The Korea Times
amn_close.png
amn_bl.png
National
  • Politics
  • Foreign Affairs
  • Multicultural Community
  • Defense
  • Environment & Animals
  • Law & Crime
  • Society
  • Health & Science
amn_bl.png
Business
  • Tech
  • Bio
  • Companies
  • World Expo 2030
amn_bl.png
Finance
  • Companies
  • Economy
  • Markets
  • Cryptocurrency
amn_bl.png
Opinion
  • Editorial
  • Columns
  • Thoughts of the Times
  • Cartoon
  • Today in History
  • Blogs
  • Tribune Service
  • Blondie & Garfield
  • Letter to the Editor
amn_bl.png
Lifestyle
  • Travel & Food
  • Trends
  • People & Events
  • Books
  • Around Town
  • Fortune Telling
amn_bl.png
Entertainment & Arts
  • K-pop
  • Films
  • Shows & Dramas
  • Music
  • Theater & Others
amn_bl.png
Sports
  • Hangzhou Asian Games
amn_bl.png
World
  • SCMP
  • Asia
amn_bl.png
Video
  • Korean Storytellers
  • POPKORN
  • Culture
  • People
  • News
amn_bl.png
Photos
  • Photo News
  • Darkroom
amn_NK.png amn_DR.png amn_LK.png amn_LE.png
  • bt_fb_on_2022.svgbt_fb_over_2022.svg
  • bt_twitter_on_2022.svgbt_twitter_over_2022.svg
  • bt_youtube_on_2022.svgbt_youtube_over_2022.svg
  • bt_instagram_on_2022.svgbt_instagram_over_2022.svg
The Korea Times
amn_close.png
amn_bl.png
National
  • Politics
  • Foreign Affairs
  • Multicultural Community
  • Defense
  • Environment & Animals
  • Law & Crime
  • Society
  • Health & Science
amn_bl.png
Business
  • Tech
  • Bio
  • Companies
  • World Expo 2030
amn_bl.png
Finance
  • Companies
  • Economy
  • Markets
  • Cryptocurrency
amn_bl.png
Opinion
  • Editorial
  • Columns
  • Thoughts of the Times
  • Cartoon
  • Today in History
  • Blogs
  • Tribune Service
  • Blondie & Garfield
  • Letter to the Editor
amn_bl.png
Lifestyle
  • Travel & Food
  • Trends
  • People & Events
  • Books
  • Around Town
  • Fortune Telling
amn_bl.png
Entertainment & Arts
  • K-pop
  • Films
  • Shows & Dramas
  • Music
  • Theater & Others
amn_bl.png
Sports
  • Hangzhou Asian Games
amn_bl.png
World
  • SCMP
  • Asia
amn_bl.png
Video
  • Korean Storytellers
  • POPKORN
  • Culture
  • People
  • News
amn_bl.png
Photos
  • Photo News
  • Darkroom
amn_NK.png amn_DR.png amn_LK.png amn_LE.png
  • bt_fb_on_2022.svgbt_fb_over_2022.svg
  • bt_twitter_on_2022.svgbt_twitter_over_2022.svg
  • bt_youtube_on_2022.svgbt_youtube_over_2022.svg
  • bt_instagram_on_2022.svgbt_instagram_over_2022.svg
  • Login
  • Register
  • Login
  • Register
  • The Korea Times
  • search
  • all menu
  • Login
  • Subscribe
  • Photos
  • Video
  • World
  • Sports
  • Opinion
  • Entertainment & Art
  • Lifestyle
  • Finance
  • Business
  • National
  • North Korea
  • 1

    N. Korea holds politburo meeting to discuss Kim-Putin summit: KCNA

  • 3

    Scientists find green way to turn CO2 into fuel with sunlight

  • 5

    BTS member Suga begins mandatory military service

  • 7

    Kim Jong-un's rejection of Russia's food assistance irritates North Korean defectors

  • 9

    Seoul invites ambassadors to introduce new halal foods in Korea

  • 11

    Yoon says arms deal between N. Korea, Russia would be 'direct provocation' against S. Korea

  • 13

    US striving to stop NK's potential weapons support to Russia 'wherever we can': Blinken

  • 15

    Honey-dipped cookie to represent 'K-desserts' at global food expo in Germany

  • 17

    Top court upholds life sentence for woman over drowning husband for insurance money

  • 19

    From friend to foe: NK athletes of 2018 joint Korean teams return as rivals to S. Korea

  • 2

    30 people purchased 8,000 homes: data

  • 4

    BTS defies K-pop's 'seven-year curse'

  • 6

    National Assembly passes motion to arrest DPK chief

  • 8

    Gender equality minister nominee in hot seat over remarks on abortion

  • 10

    Rights experts from 17 countries demand release of North Korean escapees in China

