This piece misses the point. The left and right each tell a story about this democracy with a common theme: the democracy is invalid. It is fundamentally unjust. The illiberal behaviors decried by this writer and a succession of writers in Persuasion are a result of genuine belief in these stories. The stories themselves must be confronted, not simply the behavior. This isn't difficult. The stories are clownish in their distortions -- and I'm including the left's Big Lie of systemic injustice here. It's not hard to refute them. It just takes courage and diligence.
After the Kyle Rittenhouse debacle, you could more or less sum up the problem as:
The far right hates fair elections (when they don't get the desired result), the far left hates fair trials (when they don't get the desired result).
Both impulses are inherently authoritarian.
This piece misses the point. The left and right each tell a story about this democracy with a common theme: the democracy is invalid. It is fundamentally unjust. The illiberal behaviors decried by this writer and a succession of writers in Persuasion are a result of genuine belief in these stories. The stories themselves must be confronted, not simply the behavior. This isn't difficult. The stories are clownish in their distortions -- and I'm including the left's Big Lie of systemic injustice here. It's not hard to refute them. It just takes courage and diligence.
At the same time, it is important to renew and improve the liberal democracy itself https://www.opulens.se/english/how-can-we-democratise-our-world-for-a-post-industrial-future/