Thread by @nfergus

David Mitchell and Robert Webb once risked a sketch in which they played two Waffen-SS officers. Looking at death’s head badges on their caps, Mitchell asked the immortal question: "Are we the baddies?" Is this the right question to ask about democracy in America today? 1/20

Democracy is doing OK globally. Not only are there many more democracies (57% of all countries in 2017, compared with 25% in the mid-’70s); democracies also account for around three-quarters of global GDP. The thing we need to worry about is American democracy. 2/20

The problem is that the world no longer sees the U.S. as a shining city on a hill — more like a festering slum on a floodplain. According to a Pew survey of adults in 17 advanced economies, “just 17% say democracy in the U.S. is a good example for others to follow." 3/20

@freedomhouse says US “democratic institutions have suffered erosion, as reflected in partisan pressure on the electoral process, bias and dysfunction in the criminal justice system, harmful policies on immigration and asylum seekers, and growing disparities in wealth." 4/20

The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs just to published a long critique of American democracy: "a system fraught with deep-seated problems"—a "game of money politics" in which the theory of "one person one vote" is belied by the reality of "rule of the minority elite." 5/20

By contrast, the Chinese ambassador claims, the PRC is "an extensive, whole-process socialist democracy [that] reflects the people’s will, suits the country’s realities, and enjoys strong support from the people [who] have the right to elections." 6/20

With critics like these, you might say, American democracy hardly needs defenders. And yet the shocking thing is how much of the Chinese critique of American democracy is copied and pasted from … Americans. 7/20

72% of American adults believe their democracy "used to be a good example for others to follow but has not been recently," while fewer than half are satisfied with the way U.S. democracy is working. Two-thirds agree that "most politicians are corrupt." 8/20

"Our constitutional crisis is already here," wrote Bob Kagan in the @washingtonpost in September. washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/… 9/20

"Are We Doomed?" asked George Packer in this month’s Atlantic. theatlantic.com/magazine/archi… A recent Washington Post essay by Risa Brooks and Erica De Bruin detailed the "18 Steps to a Democratic Breakdown." washingtonpost.com/outlook/intera… 10/20

I don't dismiss the Cassandras. Much of what Brooks and De Bruin prophesy was either attempted or contemplated in the strange days between Nov. 5, 2020, and Jan. 6, 2021. The more we learn about what happened on Jan. 6, the more like a bungled coup d’etat it appears. 11/20

A great many republics throughout history have ended like this, with a demagogue or Caesar inciting the masses against a corrupt political establishment. We known for centuries that republics are inherently hard to preserve and tend, after a time, to lapse into tyranny. 12/20

But liberal writers fixate on electoral rules and voting rights under the assumption that the 2024 election will be close. They overlook the distinct possibility that the Republican candidate may win by an indisputably large margin as the country vents its disgust. 13/20

Dems are so sure that it's Republicans who intend to overthrow the Constitution that they don’t notice when their progressive wing discusses packing the Supreme Court, abolishing the Electoral College, conferring statehood on PR and DC, and enfranchising noncitizens. 14/20

The republic may be in danger if each of the two major parties aspires to make fundamental changes to the political system designed to entrench itself permanently in power. It's especially dangerous that each side firmly believes only the other side is trying to do this. 15/20

The only consolation for us independent types that both major parties have serious problems that stand in the way of the kind of victory on which constitutional amendments could be based. 16/20

So long as Trump is wedded to the "Stop the Steal" narrative about 2020, he will struggle to win over the swing voters without whom victory in a presidential race is impossible. He's no Grover Cleveland. 17/20

Meanwhile, Dem activists are wholly out of touch with voters in swing states. Most Americans, including Hispanic voters, are alienated by wokeism and its linguistic excesses: from BIPOC to Latinx to 2SLGBTQIA+. If it’s hip at Yale, it’s political suicide in Peoria. 18/20

Worrying about our democracy is a feature of US political culture, not a bug—something the Chinese Communist Party simply cannot grasp. It copies and pastes the criticisms we level at ourselves, even as it deletes and suppresses any criticism of its own lawless regime. 19/20

Are we the baddies? No. For if we were, we would never dare to ask such a question aloud. 20/20 bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…