The Irony of Freedom Devouring Itself

The paradox of regimes planting seeds that bloom into instruments against themselves persists among political systems’ salient mysteries. Nowhere does this penchant for self-sabotage manifest more dramatically than in democracies leveraging the very freedoms undergirding self-rule to methodically dismantle its foundations.

The spectacle evokes less a sudden coup than a slow striptease eroding constraints by hands that once guarded them. Piece by piece, the ceremonial robes of governance slip toward decadent burlesque, exposing motivations long cloaked in principled rhetoric. The game plays out through legal means but toward autocratic ends, inverting the state against itself at the bidding of elected majorities.

To grasp this absurd demise, one must first understand that the majestic edifice being cannibalized is no impartial arbiter but an amalgam of competing factions tolerating shared occupancy on assurance their essential interests and values withstand assault. Partisan changes of power prove tolerable only within understood bounds beyond which relationships rupture. Actions formerly unthinkable gain outrageous viability when key constituencies conclude rivals betray reciprocity to impose alien priorities. Disagreement foments an existential threat.

From breakdown in goodwill, conditions for the strongman who vows salvation through tribal uniformity sprout. The success of his movement traces less to attacking democracy than manipulating its levers against itself. Legislative prerogatives get weaponized to consolidate power, courts stacked to ignore executive overreach, sheriffs deputized into deportation militia, and elections rigged through suppression and gerrymandering to prevent meaningful change. The people’s ostensible servants turned instruments against their masters, and democracy’s infrastructure detoured toward undemocratic destinations.

How does the free state plot its own demise? The authoritarian leverages detention camps or emergencies to suspend civil liberties. He politicizes prosecutorial functions to paralyze opponents with legal harassment and scaffolds media censorship behind counterfeit anti-monopoly rules designed to chill critical networks and deploy state advertising dollars as bribes. From warped anti-corruption measures, rise in intensified corruption and opaque crony dealing. He hounds cultural, educational and scientific centers resisting approved orthodoxy while offering oligarch allies immunity from accountability.

The strongman typically amasses initial power through majoritarian means. Transient popularity provides fickle currency, and maintaining fervour requires confrontation to sharpen binary moral contrasts against ever-shifting enemies. The script turns toward dictatorship, first justifying measures to stamp out critics who “abuse” freedoms and then cancelling future elections that risk rejection by an ungrateful populace. The people find themselves prisoners of the very state once solemnly entrusted to empower their voices.

This blueprint for induced self-immolation offers a map to modern autocrats navigating democratic terrain toward authoritarian rule. It illuminates contradictions seeded in freedom itself, enabling vociferous majorities to erase counterweights designed to referee clashing rights. The liberal inheritance proves too easily weaponized against pluralism upon claims to rectify rigged systems, restore moral clarity or actualize suppressed majorities against gatekeeping elites charged with blocking access to the levers their representatives increasingly monopolize.

In this sense, majoritarian populism reveals less alien import than the extension of democratic principles against constitutional constraints meant to maintain sustainable equilibrium. Even the most censorious dictators often maintain power through genuine mass support, not just military backing against cowed dissent. Their paranoid vitriol against perceived subversives and stringency on cultural orthodoxy indicate not detached tyranny but genuine resonance with significant constituencies demanding a militant defence of threatened values.

However debased, the demagogic regime expresses aspirations of populations who lift its power and provide the staunchest defenders. Its branded propaganda evinces strategy, not hallucination; calculated rhetoric honed to land precisely because it picks at visceral scabs and guts issues, preferring delicacy. However selectively edited, its narrative offers a mirror held to human needs. This symbiosis cautions against blaming dictatorships on individual demagogues alone when conditions signal masses awaiting permission for long-simmering vengeance against shadowy culprits suddenly called to reckoning by a spokesperson seemingly bold while they feel timid.

Only in the aftermath may embarrassed survivors curse themselves for political lapses blamed on leaders recently revered. The consoled flock transitions overnight into pleading bystanders who somehow stand aside, not cheering what transpires. Yet the tyrant rarely operates without acclaim and multiplying willing hands scarcely coerced. His rule endures through service true believers demand enacting suppressed wishes too long denied. Their fervour craves the vengeance his theatre facilitates.

The people themselves tear down legal barriers fueled by accumulated fury from frustrated dreams. This movement is driven more by emotion than careful planning, with grievances seeking targets rather than a coherent philosophy. In this whirlwind, the proud pillars of freedom crack and topple, crushing the rights and reasoning that hold pluralism intact against rising righteousness. The educated inheritors meant to steward democracy’s torch stand aghast as parents celebrate restrictive reforms that promise relief through moral clarity. Elites find themselves caught off guard with systems hijacked to strangle openness as victors turn tools of enlightenment into weapons against ambiguity. The resulting total state leaves crushed dissenters mourning the freedoms its supporters claim to have restored to a proper hierarchy.

Yet tragedy sets in when euphoria strains against reality’s frictions. As economic mobility and civil stability unravel, doctrinal lockstep demands accelerate, chasing the tyrant’s elusive versions of redemption centred on his fluid persona. The purges and violence once confined to enemies expand inexorably inward. Acolytes compete desperately to demonstrate amplified loyalty, hoping to dodge the fate of leaders routinely toppled to sate impatience from fickle crowds.

Here, the caustic fruits of induced polarization reveal that democracies built around sacrosanct rights remain only single elections from devolving into ritual theatre, transfiguring liberty into tyranny. For fundamentalists convinced only themselves can fulfill destiny’s call, they heed neither pleas nor warnings. Those who bless the ruler’s rise typically access privilege last and least among fickle mobs embracing damaged freedoms as just deserts for the apostate system they helped torch. The ashes taste less sweet than advertised.

Chapter 6: Democracy’s Self-Cannibalization: The Irony of Freedom Devouring Itself

Points to Remember 

• Democracy contains tools enabling the legal dismantling of constraints
• Rights become weaponized by majorities against pluralism
• Outcomes reflect symbiosis between despots and enabling masses

What you can do:

• Fortify democratic institutions
• Reject antidemocratic policies and rhetoric
• Remain vigilant against minor violations