June 2025: Our Il-liberal Democracy

This is the first in a series I will write at the end of each month about how the United States republic is changing. I wrote it before US Senator Thom Tillis announced he would not seek re-election.

Few of us want to admit it, but the United States today has many of the characteristics of an illiberal democracy (a term I will define below). Americans living today do not know of an era when our constitutional norms and standards have been challenged and, at times, disregarded as they are today.

I believe that the United States has now become an illiberal democracy.

Some Americans - perhaps more than I care to admit - have embraced this new path, having become exhausted by over-regulation, government bloating, or a bureaucracy that makes little sense to ordinary people.

At the same time, few Americans endorse political violence, which resulted in the assassination of two state lawmakers in Minnesota two weeks ago. Sadly, even an event such as this has become a partisan exercise in blame-shifting.

The Inspectors General Example of Illiberalism

Early in the Trump administration, the presidentchose to abruptly fire 19 Inspectors General of federal agencies. None of them were given notice of their firing and Congress was not notified, even though the IG statute enacted by Congress states that the Executive must give Congress 30 days notice of such a firing (it IS the right of the President to fire IGs).

I was speaking with an honest and fair-minded friend who has been active in conservative politics for many years and I asked him what he thought of the firings. His only answer: “Good.”

If you read the details of the Inspector General statute enacted by Congress you will notice two themes:

1. There is need for oversight so that corruption in agencies is curbed (after all, humans are all fallen creatures - Democrats and Republicans!);

2. The statute is so incredibly detailed and bureaucratic that it makes your head spin!

So in one way I understand my friend’s answer of: “Good.” I don’t think it represents a worldview of “let’s burn it all down” as much as it points to the long-term dysfunction of the federal government. The IG statute has merit, but it is in need of serious reform.

And then we elected a president who is reckless, callous, and punitive and the 19 IGs were an easy target. With the stroke of a pen we went from OVER-regulation to NO regulation. I am fairly sure this will not end well.

What is Classic Liberalism, anyway?

Classic liberal democracies are built on a number of pillars. These represent a social contract agreed upon by the citizens of a country. These pillars create the foundation for the constitutional republic that is the United States. The framers of the Constitution - particularly James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and Thomas Jefferson - differed significantly on a wide range of political issues. Nonetheless they agreed on these pillars.

1. Civil liberties - That all people are endowed by their creator with inherent rights: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (to quote Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence). These rights are articulated in the first amendment of the Constitution to include the freedom OF religion and the freedom FROM religion, the freedom of speech, and the freedom to peacefully assemble. These civil liberties, or protections, are to be for ALL people regardless of ethnicity, skin color, culture, socioeconomic status, and religion. Foundational to the United States has been our on-going struggle to believe and to live out that every human being has equal worth and value because he or she is made in God’s image.

   A footnote: The founders of the country got it dead wrong when they deemed African slaves as property and counted them as 3/5 of a person for determining populations of states. Today the United States is struggling again, with the humanity of immigrants - both legal and illegal - as people created in the image of God.

2. The media. In liberal democracies the media has freedom to “check” the government in regards to facts, truth, and how these are presented to the people. This freedom of the press was a new addition to classical liberalism introduced by the United States. It was so important to the writers of the Constitution that they included it in the First Amendment right next to the individual freedom of speech, religion, and assembly.

3. Economic self-determination. That is to say, people are free to create wealth and to sustain themselves. Thinkers such as John Locke, Thomas Paine, and Edmund Burke - early advocates of what would become conservatism in America - argued that if people are free to create wealth with limited government intervention then all people in society would benefit.

4. Limited government. Classical liberalism grew as a reaction to both feudalism of the Middle Ages and monarchy and empire wherein people’s lives were controlled by government. For all of United States history Americans have struggled to agree on how limited the government should be, and in what areas of life it should be limited.

5. A common national defense. Liberalism has stood for safety and security for all people of a nation-state, including those who are minorities. The US Constitution focused on national defense against adversaries both foreign and domestic (a phrase we have head used to accuse the other political side over and over again).

6. Government by the many rather than the few or the one. The framers of the US Constitution had a deep distrust of the few or the one ruling over the many. James Madison especially insisted on the so-called “checks and balances” enshrined in the three branches of government. The US was born out of rebellion against a king who could not and did not represent the average person in the American colonies, i.e. “taxation without representation.”

What makes a democracy illiberal?

The term illiberal democracy was popularized (if that is the right word) in Hungary by Prime Minister Viktor Orban, especially since 2014 when the Hungarian Parliament became fully aligned with Orban and he took control of the courts more fully.

Illiberal democracies today include Hungary, Turkey, India, and Singapore among others. They retain the form and some structure of liberal democracies (e.g. forms of capitalism as an economic model and regular elections, although many of these countries coerce and manipulate voters).

What does an illiberal democracy look like?

1. A Disenchanted Population - Every country that turns illiberal does so because a significant minority or a majority of the population believes it has been ripped off by their government, or by outside influences such as immigrants or other countries. The most obvious example of this is Germany in 1932 when a fair election elected Adolph Hitler as chancellor. History tells us that the victors of World War 1 - namely France and Britain - punished Germany in extreme ways and further isolated the Germans as well as others such as Turkey. The result was a population that would follow most anyone if it meant alleviating the burden of the war reparations.

