Killing Democracy to Save It

But the worst wound is that it has revealed a Europe that has lost its distinctiveness. It has lost its self-identity and its purpose. It has lost its faith.

The post-World War II political and social order in the Western world is nearing its death after 70 years. It’s not a pretty sight.

There is palpable political, social, and spiritual unrest everywhere across Europe, from the Urals to the United Kingdom and the North Atlantic, from the Barents Sea to the Mediterranean.

It is the same sense of unrest that took Donald Trump to the White House twice.

A Short History

The hope and dream of the post-war elite and leadership in Europe was that the soft socialist states, established with malleable Parliamentary systems that could choke the life out of honest representative government, would blossom into the new world order of centralized governance for all. Instead of volatile political drama and the follies of average citizens, a massive administrative state staffed with bureaucrats and experts would run things under the watchful eye of the elites.

After World War II, six European countries, including West Germany and France, signed the Treaty of Rome in 1957, following a series of treaties that paved the way. It established the European Economic Community, which included Europe’s two largest economies. Then, in 1993, the Maastricht Treaty formally established the European Union.

The EU was organized to be a governing body that deliberately eschewed the foundational characteristics of Western civilization, most notably its Judeo-Christian heritage, and instead emphasized fuzzy “shared” values, such as democracy and freedom. The Union’s ethos was interdependence as a remedy to the nationalistic movements that many believed led to World War I and World War II; in this paradigm, different cultures would coexist under one tent.

Economically, its members and the EU would focus on managed economic growth, sustainable development, and the pursuit of a high quality of life. This general philosophy contrasted with America’s independence, codified individual liberties, as well as the economic growth it encouraged and the personal responsibility it required (hence the radical Left’s never-ending assault on the Constitution).

However, the reality of socialism, soft or otherwise, is that, as an adjunct to its core rationale, the Marxian concept of power is disguised as equality and the equitable distribution of wealth and resources, and so on. Socialism is a political weed; it starts life blending in with the grass, and as time goes on, it becomes an unsightly mess, killing the whole yard.

The prevailing political lockstep in Europe, in contrast to the American model, as they began to rebuild after the war was that the ethical or moral questions, and the fundamental political and economic matters, were settled by “democratic socialism” and the promise of an egalitarian social structure (and in the 2000s by multiculturalism). With various degrees of central planning, the individual governments turned the process over to bureaucrats and experts, allied with protected markets, to deliver on the promise.

But the 2000s have not been kind.

Waking Up

The now massive administrative state in Europe (and the US) has grown into the monster that has long been feared. [Both Frédéric Bastiat (1801-1850) in his classic, The Law, and Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) wrote extensively about the dangers of legal and administrative tyranny.

Parliaments in Europe and the Congress in the US have handed over vast amounts of unaccountable power to the bureaucrats and expert or managerial class, under the same theory that the hoi polloi were incapable of self-governance through democratic processes and would never willingly give up personal freedom if they understood that that was the honest pursuit of their governments.

But it turns out there are a lot of stubborn folks out there. Like the US, no issue has ignited the European voters more than immigration. In the last decade alone, nearly 30 million migrants, both legal and illegal, have flooded into Europe, primarily from Africa and the Middle East, and since 2022, perhaps 10 million from Ukraine. It has strained the welfare-rich programs, housing, and jobs, and created crime in the streets.

But the worst wound is that it has revealed a Europe that has lost its distinctiveness. It has lost its self-identity and its purpose. It has lost its faith.

The New Old World

As the economies of Europe have languished in the last two decades, steadily losing competitiveness and productivity, sustainable markets, technological innovation, and capital investments for medium and small businesses, the voters have become increasingly alarmed. Instead of addressing legitimate concerns, the governments have taken concrete steps to kill democracy, they say to save it.

Now we have governments in Canada, the UK, France, Germany, Romania, Ukraine, Russia, and until January 20, 2025, the US, among many others, that are working to kill democracy by banning political parties, banning free political speech, monitoring social media for hate speech, jailing political opponents, co-opting nation media and taxpayer-supported media, coercing financial institutions to debank customers, weaponizing the legal system, and even committing violence against dissidents. They are doing, of course, exactly what they claim the “populist” or “nationalist” parties they want to ban would do.

Among many recent examples, Germany is merely the latest. The Bundestag, the German federal parliament, is considering removing the now largest political party in the country, the AfD, from the upcoming elections. German “intelligence” has produced a report that claims the AfD is an “extremist” far-right party. One German media review of the party ended with this telling statement: “What is already clear, however, is that the political landscape has shifted. The boundaries that once kept the far right at the margins are no longer as firm as they once were.” Removing the party from the ballot settles that dilemma, of course. So much for free speech in Germany.

After a brief review, much of the AfD party’s agenda [here] sounds like common sense. And while there may be some issues you or I might not support, or don’t know enough about, compared to what the train wreck the ruling class has made of Germany in the last few decades, it seems reasonable.

Meanwhile, Nigel Farage, now leading the largest party in the UK, has already tasted this new menace to freedom. He was debanked only a few years ago and had been chewed up in the state-run media endlessly. But he has made freedom of speech a significant campaign issue. In yet another study, The Times of London has revealed just how insidious and dangerous the administrative war against free speech – and freedom of thought and religion – has become. The Times reported that 30 daily arrests (or approximately 11,000 per year) are made for sending offensive online messages (here).

Human freedom is more fragile than we like to think, and our age is less secure than we hoped. It turns out that the real tyrants and enemies of democracy wear expensive suits instead of military uniforms. Regaining the faith of our fathers, faith in ourselves, and our civilization is the mission of our time.

Michael Giere writes award-winning commentary and essays on the intersection of politics, culture, and faith. He is a critically acclaimed novelist (The White River Series) and short-story writer. A former candidate for the US House of Representatives from Texas, he was a senior executive in both the Reagan and the Bush (41) Administrations, and in 2016 served on the Trump Transition Team.