsaw Ghetto was a Nazi innovation?
Why did His Holiness, Pope John Paul II believe he had to make a point of saying that he had Jewish friends?
BTW, do you believe that the Warsaw Ghetto was a Nazi innovation? Or any other ghetto.
It's a pity nobody noticed how many "forgotten people" there were, across the West.
It's not like they were in hiding, or that it was a secret.
But nobody "asked questions".
If they had then the root causes could have been identified and addressed, and the world would not now be on the edge of an abyss.
It's inexcusable.
The EU is an abysmal failure, and will not be able to withstand the extraordinarily powerful centrifugal forces it will be subjected to in the future. These forces are only just beginning to intensify, and the EU is already wobbling.
We just experienced what will turn out to be the most destructive episode of group think in history, as neoliberal globalization spread across the developed world like the ebola virus.
It is now indisputable that globalization failed.
And we've just begun to reckon with the past 25 years of recklessness and irresponsibility.
Liberal democracy is in retreat in developed and developing countries alike, capitalism has been thoroughly discredited, anti-Semitism is on the rise, inequality and rural/urban divides have reached society-destabilizing levels, and societies across the West are coming apart.
It's difficult to conceive of how we could have handled the end of the Cold War any worse.
What many people seem to be oblivious to, even now, is that Trump is a symptom. He is not an aberration in any way. Somebody like him was inevitable.
And his successor may be much, much worse.
Wrap your mind around that.
36
TB - You say "Trump is a symptom. He is not an aberration in any way. Somebody like him was inevitable." I say yes, but....but, had the primaries not been rigged - by the DNC and media - we might have had Bernie, and a lurch to the left.
7
And I assume you voted for Stein in protest of this rigging? You voted for Trump then because Putin-funded Stein had no chance. Instead of the gentle nudge to the left that wasn't good enough for Stein voters, they instead embraced this insane rightward lurch and own it completely.
Democracy became the enemy when it wanted to make too many changes in the lives and cultures of people. People did not want these changes forced on them so turned away from Democracy and saw it as an evil thing from America out to destroy their live
11
The biggest mistake that the West made after the Cold War is to equate democracy with capitalism. They are not the same thing. In a rush to make money by opening up new markets, we forgot that people want fairness and justice, but if they get a Mercedes that might forget the fairness and justice part.
8
The most striking thing I find, when comparing Trump toothet authoritarian leaders, is how crude and stupid he sounds. At least these despotshave a veneer of intelligence. Trump doesn't even have that.
17
Suggested reading: Levitsky and Ziblatt, How Democracies Die (2018)
2
There is enough want of resources coupled with strong propaganda machines to upturn most governments including ours.
5
These European men resemble American politicians who use the same phantom threats of migrants to demagogue the electorate with fear, which is successful in all the republics based on capitalist domination of the political economy. Democracy becomes the enemy of the people when its social contracts bestow power, and economic surpluses to the rich, creating discontent, which is then exploited to divide electorates. Emotional issues like migration appear to be universal, but other issues, such as nationalism and reproductive rights are also used to prevent class consciousness. Liberals acceptance of capital's dominance, whether through the belief it is natural, or as entry into the elite, is the betrayal that leads to fascism.
2
Poles just want to preserve their culture. Polish history has been one of annihilation and occupation. There are only 38 million Poles in the world, and Poles don't want 1 billion+ Chinese immigrants swarming their homeland that their ancestors died to protect. That's why they don't buy into the lofty promises of the EU and its vision of mass migration. Their numbers are so small any shift in immigration would wipe them out entirely. That's not racism. It's self-preservation. It's why Israel, for example, has strict rules on immigration and kicked African immigrants out. Why can't Poland do the same?
29
One billion Chinese want to move to Poland? Now that is news.
4
If Poland and Hungary resented taking orders from Moscow, why is it surprising that they now resent taking orders from Brussels?
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Because they begged to be accepted into the EU and love continuing to receive the many billions of euros noted in this article. If they don't want to follow the human rights policies they signed onto as part of the EU, they can quit, support themselves and try to fend off Russia without NATO.
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True MPG but that was BEFORE the EU changed the social contract.
Hungary and Poland's embrace of autocracy is frightening. It was also frightening to read in today's Times about a Salafist cleric in France who is being expelled for his extremism, which included justifying jihad.
The fringes are on fire, how long before the center burns?
2
"Diversity is a strength" is the biggest lie we have ever been told, especially when the "diversity" is from millions of uneducated, 3rd world people who have no interest in our cultures and little to offer society. European and American citizens are simply waking up to that fact.
