Liberals show troubling weakness for dictators
Though it has proven impossible to shame someone with no shame, Donald Trump has been chastised so widely for his admiration of Vladimir Putin that his political brand, not merely his political history, will be defined partly by a sympathy for authoritarians — even, remarkably, who don’t happen to be himself.
He will never be someone who just happened to say stupid things about Russia once. He will always be the demagogues’s demagogue.
Certain sections of the left (and even centre) are luckier. At best they make lame excuses for authoritarian regimes; at next-to-best-and-near-toworst, they fetishize them. Unlike Trump though, they avoid the perception they are for authoritarianism; they are simply remembered as having happened to be for specific authoritarians.
Granted, a person may have a penchant for an authoritarian while himself failing to mimic their mannerisms as convincingly as Trump. But that makes Trump the gutsiest version going of what people along the entire ideological spectrum in Western democracies are apparently willing to entertain, or even secretly like. It does not make Trump the end as well as starting point of tolerance or sympathy for authoritarianism in the West.
The left’s most absurd apologist for foreign authoritarian regimes, and its best rejoinder to Trump, is British Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. He’s excused Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. More recently, his spokespeople suggested that by criticizing Russia’s brutality in Syria, we “divert” attention from U.S. actions there.
Corbyn’s positions on Russia are borne of an ideological reflex that compels him to argue that whatever another state does, the United Superstructure of America must have done much worse at some time.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s inanity on authoritarianism is concerning. It derives from the centre, that prefers to be called the left. It can’t be dismissed as a typical, if toxic, byproduct of radicalism.
Twice, on China and Cuba, Trudeau has meditated on the virtues of brutal dictatorships. Twice, outrage has ensued; some of it was even sincere. But shock and horror are no substitute for enduring concern.
That Trudeau would ever express open affection for a dictatorship is alarming; that he has done so on separate occasions is sobering. We might conclude it isn’t merely an isolated glitch in his thinking but a built-in feature of his world view.
One can only imagine the complex calculations he performs to justify a Fidel Castro or Xi Jinping: respectable spelling scores are equal to the value of the right to speak freely; improved factory output cancels out kidnapped human-rights lawyers. This is the math of justifying human-rights abuses.
On their appreciation for foreign exemplars of illiberalism and antidemocracy, the greatest difference between a Trump and a Trudeau, or a Trump and a Corbyn, or a Trump and his own enablers in the Republican party, is Trump appreciates authoritarianism for its own sake. Others appreciate authoritarianism only when it results in things they like: an enemy for one’s enemy, a growing economy, or a tax cut.
But there can be no exceptions for demagoguery in a democracy. You can’t do authoritarianism just once, or quit dictatorship this last time.
The beauty of liberal democracy is it prohibits arbitrary means and holds no end as sacred. That’s also a source of its fragility: it’s harder to make an inspiring slogan about fair process than about an America that can, via cruel, corrupt dealings, be made great again.
Good leaders would have a go at it though. Given decline in liberal democracy, the world needs better ones. Shannon Gormley is an Ottawa Citizen global affairs columnist and freelance journalist.