Miami Beach, FL, November 29, 2022 --  

Authoritarian movements around the world are facing strong resistance from those who support democracy, human rights and the rule of law.

Last year was not good one for democracy. 2021 started out with a violent assault on the US Capitol in a failed attempt to prevent a democratic handover of power.  By August, an American-backed government in Kabul disintegrated and ceded power to Taliban insurgents, ending civil society and locking women out of public life.  Before the year was out, communist Chinese planes were buzzing Taiwan and hundreds of thousands of Russian invasion forces were massing on the border of Ukraine’s fledgling democracy.

Authoritarian regimes and movements around the world were ascendant.

But this year the tide began to turn.  America, the UK and the European Union did not back down in the face of Russia’s invasion, supplying Ukraine with weapons they used to repel the invaders first from Kiev then Kharkiv and Kherson.  America’s Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi  stood down China with a visit to Taipei.  India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi publicly dressed down Russian dictator Vladimir Putin for his invasion of Ukraine.  Iranian women rose up against a brutal Islamofascist regime in mass protests that spread to other parts of society.  And now, the largest protests in over 30 years have broken out in communist China, with angry youth daring to call for the ouster of strongman Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party.

Those who see these as unrelated incidents are wrong.  Human beings are social creatures highly tuned to follow trends set by others.  Look at old photographs from the far corners of the world in the 1920s and you will see affluent tribal women wearing felt cloche hats.  Go back a decade earlier and see local men in sealskin top hats.   International fashion has a way of quickly spreading everywhere.

This is just as true for political ideas as for headwear.  Many Americans who once wore MAGA hats and supported disgraced former President Trump did so not out of conviction, but because they saw others around them doing the same.  Trumpers' dismal results in recent mid-term elections show that political fashions have a way of dying quickly.  Expect to hear lots of revisionist history from folks with dusty MAGA hats in their closets about how they didn't support "everything" Trump did.

The international victories of democratic movements on the battlefield in Ukraine and on the streets of Tehran have rallied opponents of authoritarianism around the world.    Perhaps most importantly, this rallying has now reached China -- the most populous dictatorship the world has ever seen.

Mass protests against the central government have been unheard of since the 1989 massacre in Tiananmen Square.  Suddenly that has changed.  There is no question that news leaking through China's Great Firewall has played a role.  

The passion leading students to publicly stand up against the abuses of the regime is triggered by outrage and frustration and enabled by students' blissful ignorance of their government's murderous treatment of their ideological forbearers. China's police are reportedly tracking down individual protesters (probably identified through facial recognition software connected to omnipresent security cameras) and threatening them with consequences should they continue.  Will they back down?

Even if China's central government is successful at squelching the protests, it won't put the genie back in the bottle.  A 30-year-taboo has already been broken -- there will be a next time.

Those who support democracy must be patient and accept that there will be many setbacks along the way.   The mullahs in Tehran may yet crush the people's will.  The Chinese Communist Party may squelch dissent with some evil cocktail of detention, blood and fear.  Russia may forcibly retain control over large swathes of Ukraine.  And unrepentant Trumpers could still make a comeback.

But the ultimate strength of democracy comes from the willingness of those in power to lose battles and go on to fight another day.  It doesn't matter so much if you lose an election (or a battle with an external adversary) so long as that next election still comes.  This ability of democrats to lose, admit being wrong, and later emerge victorious is what allows established ideas to evolve, experimentation to flourish and mistakes to be corrected.  

Such strength is glaringly missing in mainland China, which is entering a fourth year of zero covid policy along with a refusal to import foreign vaccines -- all imposed by a dictator who can do no wrong.  For angry Chinese frustrated by the government's refusal to correct its mistakes, democratic change can't come soon enough.

Related Web Columns:

Wasted Talent and Nefarious Deeds, November 1, 2022

Shattered Contract, April 5, 2022

The Next Grenada, August 24, 2021

The Anti-Democratic Tempest, July 27, 2021

A Tragic Loss, May 26, 2020

The Other China, June 18, 2019