Making the World Safe for Autocracy
President Woodrow Wilson took America into World War I in order to, in his words, “Make the world safe for democracy.” That quest gave us Hitler, Stalin, the Holocaust (an event that could never have happened under the Hohenzollerns) and all the many other disasters that flowed from the Allied victory in 1918 and the Diktat of Versailes.
In contrast, my objective is to make the world safe for autocracy, monarchy to be specific. The universe, after all, is not a republic. From that perspective, President Joe Biden’s first foray into foreign policy offers hope.
An article in the February 20 Cleveland Plain Dealer, “Biden warns that the world faces an ‘inflection point’”, reported that President Biden told his first international audience, the annual Munich Security Conference, that:
We are in the midst of a fundamental debate about the future direction of our world. Between those who argue that--given all of the challenges we face, from the fourth industrial revolution to a global pandemic--autocracy is the best way forward and those who understand that democracy is essential to meeting those challenges. . .
We have to prove that our model isn’t a relic of history.
As a monarchist, my reply is that President Biden’s model, "democracy", is both a relic of history and a colossal fraud.
The first point is attested by the remarkable tone of Mr. Biden’s speech. He clearly sees “democracy” as now on the defensive, with autocracy rising. This is a monumental sea change in the rhetoric of American leaders from the odious Wilson onward. Indeed, it marks an astonishing break from the whole Whig interpretation of history, in which inevitable “progress” is marked by ever-greater “democracy” and its pox-ridden whore, “equality”. If there is one thing people are not, it is equal.
The “democracy” fraud is revealed by the fact that only one country in the world today is a democracy: Switzerland. Only in Switzerland do the people have and regularly use the power to overturn decisions by their government through referendums. Elsewhere, including in the United States, what the Establishment calls “democracy” is really oligarchy, with the Establishment the oligarchs. That is why the whole Establishment, Republican as much as Democrat, hates President Trump. He is not a member of the oligarchy, and the absolute worst thing that can happen, from the oligarchs perspective, is that someone outside their club takes the top office. The fanaticism of their hatred of Mr. Trump reveals the “democracy” fraud more clearly than can any of “democracy’s” critics.
Neither the oligarchs nor their tool Mr. Biden understands why people are turning to autocracy. Indeed, few outside monarchist circles understand it. Most people all around the world just want to live normal lives. Normal lives are not politicized. They are about family, friends, and neighbors; school, work, and profession; land, crops, and community. Survey after survey shows Americans are sick of the political divisions that are ripping our country apart. They want to get back to normal life.
But democracy will not let them. Even the fraudulent form practiced by every country other than Switzerland will not let them. Democracy opens the door to ideologies, and all ideologies want to politicize everything. The more heated democratic politics become, the more aspects of life get politicized. Cultural Marxism’s capture of American elites coupled with ordinary people’s rejection of that ideology have shattered organizations, friendships, and families. To offer just one grotesque but not unusual example, democracy in America has now politicized pillows. The founder of “My Pillow” is a Trump supporter. So someone on the Left has started up a new pillow company lest fellow lefties end up sleeping on a Right-wing pillow.
A good autocracy instead offers a normal life. Politics are seldom found beyond the court. The vast majority of people are left alone by politics. Now, if autocracy is combined with ideology, that can be a very different story. Then, everything is politics, as in democracies run wild. But traditional autocracies, which is to say monarchies but also happy dictatorships like Portugal under Salazar, are not ideological. The monarch’s authority comes from God. He doesn’t need or want ideology. Nor do his happy subjects, blessed in their ability to live normal lives.
Traditional monarchs, such as those in medieval Europe, are not absolute. Their subjects have rights, which monarchs are bound by oath to respect. Rights vary greatly from one culture and people to another, but all peoples have a concept of rights. If a monarch violates them, he endangers his legitimacy. He either backs down or is presented with a Magna Carta by his barons.
So Mr. Biden’s defensive crouch around “democracy” is wise. Finally, after giving the world a century and more of catastrophes, “democracy’s” time is running out. Real democracy will endure in Switzerland, but elsewhere “democracy” as a cover for oligarchy is heading for history’s wastebasket. Autocracy is the wave of the future. Our task is to make it the right kind of autocracy, the kind established by God Himself.