97. USA, that bastion of democracy

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I had my early formative years in the XX century, when the US was globally regarded as a bastion of democracy. It was a bit too commercial, Americans a bit naïve, but they could be relied on to stand up for democracy and protect the international rule of law. They had a big hand in developing some of the still somewhat ineffective but aspirational global institutions we enjoy today, such as the UN, the IMF or the WHO. But things have gone badly wrong for US democracy since the turn of the century, first with the War on Terror and the rogue Iraq invasion, led more by Halliburton’s economic interest than by a genuine concern about WMDs, and now with the election of Donald Trump, America’s irreparable loss of credibility due to abandoning long held and trusted international commitments and shocking scenes of police violence we are more used to associating with banana dictatorships and totalitarian regimes. Democracy needs a new champion, and the only candidate at present seems to be Europe

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Location: Hereford, UK

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