Analysis: Far from perfect, democracy emerged from the weakened pandemic

For nearly half a decade, you could be forgiven for thinking that just about everything about Western democracy felt a little broken. People screaming in 140 characters on social media. The clumsy coronavirus lockdowns and their respective conspiracy theories. The tolerance of absolute and constant falsehoods. The questioning of the electoral process.

Some have come to behave as if it were more relaxed on the other side of the fence, in autocracies where things are just ordered and criticism is swallowed whole.

However, as we pass the third anniversary of the emergence of Covid-19, the fallacy that autocracies are a superior social contract is crumbling. At the end of 2022, the world is a place where consent matters and free speech can really save your skin.

The Trump era created a safe space for autocracies to flex on the global stage, while the US tried to put itself first, and its commander-in-chief was happy to receive “lovely” letters from North Korea or get too close to the Kremlin. But it took the pandemic to expose the utter mess a man in charge can create.

The most glaring and unimaginable example is Russia. President Vladimir Putin has blasted his way through the pandemic with quick lockdowns, a poorly performing vaccine and a general disregard for how useful accurate data can be in defeating a complex enemy like Nature. But it was his personal choices that led to a disconnect that proved fatal for tens of thousands of innocent Ukrainians and perhaps even more Russian soldiers.

Persistent Western intelligence warnings in January that an invasion of Ukraine was imminent seemed far-fetched to many analysts, including me.

These analysts ignored the enormity of the task and assumed that the Kremlin remained a rational actor. These calming warnings were quickly dismissed when — in the days leading up to the war — Putin summoned his security henchmen and dressed them, from a safe distance of more than 20 feet, and then delivered a 57-minute televised speech showing that he had passed the pandemic by reading all the wrong parts of the internet.

His spoken word even reminded Russians how stingy Bill Clinton had been 20 years ago in rejecting Putin’s stated desire to join NATO. Putin’s isolation has not only exacerbated his historical grievances. Now there were fewer subordinates in contact with him and fewer opinions voiced to counter the preposterous assumption that the invasion of Russia would be welcomed by the Ukrainians and would last about three days.

A RUSI report recently noted that seized Russian orders showed the units should be “cleaning up” within 10 days, and that no actual “red team” assessment of the plan – challenging their assumptions – has taken place.

And so began Europe’s biggest land war in 75 years, and with it a likely military defeat for Russia that may rewrite established norms of European security and see Moscow’s place as a global superpower evaporate. Putin’s insecurities about NATO and the practical task of connecting the occupied Crimean Peninsula to the Russian mainland fueled his catastrophic decision. But the Kremlin chief’s isolation – along with his echo chamber of paranoid nonsense – cemented that.

But even now, in this final stage of Russian military demise, when its quickest form of resupply is forced conscripts to the front lines, Moscow must be aware of consent. The “partial mobilization” announced in September has sent 77,000 Russian men to Ukraine, Putin recently said. But it also triggered a wave of protests perhaps not seen in Russia since the 1990s.

Tightening the screws of dissent is a sign that opposition is growing, not shrinking. The nastier Russia becomes, the more aware the Kremlin becomes of its unpopularity. Invading Ukraine was the worst decision a Russian leader has made since the Soviets invaded Afghanistan. We know how that misadventure ended.

deadly repression

The pandemic has caused economic and emotional stress in all societies, making citizens less tolerant of bad managers and outdated dogmas. Even the UK quickly expelled two prime ministers over conduct and incompetence issues shortly after its ruling Conservative Party won a landslide victory in the last election.

The economic fallout from the pandemic is also the backdrop for another dazzling failure of the autocracy in Iran. But the focal point of recent protests has been the brutal treatment of teenagers for protesting mandatory headscarves. Killing a young woman for not wanting to dress more conservatively than perhaps her grandmother (Iran was – even in the 1970s – secular) is grotesque in any society.

But it has ignited the touch role in communities ravaged by years of sanctions, the pandemic and persistent inflation of perhaps as high as 50%. Allow wages and savings to decline so much annually, and any elected government can expect to be deposed quickly. In Iran’s cities, the violence around this dogma has not distracted from the economic rage, but amplified it.

