Boris Johnson and the road to "illiberal democracy"

There's a difference between revolution and revolutionary methods. Sociologists and political scientists can come up with more-or-less well-delineated definitions to clearly distinguish them. For most people, the distinction is about as vague as it is irrelevant.

Britannica Online provides a useful general definition of the concept as it evolved since antiquity (Revolution, 2019), including references to these modern theories of revolution:

The 16th-century Italian writer Niccolò Machiavelli recognized the importance of creating a state that could endure the threat of revolution; but, at the same time, his detailed analysis of power led to a new belief in the necessity of changes in the structure of government on certain occasions. This new acceptance of change placed Machiavelli at the forefront of modern revolutionary thought, even though he never used the word revolution in his texts, and he was primarily concerned with the creation of a truly stable state.

The 17th-century English writer John Milton was an early believer in revolution’s inherent ability to help a society realize its potential. He also saw revolution as the right of society to defend itself against abusive tyrants, creating a new order that reflected the needs of the people. To Milton, revolution was the means of accomplishing freedom. Later, in the 18th century, the French, Haitian, and American revolutions were attempts to secure freedom from oppressive leadership. Modern revolutions have frequently incorporated utopian ideals as a basis for change. [my emphasis]

The Britannica editors also give credit to Immanuel Kant, who "believed that revolution was a 'natural' step in the realization of a higher ethical foundation for society," noting that the Kantian "idea helped serve as a basis for the American and French revolutions." Although in the former, more people got it directly from Thomas Paine rather than from Kant.

They even give credit to Hegel as "a crucial catalyst in the formation of 20th-century revolutionary thought" who "saw revolutions as the fulfillment of human destiny, and he saw revolutionary leaders as those necessary to instigate and implement reforms." A new biography of Hegel by Klaus Vieweg that emphasizes Hegel's republican thought rooted in the French Revolution, as suggested by its subtitle, Hegel: Der Philosoph der Freiheit [Hegel: The Philosopher of Freedom] (2919). Hegel, like Thomas Jefferson, was deeply engaged with the political ideals of the French Revolution and supportive of them, while of course keeping a critical view of its actual outcomes. Paine himself was an elected deputy to the French Revolutionary National Convention, though his service was interrupted for a year when he was imprisoned for his criticism of the Terror.

In the United States for the last 40 years, Republicans have tended to be more comfortable than Democrats with using "revolution" to describe their goals, e.g., the Reagan Revolution, the Gingrich Revolution. Although Bernie Sanders' use of "political revolution" currently has Republicans, corporate Democrats, and poor babbling Chris Matthews reverting to a more classical conservative view of at least feigning horror over the very notion.

But in our current, much-discussed trend in the world of rising authoritarianism, including in the US, Europe, Latin America, and India, some governments and parties are using and advocating methods that the Founding Father of modern reactionary thought, Edmund Burke, might have regarded as French Jacobin approaches.

The authoritarian, "illiberal democracy" that Viktor Orbán established after winning the Hungarian Presidency in 2010, he moved rapidly to build the current version of government in Hungary, using extreme gerrymandering, wide-ranging control of the press with help from allied oligarchs, politicized institutions of justice, without resorting to tactics like jailing or murdering journalists. Elections are still nominally free and competitive and people aren't arrested for political reasons. But the system is sufficiently rigged that Orbán's party can retain control without winning a majority in elections.

Peter Oborne has a thought-provoking take on Britain's Trumpish Prime Minister which is a reminder that there are various potential models for those seeking to get rid of democracy (Boris Johnson as a revolutionary figure, Boris Johnson is leading a revolution, and this time it's coming from the right Middle East Eye 02/08/2020:

Most of us were taught in college to think that revolutionary movements come from the left. It seemed to make sense: Robespierre, Marx, Lenin, Che Guevara, Mao. It may be time to reconsider. Johnson is leading a revolution, and this time it's coming from the right.

He's either forgotten, does not know, or most likely does not care that the Conservative Party came into existence in the wake of the French Revolution as a defender of great institutions - monarchy, parliament, rule of law, the church - against abstraction, ideology and political violence.

This means that Johnson repudiates the doctrines of every Conservative leader from the Duke of Wellington onwards. Johnson's hostility to institutions is so striking that I don't believe he can be viewed as a Conservative in the way the term has been understood over the last two centuries.

The party he leads has detached from its moorings, while Johnson himself should be understood as part of a group of populist leaders that includes Donald Trump, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and most relevantly Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. [my emphasis]

He cites various examples of Johnson's authoritarian bent, including trying to politicize the courts, attacked and restricted journalists Trump-style, and a five-week shutdown of Parliament last fall that the British Supreme Court ruled illegal.

Oborne also calls attention to the often-mentioned charismatic leader in building an authoritarian political order. He cites an article by New Statesman international editor Jeremy Cliffe (Central Europe’s authoritarians show where an unleashed Boris Johnson could lead Britain 12/18/2019) on authoritarianism in the Visegrad nations - Czechia, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. Cliff sees Boris Johnson as having just followed an "electoral narrative of 'people versus politicians' requiring rescue by a muscular father-of-the-nation type" that "is straight out of the Visegrad playbook."

But I try to be cautious about the notion a single charismatic leader as a ncessary element of authoritarian rule. All movements, including democratic ones, need leadership. Conventional wisdom often equates populism with authoritarianism and rightwing politics. I take a more restrictive view of populism as a way of doing politics that pose an antagonism between "the elite" and "the people." There are left and democratic versions of populism. And charismatic leadership does not equate to authoritarian or antidemocratic political goals.

But the institutional moves toward dismantling democracy and the rule of law need to be taken very seriously. And in the United States, the Democrats need to take "revolutionary" actions by the Republicans as the sign of asymmetric polarization that need to be countered within the rule of law. But they need to give up the fantasy that they can be countered with covering and "bipartisan" platitudes.