How to resuscitate a democracy ?

Diagnosis, lessons from Ancient Greece & questions to ask before deciding on treatment for America

I’ve been thinking about dying democracies a lot, as I’m sure you all have too. For years, the hidden enemies of the American people, like Yarvin, have dreamt of the scenes we have been hostage to. As the Technocrats seek to realise their dream to trash democracy, ordinary people have been living a waking nightmare. Even those like me who are looking at what is going on in the US from London.

Let me go back in time, if I may. Democracies have fascinated me ever since I was a child. I once wrote a pop song called ‘Mrs Thatcher has lost.’ She didn’t end up losing the election, but I lived in a country where I could imagine she might lose, without being afraid that any harm would come to me or my family. I wonder whether the US can take such a freedom for granted for very much longer.

Ancient Greece

I learned that the first democracy came about in Greece, where my father is from. He was taught English by an American and his father was born in the US. His family had moved to Wisconsin in search of a better life.

The Greeks have always been proud of their democracy, this rule (‘kratos’) by the people (‘demos’). Note how the word does not mean ‘rule by one’ or ‘rule by one elite group of people.’ So when you get remotely close to that, you really need to keep asking yourselves whether you still have a democracy at all.

In my early 20s, I went on to study Athenian democracy as part of my degree. I wrote a thesis on Cleon, one of their ancient politicians. He was a demagogue, a rabble rouser, a hawk and a word twister. The kind of man Boris Johnson aspired to be like to when he was swatting up on Thucydides for his ancient history tutorials as a student at Balliol (much to the later dismay of Balliol, a notoriously left wing Oxford college).

I don’t like modern demagogues now, and I didn’t like them then either, but I was happy that Cleon was at least being parodied in the theatre. Aristophanes was doing it two and a half thousand years ago. This freedom of speech was an essential component in the democracy. Playwrights could criticise politicians with impunity. Perhaps that is the purpose of satire: it might not change a thing politically, but at least you can use it as a litmus test.

Photo by Nik on Unsplash

Democracy and Art

I was fascinated by the interrelationship between art and politics, and why it was that the earliest democracy had also given birth to theatre, philosophy and incredible works of art. There had to be something exceptional about this system, I thought. What was it that caused this intellectual and artistic boom two and a half thousand years ago? There had to be a special connection between art and democracy.

This is one of the many reasons why I believe democracy is so worth fighting for, and why I was a political campaigner in the UK’s general election last year. Without democracy, diverse ideas and brilliant art do not have the oxygen they need to flourish.

Democracy is Fragile

The more I learn about democracy, the more I see it is a beautiful, but fragile flower, which can easily die, and often does die eventually. In Ancient Greece, the Athenian democracy finally fell in 322 BCE after being defeated by Macedon and being replaced by an oligarchy.

Flowers can of course spring back to life again, but it can take a very long time. It was not until 1974 that a democratic system, under the new Greek state, was re-established in Greece, more than two thousand years later. As my husband joked, there are plenty of Netflix box sets one could get through in that time.

On a serious note though, this is exactly why people need to be more politicised. Perhaps that is why everyone in Greece is still so switched on when it comes to politics. And I mean everyone - every shop keeper, every restaurant owner, even the guy running the local periptero (the corner newsagent box).

No-one thinks of politics as a taboo subject in Greece. In fact, they’d think it odd if you didn’t want to talk about it. Why? Because the Greeks know how long it takes to get a democracy back when you have lost it. They don’t take their democracy for granted. They know what the time scales can be. And they know that losing its democracy in the past certainly didn’t do Athens or the rest of Greece any favours.

Facing the truth without anger ?

But let’s look for hope where we can find it. The news is full of doom and destruction, and many people can’t bear to look at it any more. I understand that. But this is a time when we need to brave, for the sake of the generations after us. We must not bury our heads in the sand. We need to face the truth, painful as it may be.

We need to look at the symptoms as if we were doctors examining a patient. I have been studying the ancient doctor and philosopher Galen recently for my new book. He worked for the emperor and stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius.

