To counter the rise of tyranny, the West must overcome its belief that democracy cannot lead to wrongdoing and instability.

The book Regime Change, Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan fleshes out the bones of the way President Trump has captured and corrupted the process of US democracy. Its American focus does not consider how this destruction is enabled by the comforting belief across the Western world in the inevitable virtues of democracy and the protection this provides against adverse outcomes.

The West stands stunned and apparently powerless against this US descent into moral anarchy. The American public seems to accept it, albeit with levels of increasing protest. Valued friends and allies turn a blind eye or offer the mildest of criticism when countries are illegally attacked or leaders kidnapped in their pyjamas.

This is all eerily reminiscent of the toleration initially shown towards the Nazis and Hitler before the period of appeasement. Charles Lindbergh, sympathetically famous for the kidnapping of his child, is infamous for his leadership of American Nazi supporters. Now we see this resemblance more closely in the tolerance of the atrocities inflicted on Gaza and Lebanon. With barely a whimper of protest, Western political leaders watch on in morbid disbelief.

What stays their hand? What quells the outrage that ought to overwhelm these travesties of civilised behaviour? Can the root cause be found in the delusions that have become embedded the Western concept of democracy?

The West holds their versions of democracy as the........

© Pearls and Irritations