Western democracies have become mere facades, with elections that no longer offer real alternatives, and elites that only pretend to subject themselves to the people’s vote. These elites, driven by powerful lobbies, erode sovereignty and democratic values, consolidating control across the political spectrum. Figures like Kamala Harris, Macron, and Starmer are seen as the “lesser evil,” but their policies largely align with those of the neoconservative agenda. The political system is manipulated to maintain the status quo, while terms like “sovereignism” and “populism” are weaponized to suppress dissent.
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A time will come when voting will be meaningless unless voting booths are adorned with free entertainment: concerts, fireworks, variety shows.
Even today, in the main Western democracies, elections are pure theatrical spectacle: zombie elections for a zombie democracy, as historian Emmanuel Todd writes in his latest book, La Défaite de l’Occident (The Defeat of the West).
Nothing that candidates say or promise is credible, as it is soon contradicted. Even the language they use—automatic stigmatizations, advertising-like slogans repeated so often that it seems as if they’re speaking to the deaf—serves to disguise, conceal, and perpetuate the power of the dominant elites, who only pretend to subject themselves to voting. The elites are in service to lobbies on essential issues (peace and war, finance, energy, climate), and the lobbies abhor universal suffrage.
In the vocabulary of European elites, vague and incoherent words stand out, useful for discrediting dissent. The main accusation is “sovereignism”: anyone who demands more independence, whether national or European, is committing the sin of sovereignism. Another derogatory label: populist. The history of populism is long and complex, but today it is used to denigrate popular sovereignty and empty universal suffrage.
Zombie democracy episodes are multiplying lately, not only canceling out political alternations—government shifts from one side to the other—but also the possibility that such alternations could produce real alternatives. The enormous, protective power of the central group governing despite elections includes centrist leftists and tolerates no alternatives. In 2013, Mario Draghi praised the “automatic pilot” in EU institutions, indifferent to popular sovereignty and the left-right dialectic. In 1993, Clinton coined the term “market democracy.” Constantly invoked, Values are used to beautify the erosion of democracies carried out by the neoconservative ideology that remains in control and is linked to major energy and arms industries.
The US case must be mentioned first, as it is the superpower on which Europe wants to depend. In the campaign against Donald Trump, Kamala Harris claims to represent the left fighting the far-right. And certainly, Trump is totally unpredictable, therefore dangerous. But then suddenly, neoconservative figures far more sinister than Trump back Harris: among them, Dick Cheney stands out, the former vice president under George W. Bush, who actually commanded and disrupted international balances in place of the President and is responsible for 5 million deaths in wars following the 9/11 attacks, in Afghanistan, Iraq, and various other countries around the globe.
Cheney is the mastermind-organizer of Guantanamo prisons, the Memorandum that legalized torture in Iraq and Afghanistan, mass surveillance of citizens (Patriot Act), the CIA’s use of illegal detention and torture of prisoners suspected of terrorism in eleven European countries, including Italy (Extraordinary Rendition). He implemented the extension of presidential powers through the “unitary executive theory.” Alberto Gonzales, legal adviser to G.W. Bush and responsible for the Memorandum on torture, also supports Kamala Harris.
Both Cheney and Gonzales could switch political sides if they changed. They haven’t, yet Harris declared herself “honored” by Cheney’s endorsement in the TV debate with Trump and implied that she would continue to lead the War Party that Biden has headed in recent years: fueling the US-Russia conflict in Ukraine and supporting Israel’s wars on multiple fronts (genocide in Gaza, deemed “plausible” by the UN International Court of Justice; anti-Palestinian offensives in the West Bank, deadly cyberattacks in Lebanon, missiles on Beirut). In the debate with Trump, Harris promised to help Israel against its external enemies: Iran, Hezbollah, and the Houthi of Yemen. “We have the most lethal armed forces in the world,” she proudly repeats. On immigration, she proclaims that she will also build walls at the Mexican border, more effectively than Trump.
Then there’s the French case. In July, elections were held for a new chamber, and the united left in the New Popular Front came first, with a classic social democratic program: raising the minimum wage, taxing windfall profits, fairer pension reform, and a tax system that doesn’t favor the wealthy. Macron did not accept the electoral outcome, knowing that his own deputies would be halved without leftist withdrawals in the second round. The result: the Élysée appointed Michel Barnier, a member of one of the least-voted parties, the Republicans, as Prime Minister. Macronists and the Republican Right are central in the new government, and yesterday’s policies, rejected by three-quarters of the French, continue undisturbed. Macron hasn’t managed to divide the left, as the socialists remain loyal to unity for now. For Macron, universal suffrage is a non-event.
A third case: Keir Starmer’s Labour Party, which between 2018 and 2020 marginalized the true left of Jeremy Corbyn, profiting from the campaigns labeling him as anti-Semitic and perhaps even fueling them. On immigration, Starmer only superficially distances himself from the conservatives: immigrants seeking regularization won’t be sent to Rwanda but to Albania, whatever the costs and legality. Starmer is said to be drawn to the “Meloni model” and traveled to Rome to pay homage.
Lastly, a noteworthy case: the European Parliament, which has no power or representation in foreign policy but influences the media and national parties. On Thursday, it approved yet another resolution advocating the use of Western missiles in Russia, thus provoking a direct NATO-Russia nuclear confrontation. Not a single line was dedicated to negotiations. The Populars, Liberals, Greens, Socialists, and some conservatives voted in favor.
In Italy, the 5-Star Movement, the Left, the Greens, and the League opposed it. Only two socialists abstained, Cecilia Strada and Marco Tarquinio. The PD MEPs were rather ridiculous: first, they voted to cancel the paragraph on missile use in Russia, then they approved the entire resolution with the paragraph still included. Centrists dominate the European Parliament. As Mitterrand once said, “Centrists are neither left nor left.”
The best way to betray the voter is to convince them to choose the “lesser evil.” Kamala Harris, Macron, Starmer, even Meloni when she aligns with Neocon interventionism, are considered the lesser evil. The lesser evil is so similar to the evil that it’s better to pretend it’s a good and even a European Value.
Il Fatto Quotidiano, September 21, 2024