Donald Robertson, the CBT therapist and writer, in his discussion on anger for Classical Wisdom, emphasised Marcus Aurelius’ tips on anger management, in contrast to the demagogues like Trump who manipulate people through anger.

Demagogues now can target people on social media more easily than they could in ancient times, when one had to rely on people to walk from their house to the marketplace (agora). A politician now can brain-wash you from your phone whilst you sit on the toilet or lie in bed.

How do they manage this? Anger can alleviate suffering just like a bottle of whisky might. It can be a voluntary retreat away from anxiety or fear and can make an angry person erroneously feel more in control. This, to me, explains much of what we see going on between Trump and the MAGA supporters. They are the addicts and he is their dealer. But he is not the top dog. The real puppet masters are located elsewhere, not just in Russia, but also in the shadowy clouds where the US technocrats reside.

It might help us to understand the American patient better if we can observe the patients of the past, those democracies which became sick once before. Sometimes they got better again (eventually). I want to understand whether this patient can be saved, or be resuscitated.

The Symptoms of disease in America

Most readers realise the democracy is in danger, but I wanted to break some of this down again to show why, and to itemise some symptoms one by one. I also wanted to shine a spotlight on what some British journalists and academics are saying about the American patient too. (In short, for those of you who are Americans, it is hurting us all to see you suffering).

Here is a list of my top 15 points giving many of us who care about the American democracy such cause for concern:

1. The Mafia style threats and manifest fear of congressmen and senators

Jonathan Freedland, writing (with a rather apt surname) for the Guardian, sees Trump’s actions as turning America into a mafia state. He reminds us of the threats used by ‘Donald Corleone’, as he calls him (if you know the film ‘The Godfather’ you will get the reference). In relation to Ukraine, Trump stated “if somebody doesn’t want to make a deal, I think that person won’t be around very long,” clearly referring to Zelenskyy. Not stopping there, as we know, he threatened to make Canada the 51st state. He also talked of annexing Greenland, adding “maybe things have to happen with respect to Denmark having to do with tariffs.” Freedland sees Trump’s halting of military aid to Ukraine as ‘effectively put(ting) a Russian revolver to Ukraine’s temple.’

Police in Washington have been informed that several federal judges have had pizzas delivered to their addresses. The subtext? We know where you live.

It is not just Democrat congressmen who are afraid. Freedland reports that even Republican congressmen are telling their Democrat colleagues that they are afraid to oppose Trump as they worry about the physical safety of their families.

2. Trump obsessively demanding Respect

This was highlighted in the encounter between Vance and Zelenskyy at the Oval office. No more needs to be said about that sickening horror show. Suffice to say that Vance may as well have told Zelenskyy he had to go over to Trump to kiss his ring.

I wonder when the first Trump voter will feel like the wife in the film, Kay Corleone, watching in the doorway? Will any of them realise that they are in an abusive relationship and want to remove themselves from it like she did?

3. A Vassal State of Russia ?

Many of us have seen Trump as Putin’s puppet for years. I see a key difference here with the Godfather analogy, as I don’t think anyone was especially pulling Michael Corleone’s strings (apart from perhaps his father: Michael first gets into the mafia business because someone has just attempted to kill Vito and Michael wants to protect him).

Senator Jeff Merkley is one of the few senators with the balls to speak out clearly about the Russian connection. He has emphasised that there is nothing which Trump would do if he was a Russian asset, which he has not already done. His five points have gone viral now. He concluded ‘I can’t imagine if he was a Russian asset that he could be doing anything more favourable than these five points.’¹

4. Puppet masters internally sabotaging democracy

There are multiple puppet masters pulling Trump’s strings - not just Putin, but also technocrat billionaires like Yarvin who have been wanting to take democracy down for years. Everything happening plays into what they have likely been planning for years: more power in the hands of the very few and the filthy rich, and less in the hands of the people and the institutions they established, particularly the universities and government institutions which they see as setting the ideological agenda for too long, hence the desire to dismantle DEI.

