The decline of ideology as a political force [China, Hong-Kong]

From an interview with Martin Gurri on the Hong-Kong protests:

One of the most remarkable developments of the 21st century has been the decline of ideology as a political force. During the time when Nazism and communism contested the world with liberal democracy, the choice of an ideology resembled a religious conversion – determinative not only of politics but of personal life. Today, democracy stands alone. The ruling class in China is composed of privileged billionaires, not revolutionaries or communists. The Chinese regime isn’t a “model” but a mafia. The same is true of Putin and Russia. Both have admirers but few imitators: there will never be a Chinese Model International. Democracy stands alone – but it stands for very little in the way of political or personal commitment. Without the Holocaust or the Gulag as points of comparison, the flaws in the democratic system appear to many of the public to be enormous, monstrous. Those who praise democracy, we now believe, are often self-interested hypocrites. When protesters in Hong Kong express their faith in our system, we feel, at best, uncertain. Other protesters – in Egypt and Ukraine, for example – have done the same, and their revolts led directly to authoritarianism or corruption.

Politics in the old democracies are at present consumed by the struggle between an angry public and frightened, demoralized elites. The public loves to smash at institutions it considers remote and undemocratic. The elites identify democracy with their enlightened control over the masses. Ideology hardly factors into the quarrel: politicians and movements arise in the left or right, but the mobilizing question is always whether you repudiate or embrace the system. Lately, the direction of events has favored the populists – that is, the chosen instruments of the public. Trump, Salvini, Bolsonaro, López Obrador are on the move, while paragons of the old regime, like Merkel and Macron, are on the defensive. The mandarins who rule the EU probably consider Trump’s America a more immediate threat to their authority than Xi’s China. The conflict is fought over the definition of every event and aspect of society: it leaves the contending forces exhausted. Caught in the chaotic early stages of the transformation out of the industrial age, democratic nations have no time or energy to spare for those, like the insurgents of Hong Kong, who wish to join their club.

 H/t Tyler Cowen.