  • 12

    Aespa's VR concert to hit theaters Oct. 25

  • 14

    S. Korea condemns Russia, seeks to mend ties with China

  • 16

    COVID-19 deaths hit record high in Korea for 2022

  • 18

    KG Mobility seeks breakthrough in Europe

  • 20

    National Assembly passes arrest motion against opposition leader

Close scrollclosebutton

Close for 24 hours

Open
  • The Korea Times
  • search
  • all menu
  • Login
  • Subscribe
  • Photos
  • Video
  • World
  • Sports
  • Opinion
  • Entertainment & Art
  • Lifestyle
  • Finance
  • Business
  • National
  • North Korea
Opinion
  • Yun Byung-se
  • Kim Won-soo
  • Ahn Ho-young
  • Kim Sang-woo
  • Lee Kyung-hwa
  • Mitch Shin
  • Peter S. Kim
  • Daniel Shin
  • Jeon Su-mi
  • Jang Daul
  • Song Kyung-jin
  • Park Jung-won
  • Cho Hee-kyoung
  • Park Chong-hoon
  • Kim Sung-woo
  • Donald Kirk
  • John Burton
  • Robert D. Atkinson
  • Mark Peterson
  • Eugene Lee
  • Rushan Ziatdinov
  • Lee Jong-eun
  • Chyung Eun-ju and Joel Cho
  • Bernhard J. Seliger
  • Imran Khalid
  • Troy Stangarone
  • Jason Lim
  • Casey Lartigue, Jr.
  • Bernard Rowan
  • Steven L. Shields
  • Deauwand Myers
  • John J. Metzler
  • Andrew Hammond
  • Sandip Kumar Mishra
Sat, September 23, 2023 | 00:07
Deauwand Myers
Goodbye, democracy?
Posted : 2022-01-17 16:53
Updated : 2022-01-17 16:53
Print PreviewPrint Preview
Font Size UpFont Size Up
Font Size DownFont Size Down
  • facebook
  • twitter
  • kakaolink
  • whatsapp
  • reddit
  • mailto
  • link
By Deauwand Myers

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, during the formal impeachment of then U.S. President Donald Trump, rehashed a famous quote of our founding fathers: "On the final day of the Constitutional Convention in 1787, when our Constitution was adopted, Americans gathered on the steps of Independence Hall...They (really it was the politically astute socialite Elizabeth Willing Powel of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) asked Benjamin Franklin, 'What do we have, a republic or a monarchy?' Franklin replied, 'A republic, if you can keep it.' Our responsibility is to keep it."

Franklin's "A republic, if you can keep it," burns in the minds of many pundits, historians, and academics ever since the attempted ― albeit sloppily ― coup of Jan. 6, 2021. I marinated on this during the early days of this cold, new year of 2022.

America touts itself as the oldest democracy in world history. This is technically true, but with huge caveats. Really, only wealthy, white men could vote until, briefly, the American Reconstruction, and then much later, women's suffrage, and finally, people of color after 1965 and the Voting Rights Act.

A multiracial, multicultural, areligious democracy is not an easy feat to pull off. We must be honest about a thing. Democracy is an aberration. For the vast scope of human history, monarchies (autocracies by any other name) have been the way in which humanity has been governed.

The Jan. 6 anniversary exposes American flaws in ways no other cataclysm could. White supremacy, if reduced to its bones, says anything not European is foul and unworthy and un-American. Thus, black and brown and Asian people's votes are inherently illegitimate. The election of President Biden is therefore unfair.

But using political violence against "the other" is not new to American history. The genocidal land theft of the Indigenous, slavery, Jim Crow, anti-Semitism, anti-Catholicism, homophobia, Islamophobia and on and on are all the forms of political violence.

In acts of financial envy, American, wealthy black towns in the early 1900s were burned by poor white folks, and its citizens were massacred with the imprimatur of the state, if not its direct involvement therein.

I'm not one to fetishize ex-President Trump as the second coming of evil, covering the world in a "second darkness." White nationalists, ethnostate-fascists, white supremacists and neo-Nazis have had a bit of a Mariah Carey comeback since President George H.W. Bush, and not just in America, but across swaths of Europe and even in liberal bastions like New Zealand, of all places (where, in Christchurch, in the spring of 2019, a young, white man (invariably) killed 51 Muslims in their mosques, while wounding 40, with the monstrous audacity of doing so while filming it on Facebook Live).

