The Banality of Democratic Collapse--Paul Krugman

Important column by Krugman, persuasive to me. You know my thing about democracy and legitimacy: process-determinative, circular reasoning--according to democratic theory itself a freely-elected leader is ipso facto legitimate. He may be a bad leader but he's legitimate. You blame the voters in democracy. Marco Rubio: "The voters knew exactly what they were getting when they voted for Donald Trump."  Hitler was not Germany's problem; German voters were Germany's problem. I was really comfortable with that position, considered it a settled point in my mind. Paul Krugman brings me back in this excellent column.  Leaders do have something to say about legitimacy in a democracy--namely what they say. The Krugman Correction comes with serious risk: absolution of voters. That cannot be done in democracy without doing violence to democratic theory. .and absolve voters, they are the final arbiters voters but leaders who repeat lies, the same lies, over and over again, erode, pollute, undermine, whatever your verb, democratic legitimacy. "I was allowed to believe things that were not true," said Marjorie Taylor Greene, who is still saying untrue things. (The Krugman Correction comes with serious risk that voters, even elected leaders like Greene, are not held accountable. Overwhelmingly, in my view the voters are still at fault.) Such a bizarre statement to me when I first heard it. Who's making you, Cunt? But wait, Krugman makes the point powerfully that "allowed to believe" is a meaningful statement in a democracy, that conversely, by consensus,we are not allowed to believe certain things in a democracy. Lies; "fake news"; "alternative facts"; unscientific science. That is, democratic legitimacy does not obtain in a totally free "marketplace of ideas" where lies are are disseminated as widely as truths. Democratic legitimacy depends on truth and when political leaders tell mainly lies and tell them repeatedly the lies gain currency among voters because voters believe the leader. "What do you like about Donald Trump?" the senator from Cancun asked two Indiana voters in 2016. "Everything," one of them replied. "Whatever Trump says, I believe." It is a theory of authoritarian/totalitarian legitimacy. The two Indiana rubes did not know that the "Two Whatevers", whatever Mao Zedong did and whatever Mao said, was. for a year, the legitimation doctrine of the Communist Party of China after Mao died! Krugman is right, lying leaders have immense power over what voters are "allowed to believe."