200 years ago, no one lived in a democracy

 

I have to admit, the last several years have been depressing to me. There has been a rise of authoritarian populism on the Right and Left in America, and with the pandemic, people seem to be drifting away from the liberal (i.e., classical liberal, not Progressive) values that are the foundation of our country (life, liberty, pursuit of happiness). Pile on top of that an increasingly aggressive communist authoritarian government on the move in China to make the world safer for their unique brand of oppression, and Russia poised to attack Ukraine… it all seems like the liberal experiment that was born in 1776 is coming to an end, and was perhaps pointless to begin with.

But! It’s useful to dial back the intellectual macroscope and see the world in centuries, not years when I start to feel like this. And this graphical article is just what the doctor ordered. 200 years ago, no one lived in a liberal democracy. Today, a fraction of people live in liberal democracies, but the difference between zero and some is actually infinite, not just a little. What we want, what the United States should stand for and re-commit to, is being a model, example, and supporter of the advance of liberal democracy across the world. We should be unapologetic about it because everyone, everywhere, in every time, deserves to be able to direct their own lives - to pursue their own happiness.

As Martin Luther King, Jr. reminded us, “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”