Narendra Modi is a democratically elected leader, but his image is that of a leader who decimated opposition and dissent — in Parliament or on university campuses.
Narendra Modi is a democratically elected leader, but his image is that of a leader who decimated opposition and dissent — in Parliament or on university campuses.
Nah, that’s the problem. It happens whether it’s done in good faith or not, and bad faith actors have proven themselves quite adept at manipulating democratic institutions to their own advantage. I’m American so I’m mainly aware of how it’s going down in the US, but from my limited perspective it seems like a lot of other countries are going down the same path: India, Turkey, Hungary, Brazil, etc. It might even be happening in China—not within the country as a whole since it obviously isn’t a democracy, but maybe within the Communist party, considering Xi declared himself leader for life and everyone seemingly just went along with it.
I disagree. Democracies and their foundations are living structures. They shouldn’t atrophy and become fossils. When needed, they should be updated but if the political party in power is fascist then they’ll wreck the very basis of democracy (this is the danger staring India in the face). Which is why we should never ever vote any kind of fascist or extremist to power. When we take democracy for granted, we allow fascism to creep in.
What I’ve been observing in the US is that about 1/4 of the population is appropriately aware of fascism and freaked out about it, 1/4 absolutely loves fascism, and 1/2 the population thinks it’s all “just politics” that can safely be ignored no matter how much anyone tries to explain the importance of it. It’s infuriating.