Then there is Musk, whose control of the digital world no longer appears to even sate him. He reminds me of the rich man in the story of Aristippus which Galen once spoke of in a letter to a friend. A man who focusses so much on material possessions can go on and on and on coveting them forever, but will never be sated. They’ll always want more. So he’ll will remain poor forever, as he’ll never feel he has enough.

If Musk weren’t destroying America, perhaps we might even pity him. I’m not sure I’ve reached those levels of kindness quite yet, but some will. I think he is wrong to say empathy is a weakness in the West. Perhaps it is this very humanity, something his AI-riddled brain seems to abhor, which is actually our secret weapon in this fight.

We were warned by people like Yarvin about what they would do. We have the plans again now in black and white in Project 2025. We should all be studying this and preparing ourselves.

5. Dictatorship alignment of the US

Trump is not just aligning the US to Russia. Trump’s recent vote against the UN resolution has aligned him again with N Korea, Russia, China and Iran.

(Contrast that with his punishment of former democratic allies: he temporarily raised tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminium to 50%, only to then withdraw that again days later - though global tariffs of 25% on imports still remain)

6. Failing to observe the rule of law

Failing to obey the rule of law is a big topic. The storming of the Capitol was the biggest, but we now also have the pardoning of the 2021 criminals, the recent arrests and deportations of students for expressing political opinions about Gaza and the deportations of Venezuelan immigrants who do not hold a criminal record. And there is a lot more.

Will the Supreme Court, stuffed already with Trump’s cronies, now just do Trump’s bidding? Might it even allow him to amend the constitution to let him have a third term? (see no 15 below). Time will tell.

7. Monarchy in visual displays and language

The Whitehouse image of Trump wearing a crown was widely criticised. Pritzker reminded everyone that “we don’t have Kings in America and (he didn’t) intend to bend (his) knee to one.”

In the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, America prided itself on not having a monarchy and tearing itself away from the British monarchy. The very first thing immigrants used to see when they came to America was the Statue of Liberty. Vito Corleone in the ‘Godfather’ also saw it when, as a child, he entered the country on a ship from Sicily. The USA came to symbolise this freedom more than any other country, despite its ties with slavery and being part of the slave triangle system.

In the UK, parliament has been the real sovereign since the Act of Settlement in 1700. This removed royal power over the judiciary and defined a vote of both houses as the sole method of removing a judge.²

But despite our monarchy’s very limited political power, many Americans used to always focus on Britain being a monarchy. Many mocked us for having one, as they took a side in the Markle v Windsor feud, despite clearly being fascinated by it in a ghoulish kind of way.

Right now, the UK, with its constitutional monarchy, and much better relationship with Canada, which has also kept the King as its head of state, is looking far more free and democratic than the US. We got to have our cake and eat it. We got democracy and the old regal trappings which consolidated our diplomatic ties, soft power through the Commonwealth and tourism.

Keeping the monarchy in this narrow sense has been great for us, but only because the monarchy never involved itself in politics, and could not even do so. The last time a King tried to do this over here he got his head cut off. I doubt Charles I’s namesake will be trying that again.

8. Unelected people without experience in positions of influence

We all know about the unelected presence of people like Elon Musk and Pete Hegseth. We have all watched in horror at the coup by the DOGE, the grabbing of personal information, the sacking of federal employees and the shut down of half of the Department of Education. They’ll be coming for the universities next.

Hegseth, the former Foxs News personality picked as the Secretary of Defence once famously said women should not serve in combat roles, recommended that the military purge generals and faced allegations of sexual assault and alcoholism. Oh, and he does not have any qualifications for the job either.

9. Press Control

Whilst Musk has taken over X, Bezos prevents editors from speaking out in the Washington post. Neither has any interest in working with editorial boards. There isn’t even any claim to objectivity in new media like X. Instead billionaires blast their views onto our screens without any mediation in between.