2. Control of the Media - Controlling the narrative is the name of the game in illiberal societies. Those journalists and media outlets who oppose the government (and especially the leader) are marginalized, excluded, and in more extreme cases detained or arrested. In Chile in the 1970s and 1980s, many journalists were imprisoned and some killed under the rule of General Augusto Pinochet.

   We usually think of “state media” in the context of a totalitarian government, such as the former Soviet Union. In illiberal democracies it is not labeled “state media” because that is far too blatant and would remind people of places such as Cuba, Iran, and North Korea. Nonetheless, illiberal governments depend on feeding information, misinformation, and disinformation to those media who support the regime so that everyone knows who is the enemy. In the United States, the “enemy within” is Democrats, left wing lunatics, RINOs, and any number of others who oppose the leader.

   Here is an example. Recently President Trump chose to attack FoxNews and the Wall Street Journal when The President said:

   “Rupert Murdoch has told me for years that he is going to get rid of his FoxNews, Trump Hating, Fake Pollster, but he has never done so. This ‘pollster’ has gotten me, and MAGA, wrong for years. Also, and while he’s at it, he should start making changes at the China Loving Wall Street Journal. It sucks!!” - President Donald J. Trump, Truth Social, 24 April 2025

   The message is clear in illiberal democracies: If you report negatively on the leader and his regime you will be punished. This is happening almost on a daily basis in the United States, whether that be the Associated Press being banned from some White House briefings or the President’s regular discrediting of media sources that report negatively on him.

3. Control of Law Enforcement and the Military

   The United States has been exceptional in its understanding of law enforcement and the military, for two reasons. The first is that the President is the Commander in Chief of the military while the military has been largely non-partisan and unbiased for 250 years. Second, law enforcement has been decentralized from the federal level to the state and local level. In other words, the President does not have the power to control all of law enforcement in the United States. This is now being challenged.

   Today, masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents are apprehending alleged criminals and removing them from the country often without due process. These ICE agents do not always taken into account whether the person is a citizen, a legal non-citizen, or an illegal immigrant.

   Illiberal democracies rise and fall with a military that is aligned with and devoted to the leader of the country. Thus, when President Trump chose to fire the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff along with the head of Naval Operations and the three Judge Advocates of three branches of the military, he was indicating his focus to consolidate his control over the US military.

   In addition, leaders of illiberal democracies always undermine the reputation of and legitimacy of military heroes, because they represent a perceived threat to the current regime. Thus, US Generals Mark Milley, John Kelly, James Mattis, HR McMaster, Senator John McCain and other senior military officers have been ridiculed, threatened, and removed by the current President of the United States.

4. Control of the Judiciary

   Article 3 of the US Constitution concerns the judiciary. It is by far the shortest of the first three articles (Article 1 is the most extensive and addresses the Congress, Article 2 is about the executive branch). The framers of the Constitution were concerned that the judiciary have a level of independence to interpret laws passed by Congress and that it be free of political pressure.

   Often times the last vestige of democracy is found in the courts, if in fact that democracy has afforded judges some independence and freedom from politics.

   One of the most notable changes in the United States is regular accusations that judges are political and not independent of various pressures from society. The idea that a US President would label a federal district judge as a “leftist lunatic” would have been unheard of 20 years ago. Until recently there was a certain deference afforded judges as arbiters between factions vying for power. Now this has been questioned and undermined.

   The challenge for the judiciary in the United States is that the Constitution does not provide mechanisms to check the Congress or the Executive. The courts do not control law enforcement, they do not have an army. Consequently, if a federal appeals court issues a ruling it can be appealed to the US Supreme Court. If the Supreme Court does not agree to hear the case then the ruling of the Appeals Court stands. This means that the Congress and Executive must adhere to the ruling.

   Unless they refuse to do so. And then what? The United States has not been down this path before.

5. The Power of the Few, or the One

   Teddy Roosevelt served as President from 1901-1909. He ushered in a century of increasing power by the chief executive. Franklin Roosevelt expanded it further during the Great Depression and World War II under emergency powers afforded the President during a-typical times.

   And yet - The most enduring legacy from the War of Independence in the 18th century is the dissolution of the relationship between monarchy and colony. The American revolution was fundamentally against a king (Edward III) or an emperor (Napoleon) or a Czar (Nicholas).

   But everyone wants a “savior,” don’t we? We desire a king, an “emperor” who will make us strong and safe. And many of us are willing to violate our own values and abandon our political ideology to give allegiance to a leader. Some of us did it with Barak Obama, many more are doing so today with Donald Trump. (I will leave it to another post about Jesus as THE “King.”)

Staying Engaged vs. “I don’t want to hear this”

A final Word: If the American constitutional republic will endure it will be because its citizens are committed to staying engaged, to listening and learning from other views besides the media bubble each of us tends to live in, and the humility and determination of people to give a little, to compromise.

And in the end, overcoming illiberal democracy is as much about citizens acting and living in constructive ways in our local communities. We resist ILliberal by embracing the values of LIBERAL democracy, and doing this day in and day out in our lives.

We have “A republic, if we can keep it.” - Benjamin Franklin