Applebaum is appalled by the ‘extreme left’ which does not wholeheartedly trust such well-known forces for good as the US Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Central Intelligence Agency. Every movement or actor critical of the status quo contributes to ‘polarisation’ and is an enemy of democracy; to not believe in American ideals is to be a ‘cynic’. In Applebaum’s idealised narrative of the US there are no illegal wars, poverty or corruption or flaws in its increasingly distorted capitalism. [...]
Applebaum’s only material explanation for the weakening of democracy is ‘social media’, where propaganda spreads and people are radicalised. True, such mechanisms are powerful and often underestimated. But the logic of Twitter and Facebook confirms Applebaum’s own way of seeing the world: the moral and emotional stories of our time are reinforced and these platforms become the perfect scapegoat to avoid thinking about other, underlying factors. [...]
Democracy is not just the right to vote. What matters in the long run is justice, and justice can only be achieved through changes in the material conditions of people’s lives. The real dividing line in politics cannot be between ‘evil’ and ‘good’, moral and immoral. What is needed to save democracy is to create new counterweights to today’s capitalism—which undermines it.
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