Arguably under capitalism the press will often be corrupt. But now no-one is even pretending to be balanced.

I hope Substack goes some way to rectifying this. It’ll be interesting to see how many subscribers there are in another 3 months. What feels like one of the only safe corners to express an opinion must never, ever be taken over by billionaires!

10.Withdrawing Voting Rights

The SAVE Act may make it harder for legitimate voters to vote. For instance, it may ultimately remove the voting rights of women whose married names no longer matches their ID documentation.

11.Humiliation of subordinates

We only need to think of Trump’s recent address to Congress, when he laughed as he introduced Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and said he was in charge of taking back the Panama canal before adding “Good luck, Marco, now we know who to blame if anything goes wrong.” His lackies responded with nervous laughter, as Freedland observed, “briefly relieved that it wasn’t them.”

12. Controlling thought and speech

The war on DEI was clear from Trump’s recent rhetoric, acts like US Army officials removing lessons on women and black history from curriculums, and the list of words which will now be prohibited from use in the Trump administration. This list of 199 words does not just contain phrases like ‘climate science’, but also ones like ‘biased’, ‘underprivileged’ and ‘cultural heritage.’

It reminds me, not just of 1984, but also makes me think of the expulsion of intellectuals and philosophers at various other points in history, such as their expulsion from Rome by emperors like Domitian. Will there be mass book burnings? Will academics and thinkers be hounded out too? In the meantime, get the Thesaurus out and find different words that mean the same thing. Make new words up if you have to.

13. A weak opposition

The amount of activity we are seeing on this front, is nothing close to what is needed to oppose this constitutional crisis. In other countries, people don’t just watch events unfold, they flood the streets, they shut down business as usual and they all engage in boycotts.

We are still waiting for the new leader of the Democrats to be identified. There are pockets of excitement, like the April 1 election for a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, which the Democrats may win. But there is too much silence. So many more people need to be sending out targeted messages out about the billionaire capture of government, and emphasising to Trump counties how the president’s budget and potential cuts to Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security and public education will hurt them.

I am struck by the tiny number of people trying to run America. There are only 100 senators and 435 congressmen. That is considerably less than the total number of MPs in the UK. That does not help to mount a strong opposition, but it does not excuse inaction either. Other than a few plucky types like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, most Democrats appear to be completely lacking a backbone. I am not sure the Democrats could get more supine if they tried.

14.Corruption / criminal activity

We all know Trump is the first President who is also a convicted felon, that to many he is a criminal insurrectionist who committed treason by encouraging people to storm the Capitol and that less than two years ago, a judge stated that E Jean Carroll’s allegation that Trump raped her was ‘substantially true’ with no fewer than twenty five women making allegations of sexual assault and rape.

We can now add the potential for bribery and undue influence as he is still charging people millions of dollars to have meetings with him.

15.Dictator Perpetuo?

We see more and more evidence of the erosion of democracy every single day. These are just examples. People ask when they need to start setting up underground newspapers? Perhaps the point for creating ciphers has already passed.

I personally see the ultimate point of no return as when / if Trump amends the constitution in order to be able to sit for a third term, just like when Julius Caesar made himself ‘dictator perpetuo’ (dictator for life). It would be the last nail in the coffin - after he has already nailed down all the other ones in the American constitution.

Lessons from the Past ?

Before we become totally engulfed by misery, or turn to uncontrollable rage (which Stoics believed made us think angrily and unclearly too), let’s pause and reflect.

Let’s reflect on the past.

³

I will be interviewing Professor Cartledge soon. He is an expert on Ancient History and a specialist on the Athenian democracy. He writes about the subject in his recent book ‘Democracy a Life.’ We will be considering :

• different types of democracy & comparing Ancient Greece with present day USA

• what inspiration the founding fathers got from the Ancient Athenians

• when Athens stopped being a democracy

• whether he sees the US as a democracy any more

• how a democracy can be resuscitated if it is dying

• predictions for the future (we both have some ideas but we would need to be a Teiresias or a Cassandra to be sure, as he has pointed out to me already).

