Russia under Vladimir Putin and the US face a great number of conflicts of interests, especially when it comes to key issues like Crimea and Syria. Meetings between US President Donald Trump and Putin, such as the one at the Hamburg G20 Summit, put these conflicts of interests in the spotlight, yet the strife between these two Cold War rivals is only a symptom of a far broader clash of worldviews. Since the beginning of the Cold War, the emerging International Community was forced into a bipolar world order, which transformed into a monopolar world order when the USSR left the US as the world’s only hegemonic power. It is now transforming into a multi-polar world, which the Putin government seems to interpret differently than the West.
Democracies face an inherent conflict of interests when it comes to their policies toward non-democratic and ill-democratic governments. They must either choose to respect the boundaries and sovereignty of foreign governments or conflict with these governments over their dominance of their territories and populations. In practice, the former too often means hypocritical betrayals of their own democratic values while the latter means exerting undue influence in the affairs of other nations, which is something all forms of government are compelled to do in order to ensure their interests. At best, democratic governments will support policies that favor foreign governments when the interests of the populations of both nations align.
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Republican control of Congress and the White House continues to feed Democratic backlash, which only seems to intensify as Congressional leaders and Donald Trump seek to implement more and more of their policy agendas. It is a continuation of the Republican backlash seen under the leadership of Barack Obama. Beyond partisan politics, it is part of a far more troubling trend away from democratic governance. Democracy requires people to respect the views and interests of others. When part of a minority, individuals must be willing to respect the rule of the majority. An unwillingness of Democrats, Republicans, and members of other political parties to respect the majority, when the majority of the American People dissent from their viewpoints, reveals a lack of confidence and faith in democracy.
Democracy and proper governance in general hinge on the ability of government to address and balance the interests of the governed. When there is a conflict of interests between different segments of the population, public officials cannot undermine the rights of a minority without risking the long-term interests, i.e. rights, of everyone. Public policies must, however, cater to the will of the shifting political majority. Libertarian factions within the GOP, for example, seek to eliminate most government spending and taxes. Although wealthy individuals and businesses favor Libertarian thinking when it means fewer taxes for them, the Libertarian view is a minority view, thus Republican efforts to eliminate social welfare spending violates the rule of the majority and shows a lack of respect for democracy. Since July 4, 1777, much has changed in the world. The technological, economic, and cultural differences between the Eighteenth Century and the Twenty-First Century are more than obvious, yet the differences in governance around the world are often overlooked, especially when clouded by so many examples of bad government. Globalization has allowed Western democratic ideals to spread and culture the Peoples of the world in an ongoing democratization process that compels people to demand more of their governments. The world may not be a democratic paradise, but the Peoples of the world have been conditioned to embrace democratic thinking.
In the Eighteenth Century, the Peoples of the wold were compelled to obey and serve autocratic rulers, whose governing power was derived solely from Divine Right. Back then, people existed to serve government. Today, governments, including authoritarian governments, exist to serve people. The shift in the thinking may be small and often unnoticed, but it is a powerful and crucial step in social evolution. Instead of just tolerating the rule of a government until it becomes so unbearable that it sparks a revolution, which simply empowers a more tolerable autocratic government, people have learned that government is accountable to them and the decisions of rulers should be scrutinized. |
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April 2020
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