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Tribalism, the consept of us and them, has a long history of getting lots of people killed
23
Wow. "Diversity is a strength," is the message in Paul's letter to the Corinthians (I Cor 12) and is also the lesson of ecology, implied by Darwin's theory of evolution (divergent evolution). I think you have it all backwards and upside down. It's not a lie, it's a truth; and people aren't waking up, but being put to sleep under the poisonous lie of racism and xenophobia.
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I am far more worried about the undereducated and unskilled members of the majority, who lash out at the success of the educated and hard working members of minorities. This is where race wars begin.
14
"Parasites and protozoa." It's chilling to me to read this, having a WWII vet father who was a purple heart marine, who fought against fascism. Looks like we're going to do it all over again with different ethnic groups. The wealthy can survive anything worldwide, they've set themselves up very nicely over the last 70 years. Had they been a little less greedy, maybe this movement would never have made a resurgence.
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I couldn't agree more. When will the wealthy (and the libertarian fringe) start thinking of higher wages, low-cost education, social security, and health insurance as being the price they pay for society's stability and security? Are they so jealous and hostile and afraid of those with less than they that they would rather burn the world down than jut fork over a few bucks to protect us all?
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We're talking about historical entities who have never had a foothold or sustained experience with Democracy! Folks in those lands would prefer security over the responsibility that Democracy requires! Then again, we've been at it, over two hundred years, and look what we have today! Oy!
10
Mr Cohen and Madeleine Albright, also in today's Times, paint a scary picture.
Unfortunately, democracy is not a stable or self-correcting arrangement as we like to think. Rather, authoritarian forces are threatened, weakened, impoverished by democracy. As a consequence they have a strong incentive to weaken and eliminate them. Once the authoritarians have the upper hand we should expect them to exercise their power to do just this.
Do they have this upper hand yet? This is the question that terrifies me the most. And will we see this tipping point coming? I fear that we will, but only in hindsight.
8
The inequalities created by free market capitalism between urban dwellers and the countryside has sparked the same issues here as in Europe. Those who feel left behind still have the vote and they're easily compelled to vote against those they feel have profited when they haven't. Add fear of Islam to that fear of loss, and a lot of people will trade freedom for a pig in a poke. Soon the corruption and the lack of results will overtake Orban as they will Trump, and even Putin, who has no long range plan for fixing Russia's economy except, what? Blackmail the west like a bigger better North Korea? Not a long term strategy for greatness.
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I am skeptical of the claims of supposed vast differences between urban dwellers and countryside. There aren't many Moslems in the American heartland and such as there are are hardly threatening any more than others citizens of other faiths. Many of the strongest Trump supporters there are hardly economically disadvantaged. Often they are better off than coastal urban dwellers who in real terms are less well off. Why in America do so many today adopt this particularist view? Why in Poland or Hungary? Roger Cohen does not explain this. For some reason, many would prefer to draw lines between people rather than work for the betterment of all people. It's not new, but it has not always been dominant; hopefully it will pass in the not too distant future.
3
Of course it's not exactly like Poland and Hungary have any meaningful democratic tradition to fall back on. The stately Gothic revival parliament building in Budapest is a 19th century propaganda set-piece for the reactionary, racist regime that built it. A regime which deprived half the population of the right to send deputies to it by voting in Hungary's sham elections.
Poland's post WWI "democracy" wasn't much better. It's brief experience with democracy was limited to about ten years. On the eve of the German-Soviet-Slovak invasion, it was a fascist dictatorship run by the acolytes of a Polish general who hardly differs either in sentiment or style from Kaczynski.
If cultures can be said to have a kind of DNA, then Hungary and Poland's are as authoritarian as Italy's is chaotic or Denmark's is sober and boring.
7
Until liberals start practicing the tolerance they preach, the west will continue in this direction.
7
Until conservatives start practicing tolerance, the west will continue in this direction.
1
Until conservatives become conservative again and believe in the doctrine of minding your own business, liberals have no choice but to pity and devalue them.
This piece is brilliant and frightening. Frightening,not just because of what it says about the lack of historical sensibilities among Hungarians and Poles, but also because of what it suggests about human nature in general. Let's not forget how Fox news and its running dogs have for years characterized George Soros, and in terms that smell of anti-semitism. Nostalgia can be dangerous but it is especially threatening when, as in the case of Hungarians and Poles, the attractive elements of the past seem to be limited to anti-semitism (no Jews left on the ground? No matter) and xenophobia. And, of course, one sees here the same kind of small town and rural paranoia and yearning for homogeneity found in parts of the US. Very alarming.
