Democracy is So Woke

Democracy is So Woke

Especially When You Can Get a Strongman to Decide for You

You’d think that after all the genocide, ego-driven wars, economic failure, secret police ferreting out political opponents, repression, sheer misery for the masses, “right thinking,” intolerance, and unchecked power evidenced by 20th century brutal dictators – some even elected by popular vote – humanity would have wised up by the 21st century. But the captains of blame, the determiners of right thinking, embracers of political violence and the purveyors of “only I can fix it” solutions – the dictators, cult leaders and false prophets (real and wannabe) – are back in droves. Many are running in the dozens and dozens of elections this year all over the world… some don’t have to run. Many love war and saber-rattling to enhance the power of blame, to redefine “patriotism” (a very dangerous word) and rally rabid “loyal citizens” to their “proud” defense of the “motherland,” “fatherland,” or just plain “our” country… “our” values.

Though the “Father of Woke” may have killed his own political future, the legacy of using that ambiguous term, to describe anyone and anything the American religious right does not like, persists. And beyond the intolerance, violent white power and total embrace of a gun culture is the mechanism to dominate, control and, if necessary, extinguish those who believe in individual and personal freedom (which cherishes diversity and inclusion): a “right thinking” dictatorship. The poster child for how much more efficient and economically prosperous than Western democracy a totalitarian government can be: China. After all, in the space of three decades, beginning in the post-Mao era of Deng Xiaoping, the Peoples’ Republic of China elevated almost a billion people out of poverty, and two decades beyond that, put the PRC on an almost even military basis with the United States.

But modern China began in 1981, so the new Chinese model of success has a history of less than half a century. It literally grew from the dust and wreckage of Mao’s failed Great Leap Forward era and his Cultural Revolution. But does this new Chinese economic and political model have sustainability? The US model, which definitely could use some updating, has shown sustainability for almost five times the length of the modern PRC model. But one PRC pattern reflects what has ultimately happened to China, when a cult is built around a single, all-powerful autocratic leader without checks or balances: the eras of Mao Zedong and Xi Jinping. The only institution that has grown and endured during their rule has been the military. Under both Mao and Xi, China’s economy has suffered horribly. We all know about Mao, but Xi’s economy is also unraveling.

Writing for the January 20th Business Insider, Linette Lopez illustrates the fall of the PRC economic world: “2024 is the year of the incredible shrinking China… The country's growth has been treated like an inevitability for decades. Everything was getting bigger — its cultural influence, geopolitical ambition, population — and seemed poised to continue until the world was remade in China's image. The foundation for this inexorable rise was its booming economy, which allowed Beijing to throw its might around in other areas. But now China's economy is withering, and the future Beijing imagined is being cut down to size along with it.

“The clearest sign of this diminishment is China's worsening deflation problem. While Americans are worried about inflation, or prices rising too fast, policymakers in Beijing are fretting because prices are falling. The consumer price index has declined for the past three months, the longest deflationary streak since 2009. In the race for global economic supremacy, deflation is an albatross around Beijing's neck. It's a sign that the Chinese economic model has well and truly run out of juice and that a painful restructuring is required. But beyond the financial problems, the sinking prices are a sign of a deeper malaise gripping the Chinese people…’China's deflation is the deflation of hope, the deflation of optimism. It's a psychological funk,’ Minxin Pei, a professor of political science at Claremont McKenna College, told me.

“The fallout won't be contained to China's shores. Because the country's growth sent money stampeding around the globe over the past few decades, its contractions are creating a seesaw effect in global markets. The foreign investors who helped to power China's rise are running to avoid catching the funk on their balance sheets, and governments the world over are starting to question the narrative of China, the dauphin. What Beijing does — or fails to do — to fight this malaise will determine the course of humanity for decades to come…

“It may seem counterintuitive, especially given the Western experience of the past few years, but deflation is in many ways scarier than inflation. Inflation occurs when there's too much demand for too few products — people want to buy things, but there simply isn't enough stuff to go around. By contrast, deflation happens when there are plenty of goods and services available but not enough demand. Businesses are then forced to slash prices to entice consumers to come out and spend. Every economy sees recessions or downturns — periods of declining demand and sinking confidence that force companies to put their wares on sale — but sustained deflation is what happens when those maladies make themselves at home and decide to stay.”

Unemployment among China’s younger, educated labor force is north of 20%. Millions of square feet of new residential space, supported by trillions of dollars equivalent of debt, lie empty, likely never to be occupied. Since real estate accounts for more than a quarter of the PRC economy, the risks are huge. Several large banks and mega-developers are approaching insolvency. Supply chain issues and austerity among many of China’s major importers has hammered the PRC manufacturing export machine. As demand has slackened, many young Chinese have returned to live with their parents in rural villages. Former Fed Chair Ben Bernanke noted: Deflationary events are rare, but even moderate deflation — "a decline in consumer prices of about 1% per year” — can zap growth out of an economy for years. A depression looms in China.

So here we are, as one of strongest economies on earth, being told by our MAGA cult leader – himself having to settle fraud allegations in the past and now facing tax and overvaluation legal actions where there have already been a pile of court rulings against him – that our economy is failing… and only he can fix it. Sounds a lot like his “bleach as a cure for COVID” recommendation, doesn’t it? Or we could go back when “Great America,” with gas lines, race riots, mortgages with double-digit interest rates, an unpopular military draft, found waging war to be illusory in Korea and Vietnam.

I’m Peter Dekom, and you can have either “only I can fix it” MAGA world or democracy… but not both.