White supremacy is surely a pillar of a rise in far-right politics throughout Europe and elsewhere (Brazil, for example), but perhaps it's something more than that. I go back to Sylvia Plath: "Every woman adores a fascist." If I could rephrase: "Everyone adores a fascist." It may be that just as humanity is pre-programmed to believe in omnipotent, supernatural gods, it may be that humanity is hardwired to enjoy the boot in the face; the chain; the almighty Leader.

China is a cautionary tale in this regard. In China's modern era, the Chinese Communist Party ruled as a democracy of the few. Councils debated policies and voted on them. The presidents, after Mao Zedong, were technocrats, and did not attempt to control the granular behavior of Chinese citizens, like showing conspicuous consumption via the wealthy, or androgynous Chinese pop stars or writing freely on social media. In fact, China's governing elite considered liberalizing society.

Then came President Xi Jinping, who consolidated power masterfully in a matter of years, crushed all opposition and has forced behavior he deems inappropriate to be repressed. How, and why, did the governing elite allow Xi to become an emperor with no resistance, and moreover, changed the very constitution to be president for life?

How did Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan do about the same thing as Xi? In Russia, President Putin's power grab is more understandable, but no less startling in the speed and bloody accuracy in which he has maintained his power.

The shame of Jan. 6 is how pathetic American governmental institutions are at the highest levels. Ex-President Park Geun-hye was easily impeached and jailed for her crimes ― this, when Korea has been a true democracy for less than 40 years. How has Korea been able to depose despotic presidents through democratic processes, while Trump, corrupt in so many ways I can't enumerate here, is not only free, but may run again for president in 2024?

President Biden, in his brilliant and fiery freedom speech, promises to fight for democracy. That's a tall order. Nice work, if you can get it.


Deauwand Myers (deauwand@hotmail.com) holds a master's degree in English literature and literary theory, and is an English professor outside of Seoul.


 
miguel
Top 10 Stories
1Scientists find green way to turn CO2 into fuel with sunlightScientists find green way to turn CO2 into fuel with sunlight
2Kim Jong-un's rejection of Russia's food assistance irritates North Korean defectors Kim Jong-un's rejection of Russia's food assistance irritates North Korean defectors
3Opposition party in turmoil as leader could be arrested on TuesdayOpposition party in turmoil as leader could be arrested on Tuesday
4Saudi Arabia celebrates 93rd National DaySaudi Arabia celebrates 93rd National Day
5Korea boosts subsidies to rev up falling EV sales Korea boosts subsidies to rev up falling EV sales
6Foreign employees rewarded for contribution to Korea's shipbuilding industry Foreign employees rewarded for contribution to Korea's shipbuilding industry
7Lawmakers want to grill business tycoons over decision to rejoin FKI Lawmakers want to grill business tycoons over decision to rejoin FKI
8'Songpyeon' for low-income families 'Songpyeon' for low-income families
9Gov't reviews changing description of Fukushima wastewater Gov't reviews changing description of Fukushima wastewater
10Big insurers up for sale, but financial conglomerates appear disinterestedBig insurers up for sale, but financial conglomerates appear disinterested
Top 5 Entertainment News
1BLACKPINK's contract renewal still in limbo BLACKPINK's contract renewal still in limbo
2[INTERVIEW] Virtual K-pop group MAVE: is more than just pretty pixels INTERVIEWVirtual K-pop group MAVE: is more than just pretty pixels
3Hebrew University students travel to Korea to explore musical landscape Hebrew University students travel to Korea to explore musical landscape
4[INTERVIEW] 'Cobweb' director questions meaning of cinema INTERVIEW'Cobweb' director questions meaning of cinema
5[INTERVIEW] Seoul's increased art market momentum brings Sotheby's back to Korea INTERVIEWSeoul's increased art market momentum brings Sotheby's back to Korea
DARKROOM
  • Turkey-Syria earthquake

    Turkey-Syria earthquake

  • Nepal plane crash

    Nepal plane crash

  • Brazil capital uprising

    Brazil capital uprising

  • Happy New Year 2023

    Happy New Year 2023

  • World Cup 2022 Final - Argentina vs France

    World Cup 2022 Final - Argentina vs France

CEO & Publisher : Oh Young-jin
Digital News Email : webmaster@koreatimes.co.kr
Tel : 02-724-2114
Online newspaper registration No : 서울,아52844
Date of registration : 2020.02.05
Masthead : The Korea Times
Copyright © koreatimes.co.kr. All rights reserved.
  • About Us
  • Introduction
  • History
  • Contact Us
  • Products & Services
  • Subscribe
  • E-paper
  • RSS Service
  • Content Sales
  • Site Map
  • Policy
  • Code of Ethics
  • Ombudsman
  • Privacy Statement
  • Terms of Service
  • Copyright Policy
  • Family Site
  • Hankook Ilbo
  • Dongwha Group