In the most recent issue of The Atlantic, George Packer has an article titled, “America’s Zombie Democracy.” (Link below.) As always with Packer, it is excellent. As often with Packer, it is a definite downer. It’s not necessary for me here to expand on exactly how – the title tells the tale.
The point of this post is different in one all-important respect. It is that whatever is plaguing democracy in the United States is plaguing democracies everywhere. No nation is exempt from the ills that are ours.
For example, no democracy is exempt from leaders who seem feckless and hapless, especially in comparison with other sorts of leaders. Leaders who are authoritarians and who sometimes seem far more able to get things done. To be efficient as opposed to inefficient, and to ensure security and stability. China’s President Xi Jinping is the quintessential example.
But lest we think that leaders are to blame for zombie democracies we should think again. No democracy anywhere in the world is exempt from followers who are angry and frustrated, impatient, coarse, and rude. From followers who are extremely quick to attack their leaders, to tear them down, but excruciatingly slow to praise them, to lift them up.
America is not. then, the only zombie democracy. Zombiism is nibbling at or even swallowing democracies the world over.
- In Great Britain where Prime Minister Keir Starmer – though he has been in office only a year – already has approval ratings lower than those of any other western leader.
- In France where beleaguered President Emmanuel Macron is contending with yet another collapsed government – yet another indicator the country is now suffering from “chronic political instability.”
- In Germany where Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s party, the Christian Democrats, has fallen behind Germany’s far right party, the Alternative for Germany.
- In Brazil where, having been found guilty of plotting a coup, former president Jair Bolsonaro has been sentenced to 27 years in prison.
- In Japan where the recent resignation of the prime mister – again, after only a year in office – has set the stage for “a period of renewed uncertainty.”
- In South Korea where, following the impeachment last year of its prime minister, the government continues to experience “significant political instability.”
- In India, the so-called “world’s largest democracy,” where Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has, according to Freedom House, significantly increased harassment of its critics and discriminatory policies, especially against Muslims.
- In Turkey where … well, I could go on….
What Packer identifies and describes is not, then, just an American problem. Zombiism is far more widespread which means it is far more insidious. Moreover, because it afflicts democracies everywhere, it raises the question of whether, given the times in which we live, democracies are sentenced indefinitely to struggle. It could be that 21st century cultures and technologies have got to a point where strongmen are the future not just in some countries but in most.
I am not saying that we are destined indefinitely to live in democracies metamorphosed into zombies. I am saying that zombiism is not peculiarly American. And that it might run wider and deeper than we now know.