I will keep you posted about the timings and hope you will enjoy the recording when I publish it. Let me know if you have any questions in the meantime.

Hope

I am personally encouraged by every single report of another boycott and protest I see. It is good to hear that there has been a 3900% increase in calls to Congress. The senate phone system is also apparently getting 1600 per minute (it usually receives 40). Keep that up so there is a paper trail !

This is where I see the seeds of hope now:

1. Protests: these are important, but the numbers are not big enough. We need to see aerial images of thousands of people protesting, not just a few hundred.

   We are also seeing movements globally, which is great. Marches in Berlin and Switzerland and the crowd funding movement in the UK ‘Everyone hates Elon’ and more.

2. Economic boycotts: The answer lies in economic measures. Dictators don’t care about due process. They do care about their wallets. Individual Americans can boycott TESLA, Amazon and other big corporates. TESLA stock is tanking because of similar boycotts in Europe. This may mean Musk has to give up X (high five!) and may even affect SpaceX or make him bankrupt one day. Musk is clearly shitting himself given he recently got his mum to go on TV to ask people to stop being mean to him.

   Trump got elected again because a small minority thought he might fix the economy (there were other things they didn’t like about his predecessors too, but let’s face it, it turned on money). So anything which hits the aggressors of democracy or their supporters financially will help the cause. When MAGA supporters in Tennessee lose their jobs at Jack Daniels, will they still think Trump is great for the economy? What about by the time it gets to the mid-terms?

3. Sanctions abroad: Further economic measures will have to be taken in Europe, Canada and beyond. Money is the ultimate weapon in our arsenal against this entirely transactional politics of Trump’s. But that is also his Achilles’ heel. Europe and Canada are happily sticking tightly together, doing alternative trade deals (and growing stronger and more united as a result) and boycotting any large American brands (the Jack Daniels case, where alternative suppliers of whisky were preferred, being one recent example).

4. Remaining politicised: Americans must stay politicised. If you love your democracy, make it known. Identify who you are. Say so visibly and clearly now. Call out the list of crap above. The mid-terms are critical. The majorities are currently slim, which should also help you.

5. Nourishing links between US & Europe: Europeans need to nourish their links with Americans and vice versa. We need to keep the spirits up of Americans who want the democracy to survive. I am happy that so many readers on Substack are American. You need our support now much more than you ever did, and we need to keep the relationship going. We may have lost the special relationship with the American President, but we don’t want to lose the special relationship with American people who love democracy.

6. Bravery from individual politicians: It only takes a few brave men to fall on their swords for the sake of their country, given how small the majority is. Yes, their political career may be short-lived if they vote against a piece of legislation, but can they all continue to sleep at night if they do anything else?

7. Perseverance: In the meantime, keep boycotting, keep protesting, keep reading, keep writing, keep being brave, keep up the camaraderie with each other and keep thinking about the world you want to leave to your children and grandchildren.

In the future, do you want to tell them you did nothing, said nothing and just watched the horror show unfold? Or do you want to tell them that you did and said everything in your power to save the life of a democracy which must never be taken for granted now whilst it hangs on by a thread?

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed reading this, please like, re-stack, subscribe for free, buy me a book or consider upgrading to a paid subscription.

1. i)the propaganda spread from the Oval office suggesting that Ukraine started the war and Zelenskyy is a dictator

ii) giving away key things on the negotiating table ensuring the US would oppose Nato membership for Ukraine

iii) cutting off the arms shipment to Ukraine

iv) undermining the partnership with Europe (essential to security for the last 80 years and a major goal of Putin’s) and

v) disgracing Zelenskyy on the national stage via the shameful press conference to attack him.

2. Even as recently as section 38 of the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020, it is recognised that the Parliament of the UK is sovereign.

3. Picture of Pericles addressing citizens from an old 50 drachma bank note from 1955.