5
The title is misleading, and is Western liberalism at its fake-news best. It's not that Democracy became the Enemy. It's that Mass Unchecked Migration was rejected by Poles and Hungarians.
24
I taught US Government in high school for years. I believe that representative democracy is the best government. But, that really requires good and honest and engaged citizens. And, did I say 'selfless'? Yes, democracy requires selflessness, or a commitment to what we call 'the common good' or 'the more perfect Union'.
Don't kid yourself, democracy is a hard, hard row to hoe. We cannot be single-issue voters (examples would be those voting on just gun rights or abortion laws). The complexity and breadth of modern society calls for rather enlightened citizenry. We can do this; but it will never, ever be easy.
We love money in this world. Whether Russia, the USA, China, India, etc. there are billionaires running the game. Each country rewards the rich and powerful with more riches and power (or, should I say, this elite creates the 'rules' and 'laws' that help them acquire evermore).
So, if we want to wave the flag of democracy or humanity or compassion, we have to change our own habits. The richest 1% in the US have gained mightily since the Republican Reagan, & the Republican Trump just upped that ante (truly a lying,hateful, bully). Republicans are the party of the rich: the rich fund their campaigns and the Republicans cut the taxes on the rich, in kind.
Woe is to us.
Cohen is one of the good guys, a good soul. That's what we need: more of us being real about out love and compassion. Of course, that's the answer. That's always been the answer: love and compassion.
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Great comment, but anyone who thinks that this is a partisan battle will be deceived. It was the Clinton administration that pushed through the deregulation of Wall Street in the 90's. The Democrats may not have championed corruption as an ideal, as the Republicans do, but they have put exactly no political capital into getting money out of politics. And they have been divided about the big tax cuts for the wealthy, whose purpose is not only direct pay back, but to eventually make the services and safety nets that protect everyone but the wealthy impossible. They get their moral cred by opposing the Republicans on racism & other prejudices, but their near abandonment of the working class and of the institutions that protect democracy from corruption are just as bad.
40
So, pray tell, who funds the Democrats?
11
Oh, yes, Democrats surely very, very guilty of greed and elitism and abandonment of the common man and woman. Good point.
Living in Berlin for eight years I noticed that when the wall came down the East Europeans who most admired the values of the West picked up and moved to the West. Some of the most secular, democratic, innovative, and open minds are no longer in their country of origin, leaving behind some of the most retrograde to take up leadership...
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I'm afraid the same has happened here.
The most secular, democratic, innovative, and open minds have migrated from the Midwest and South rural areas to the Coastal and urban areas of the US. Humanity is at a turning point of evolution. One half wants to continue evolving away from superstitious tribalism; the other half vehemently doesn't.
Birds of a feather flock together. I certainly don't want to live in the Dark Ages these people are trying desperately to retain. And thus a geographic and demographic sorting is occurring. What to do about it in a way that ensures humanity's continued evolution is the question of this Age.
11
I agree in principle but there is one weak point in your analysis: the concentration of wealth and income this sorting produces is real.
Whatever social progress this produces has produced an economic blowback. Failing to understand this divide is why we are where we are.
Ying and yang.
4
Broken countries need to fix their problems. The US can help, but we cannot carry the world on our back forever. Failure is natures way of starting anew. People who cannot stomach this reality should look away instead of impeding the progress.
2
Thank you for this article, which (unlike Madeleine Albright's eloquent but ultimately simplistic essay today) does some justice to the complexity of the situation. The truth is, in America as in Europe, "democracy" did not become the enemy. Rather, "democracy" was dismantled in order to surrender all political and media power to financial interests, ludicrously mischaracterized as the "free market." Of course there is a big difference between systemic corruption and fascism. But that does not mean we have to choose the former in order to avoid the latter. The opposite, in fact: the enemy of fascism is not the "establishment" of globalized neo-liberalism. The enemy of fascism is the truth.
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Authoritarian government requires nothing form the governed other than acceptance and acquiescing.
Democracy requires participation and hard work.
19
True, but in the end, of course, authoritarian government requires the governed to surrender everything they have.
By the end of WWII, the Nazis were drafting fourteen year old boys to die in their wars. Stalin had millions of people in gulags. When you look at how people wind up living under Maduro or Putin, you would be worse than a fool to opt for that life.