Well over half of Iran’s population was born in the 1990s, when the Islamic Revolution was a decade old. A system born in the landline era is telling young people born in the world of fax machines how to behave in the age of quantum computing.

The pandemic has hit Iran hard and I witnessed in 2020 how Tehran’s hospitals were under-resourced. When your father is dying and you can’t get him a ventilator, you don’t have time for a long speech blaming the US sanctions imposed because of Iran’s confrontation with US hegemony in the region. An emergency like Covid could undermine what’s left of the contract between conservatives and citizens in power: if you can’t protect us from disease in our time of need, then what’s the point of corruption, repression and rules on women’s dress? ?

The recent public confusion over whether the country’s morality police would be disbanded – a statement made by the attorney general that was later criticized – is perhaps a sign of government reform, but also an indication of how state power is not a organized giant in Iran. There’s debate too, and here it’s clear, with hundreds of corpses already underfoot, deemed to have bowed to the popular will.

This severe and deadly repression does not herald the end of the Iranian regime at this time. But maybe it’s a moment of irreversible acceptance that people can’t just be Ctrl-Alt-Deleted when they don’t fit the state’s program. It is a recognition that even the most resourceful, controlling and efficient repressive regime – China – has had to deal with.

Failing to make big decisions

The pandemic has pushed Beijing to resort to mass control to a whole new level. His solution to the disease plaguing the planet would be the toughest of all – limiting movement. The authorities’ favorite tool – used to its limits – was one that almost every other society realized would not work indefinitely.

Until recently, Chinese citizens were still being soldered into their quarantined homes and even burned to death in a tragic case where perhaps they could have been rescued from a house fire. It is perhaps the most scathing indictment of China’s one-person rule this century.

The world is on a steep learning curve, where social distancing, economic subsidies, vaccines, agonizing deaths and limited global travel have led most societies to accept persistent Covid-like coughing as part of what happens in winter. However, China’s initial decision – to smother the disease – has barely evolved. Its vaccine program failed, but its original mass surveillance tool did not.

What is most notable is not the protests erupting under such authoritarian rule, but the fact that President Xi Jinping did not assume they would.

Beijing appeared to have been taken by surprise, but it also believed it could quell its exit from the unrest. The recent removal of significant parts of the quarantine and testing systems does not solve China’s Covid problems.

It was simply the only choice of their authorities. And it’s badly timed. China is not adequately vaccinated to deal with a massive increase in cases, particularly its elderly population, many experts argue. Even if 1% get sick, that’s 14 million people in need of medical care – roughly the population of Zimbabwe.

Huge challenges require highly skilled decision makers. Xi has unrivaled power, evidenced when he sat back as his predecessor Hu Jintao was inexplicably ushered through the highly choreographed final moments of the recent National Congress.

But it’s pretty clear that Xi got the big decisions around Covid wrong. And that the country where SARS-Cov-2 emerged is suffering the longest impact of the virus because of bad decisions by its leaders.

Health workers carry barricades inside a residential community that reopened after a Covid-19 lockdown in Beijing on December 9, 2022.
It is a problem for Xi.

The unique selling point of autocratic power is that it is absolute: that you can get things done without the delay of debate and compromise that democratic systems support.

The goal is to be strong, implement decisions quickly, and consider disagreement the cost of good and difficult decisions; doesn’t sound strong, implement it fast and then change your mind publicly after months of chasing a bad idea.

For Xi, it is also dangerous for the population to learn that they can only truly communicate with their government through disobedience and protest.

It is important to feel uncomfortable extolling the virtues of modern democracy. It really doesn’t work. It’s slow and encourages ego and half measures. He keeps changing his mind and wasting endless resources as he stumbles around looking for the solution.

But it does offer room for disagreement and, more importantly, other competing ideas. And, whether you’re forcing taxi drivers to fight a war of choice they’re losing, or shooting teenagers for taking off their headscarves, or imprisoning people in their apartments to suppress a virus that the rest of the world is living with calmly, alternative ideas are important.