Why Democracy Is in Retreat – Advocates invert its meaning to claim any loss for their side is ‘undemocratic.’

[Excerpts of article published under the heading “Why Democracy Is in Retreat.” on The Wall Street Journal website on 19 May 2025]

Too many democracy advocates today argue that the ignorant and willful popular masses have failed the cause of democracy. This is a cop-out. It is the elites and the establishments of the democratic world who are failing.

[By Walter Russell Mead]

Too many [democracy advocates], especially in Europe, conflate democracy as process—free elections with a free press to determine who gets to run a particular country—with electoral outcomes. They define a democratic election as one in which the right people win.

Under the former definition, any reasonably free election is a victory for democracy, even if the winner is a bad person with bad ideas. But under the latter definition, elections that bring the wrong candidates to power are considered undemocratic. An electoral victory by a party that wants to crack down on illegal immigrants? A failure of democracy. Victory by a party that refuses to rework society around the preferences of people who feel they were born into bodies of the wrong sex? A gain for authoritarianism. Victory by a party that rejects green-energy mandates as too expensive and impractical? An attack on everything democracy is about.

Under the second definition, it becomes the duty of democracy advocates to suppress their domestic opponents. The police should investigate citizens who post “antidemocratic” tweets about trans people or migration. Governments can and should ban antidemocratic candidates or outlaw antidemocratic political parties for the crime of advocating “undemocratic” ideas. It doesn’t matter if these ideas are popular. The more popular an “antidemocratic” idea becomes, the more necessary it is to suppress its supporters.

Democracy is a tiger, not a pussycat

This approach is madness—an unmitigated and total disaster for the democratic cause. Democracy is a tiger, not a pussycat. It isn’t about enshrining the cultural and political preferences of the educated professional classes on the rest of society. Democracy is about self-government, not good government. It is if anything a tool by which the majority can check the pretensions and the delusions of a self-regarding elite.

Alexis de Tocqueville understood this much better than most contemporary self-described democracy advocates and defenders do. He saw democracy as a torrential force overturning traditional hierarchies and ways of life. It was powerful for both good and evil. It was irresistible in the long run, which is why he advised prudent and thoughtful people to make their peace with it.

What democracy needs most today is the one thing that its earnest and respectable advocates have so signally failed to provide: leadership. Democratic societies require leaders who understand the realities of their time and can inspire their fellow citizens to support the policies their countries need. When the vital center fails to produce strong leaders, demagogues rush in to fill the void.

Too many democracy advocates today argue that the ignorant and willful popular masses have failed the cause of democracy. This is a cop-out. It is the elites and the establishments of the democratic world who are failing. In times like these, with war clouds darkening abroad and economic and social changes roiling the waters at home, conformity, senility and mediocrity won’t do.