But for the chance to feel like a winner on the team of the biggest bully; for simple, easy answers delivered in simple, easy words; for the comfort of blind obedience; out of a coward's terror and disgust for terrified refugees or powerless minorities; out of a dog's desire to wag its tail and show its belly to the biggest, loudest one - for all of these reasons, authoritarian-leaning people will hand over themselves and their children to depraved, violent, deceitful men, saying "we are yours to kill and eat."
I feel quite happy to let such people have what they want. But of course, it is not in their nature to leave the rest of us alone or to let other people choose to be free.
6
It does appear that the Brussels-centered EU shares more than a few characteristics with the old Soviet Union. For one thing, the individual states must do as they are told by the central authority and for another, there is no exit mechanism. I'm not a big fan of Frau Merkel and her empire so I can relate to EU skepticism.
2
There is near total denial of the large-scale geopolitical realities in this analysis as well as much of the opinion section.
The writer does not consider that democracy is more threatened in Western Europe than in Hungary or Poland.
The writer does not acknowledge that for 1,000 years the conflicting value systems of Islam and Christianity were separated but in near constant conflict.
Most people now that Hungary suffered under the boot of Russian communism. Do they know that Hungary was destroyed and enslaved by the Ottoman Empire?
And, is it the humble opinion of the author that the culture and language that has survived until now should no longer be defended? Why is that?
40
I'm amazed it's taken such a short time for nations out from under German and Russian oppression to hoist new power-hungry autocrats into office by pushing fear and hatred of immigrants along with, yes, renewed attacks on Jews.
How quickly history's forgotten, only to repeat. That Orban attended Oxford courtesy of Soros seems to just rub salt in the wounds of benefactors.
Orban, and others seem like siblings separated at birth from our home-grown demagogue, Donald Trump.
Ironic that he who knows no history instinctively knows the playbook of tyranny: attack the press, the judiciary, special ( blacks, Muslims, Democrats), close borders, develop "alternative facts," fan resentments into vicious flames.
And, above all, keep supporters ignorant by feeding them streams of hate news and conspiracy mongering.
This column depressed the hell out of me. Poland, with Lech Walesa sick and ailing while Kaczynski restores power and riches to chosen "yes" men just as Pruitt, Mnuncin, Ross, and DeVos cozy up to Trump.
It's a short line from hyping religious purity to ethnic cleansing--what must John Paul be thinking in his grave? Or Francis in Rome?
You know what gets me about the link between Hungary and Poland and our own president?
Trump never fought for the liberty he's so hell bent on destroying either.
206
Where would he have fought for that liberty. In Viet Nam? Hardly a fight for liberty. I am no fan of Trump, but avoiding being sent into that meat grinder of our 18 year old kids seems the least for which he should be criticized.
4
To CBH ~ Although I agree with your assessment of Viet Nam, I question your defense of trump. Based on the lack of courageous character he demonstrates daily, he would have avoided the draft for any war.
Being relatively close to 15 years of watching the U.S. betray common and ethics in its wars in the Middle East and South Asia, its propping up dictatorships, and its rise in the Pew Ratings on its level of government corruption, is it any wonder that the United States is no longer a role model for democracy.
With Putin's poison pill in the White House, not only are second- and third-world nations turning from the United States, but our advanced industrialized and democratic allies are also turning away. It is big league sad.
31
I have been terrified since Trump got the nomination. I recognized the bluster, rhetoric and general attitude of Hungary’s leader in Trump. I predicted all of Trump’s moves, still hoping that the strong democratic forces in this country will stop him. But the GOP has been complicit and many citizens who have only know democracy just don’t recognize the signs of gradual change. Trump has been on a roll, unstoppable. Americans: look at where Hungary got in 20 years and ask yourselves if you can settle for the same in America. If not, speak up an vote Trump and his supporters out.
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These countries are not Constitutional Republics. Don't worry until you see attempts to change the US Federal Constitution. Our country has always deferred to decisions by the Supreme Court. Until that changes I wouldn't be too worried
The Constitution is a piece of paper. It only means something if our compact to follow it holds up.
CBH, constitutions mean nothing to authoritarians; their provisions are irrelevant except as a fig leaf.
ID Pecs is 100% right -- it's time to get extremely worried. Constitutional self-governments are fragile creatures.
The current developments in Europe are very troublesome. I belong to the first post-war generation of Germans, where the overarching educational themes was "we must not allow this to happen ever again".
I was very encouraged by developments in Germany after I immigrated to the US, and was thrilled by the creation of the EU.
