Trumpian politics

“We reject the ideology of globalism”
Donald Trump at the United Nations

“How shall education prepare us for
increasingly Trumpian politics?”
Terrific Mentors International

‘Liberal democracy is a fragile synthesis of personal freedom and civic action’, says Martin Wolf*. The world’s excess of civic action over personal freedom has caused an imbalance that threatens not just social stability but economic stability too, he claims.

Martin Wolf’s article might have been written for Terrific Mentors International for today.

Professor Larry Diamond of Stanford University propounds that liberal democracy has four necessary and sufficient elements: free and fair elections, active participation of people as citizens, protection of the civil and human rights of all citizens, and a rule of law that binds all citizens equally. He explains that the salient feature of the system is the restraints it imposes on the government, and so on the majority.

Professor Yascha Mounk of Harvard University argues that both ‘undemocratic liberalism’ and ‘illiberal democracy’ threaten liberal democracy. EITHER democracy is too weak and social bonds and economic security are sacrificed to individual freedom OR liberalism is too weak and power is captured by demagogues ruling in the name of an angry majority (or, at least, a sizeable minority) who are told they are the ‘real people’. He concludes that ‘Undemocratic liberalism ends in elite rule; illiberal democracy ends in autocratic rule’.

The whole article is well worth reading. It summarises brilliantly the issue we are tackling – an education of electorates that explains the equity of moderation and the destruction of excess.

When communications were more difficult and education was more focused on growing up, the seats of learning, and the universities, were rightly content to do a job of teaching survival and competition. They did it well.

Now we have universal knowledge and every child is grown up before s/he reaches university their role must be to help make society workable – not just local society but global society, too.

How can they best do that?

Let the debate commence.

*Saving liberal democracy from the extremes – Martin Wolf Financial Times 26Sep18