Politics is a dangerous sport

In some democratic countries, losing an election can cost a candidate years behind bars. One such is Brazil, which is why Flávio Bolsonaro – who, to avoid sharing the fate of his dad, Jair, who was sentenced to 27 years of house arrest for planning a coup – fled to the United States via Argentina. He did so hours after his unexpected defeat to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva who, needless to say, before returning to the presidency had done his share of jail time. Here in Argentina, a long list of previous presidents – the latest being Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, who is currently cooped up in her flat in Buenos Aires – have been treated in a similar fashion. Given the charges that are being levelled against him, Javier Milei could one day add to their number.

Much the same can be said about the prospects confronting US President Donald Trump. His Democrat foes are gleefully preparing to make the most of the likely results of the midterm elections by pressing for his impeachment should, as the polls suggest will probably happen, the Republicans lose their majorities in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. In Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who faces a host of legal challenges, also has good reasons to fear for his personal future. In France, former president Nicolas Sarkozy was put inside for a few weeks several years ago before being granted house arrest.

Though it can be argued that these politicians should consider themselves lucky – because, in other parts of the world, people in their position would be put to death, often in a gruesome manner, by their enemies – the mere fact that so many end up on the wrong side of the law tells us a lot about the malaise afflicting Western societies. Almost everywhere, politicians are held in contempt by the public which tends to see them as a bunch of crooks, so whenever problems arise, they are attributed to the corrupt nature of those accused of being responsible for causing them.

Trust not only in governments but also in legal systems – which day after day is cynically exploited by politicised activists, among them lawyers and judges, who are experts in “lawfare” – is in increasingly short supply. It is therefore not surprising that in so many places people are bypassing the standard political process by taking to the streets.

None of this bodes well for the future of democracy. Unless politicians are regarded as being by and large decent, well-meaning individuals who, at considerable sacrifice to themselves, are performing an essential function on behalf of the rest of the community, many will come to the conclusion that they have no choice but to defend their own vital interests by whatever means come to hand. This is what is happening today throughout Europe, as it did in the United States a few years ago when the enormously destructive Black Lives Matter rebellion suddenly exploded. 

Needless to say, attempts to appease those who go on a rampage by offering them money or special privileges are usually counterproductive; as well as driving up government spending and, with it, the public debt, they can be guaranteed to provoke a backlash. In the US, this came in the shape of a hardline Trump administration that set about dismantling the “woke” arrangements set up by its predecessor; in France, it could pave the way for an even tougher government headed by Marine Le Pen or, if for allegedly legal reasons she is barred from standing for office, by her youthful protégé Jordan Bardella.

The widespread assumption that most politicians are in it for the money and that the Judiciary is equally venal, if not more so, has undermined faith in democracy to such an extent that it will be hard put to survive in the English-speaking countries that pioneered its modern version, let along in other parts of the world. Though the much-cited Churchillian verdict that, despite its manifold shortcomings, democracy is still better than any other form of government that has been tried, remains persuasive, impatient men and women who want solutions now are more than willing to run the risks that upsetting the prevailing order would bring.

They are not the only people who are subverting it. Governments, like those of the United Kingdom, that are reluctant to take into account the anger caused by their refusal to slow the transformation by mass immigration of the societies they rule are just as guilty, as are the “faceless bureaucrats” of the European Union who for decades have been waging a culture war against the nation state to which, for supposedly deplorable reasons, most people still cling.

And then there are the specialists in lawfare who for political purposes employ their skills in making life impossible, by endlessly harassing, and even contriving to jail, individuals whose opinions do not meet with their approval and overlooking the crimes committed by anyone they think is on their side. It is thanks to them that accusations of corrupt behaviour, no matter how well-founded, tend to be treated with more than a grain of salt.

In Brazil, Lula’s supporters automatically downplayed the criminal charges against him, blaming them on “politics,” while those who favoured Bolsonaro did exactly the same. Much the same happens in the US, where Joe Biden’s dodgy record, and that of his son who based a fairly lucrative career on his closeness to “the big guy,” was overlooked for years by much of the electorate, as was that of Trump. Meanwhile, here in Argentina, Cristina’s appropriation of billions of dollars of public money does not seem to have made much of a dent in her approval ratings though, on the positive side, it would appear that the Milei siblings’ far less serious cryptocurrency dealings have had a harmful effect on theirs.

Democracy cannot flourish unless politicians, civil servants and members of the Judiciary are held in high regard. In some countries at least, this was once the case, but in most it no longer is. With the possible exception of a handful of holdouts in Scandinavia and the rather authoritarian city state of Singapore, sleaze on an alarming scale seems to be everywhere. Though in some places this impression may be due more to political propaganda than to the actual misconduct of public officials, the belief that almost all of them are on the take seems certain to trigger some very ugly upheavals in the not too distant future.