But, for all its strengths and benefits, the EU has demonstrated some remarkable weaknesses. The first inkling of this was the EU's ambivalent response to the atrocities during the breakup of Yugoslavia, where it was (again) left to the US to clean up the mess Europeans could not deal with.
The EU was weak in its response to the Greek financial crisis, weak in its coordinated support to the refugee crisis, leaving Greece and Italy alone with much of the "border" problems, and now most worryingly, the EU is pathetically weak in its response to the obvious drift of Poland and Hungary towards a new Fascist culture.
The same unanimity the EU is showing towards the Brexit (possibly because everyone recognized that Britain was, emotionally, never part of Europe), it must now demonstrate in its response to the Fascist developments in Poland and Hungary, up to and including expulsion from the EU. It seems that people are taking for granted the economic and other benefits of the EU - partly because national politicians are often using EU-bashing as a way to divert from their own national failings.
122
Doesn't NATO count anymore? If not, the US taxpayer can save much and the US military can be redeployed to more important places. The EU can continue to bribe countries to remain in the organization, but even the Germans might get tired of this cost for the benefit of their protected export market.
4
I had occasion to visit Budapest in the spring of 2008. (As a result, it became, and remains, my favorite city in all of Europe.) While there, I came across three different monuments, in different parts of the city, to the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956.
Mr. Orban has fashioned himself as a Hungarian nationalist. Yet, as previously reported in the Times, he has become quite chummy with Mr. Putin. Putting aside the issues involved with his country's move away from a democratic form of government, my question is this: how can any self-respecting Hungarian nationalist even think about cozying up to Russia in light of the 40+ year Soviet domination of Hungary during the Cold War, and esp. in light of 1956?
69
That is because Putin, the most hated man of all has become the only ally against the forced multiculturalization of Europe and defender of traditional Europe. Believe me, nobody is happy about that!
6
Neither Hungary nor Poland wants to commit the same slow-motion demographic suicide it is watching in France, Germany, and to some extent America commit. It is not democracy that is the enemy. It is the idea that free-for-all multiculturalism has greater benefits to a society than measured, selected creation of a national character.
128
Instead they opt for the kleptocratic autocracy of the Kremlin.
Multiculturalism's only blame lies in the ease with which racist sots can exploit differences in culture.
42
I'm afraid you couldn't be more wrong. The whole project of the American democracy was diversity coming together to forge a unique plural culture - e pluribus unum. Without diversity we just become Americans worried about trying to define Americanness instead of living our constant renewal of the American. democracy project.
68
Free-for-all multiculturalism and its fraternal twin progeny, identity reification and victimhood embrace, is in fact the opposite of the American project. Instead of e pluribus unum, we have devolved to e unum pluribus.
Hungary , Poland and other East European countries criticize western Europe all the time but have no compunction in accepting from them. For the life of me I don't understand why Brussels kept on doling out largess to these people. Or for that matter why were they accepted in the EU.
73
They were accepted into the EU in a rush, similar to the mad NATO expansion. This happened due to relentless pushing by the Bush II administration, especially Rumsfeld. They disdained old Europe and wanted demagogues like Poland in Europe and also wanted to edge closer to the Russian border. The beneficial buffer role that a fairly neutral Finland played for decades was forgotten.
7
If you think Eastern Europeans are by nature racist, do you realize that this thought is racist by itself?
Blame their current governments, not the people poisoned by propaganda.
4
The Social Democratic values that made the West politically and economically stable have been replaced by moneterized individualism. Everything is permitted except paying a living wage.
222
Income and especially wealth inequality is having an impact in many countries. When people are working and are able to maintain a decent lifestyle, look forward to a decent future, they don't spend as much time blaming others when that isn't the case. When you forget about people, and especially blame and despise them for conditions brought about about by policies of the free markets and globalization, expect it to get ugly, like it has.
201
Yeah, but what about the billions of people lifted out of extreme poverty because of open markets and globalization. I can understand why the far Right doesn't care about them, but it mystifies me why the far Left doesn't seem to.
8
Perhaps that is just the point. If you want to be a dictator and consolidate wealth and resources you must encourage economic inequality in order to control the masses because then you can use peoples prejudices to divide and conquer. This is why we need a serious thoughtful economic policy in this country not just knee jerk free market thinking. Democracy and capitalism both benefit from a healthy tension not one taking over the other. I agree with those who call for fair trade vs. free trade but the reflexive policies of the Trump administration are backward thinking not forward thinking and will only encourage history to repeat itself.
19
Being glad that the poorest of the poor around the world are now able to eke out a living doesn't do much for you when you can no longer pay all your bills here in America.