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Dr John Coulter ✍ With elected Lagan Valley MLA Robbie Butler deciding not to contest the Ulster Unionist Party leadership against co-opted North Antrim MLA and ex-top cop Jon Burrows, questions are now being raised about the future direction of so-called moderate or liberal Unionism.

With the Burrows leadership coronation set for Saturday 31st January in a Belfast hotel, the strong perception is that the once supposedly middle of the road pro-Union UUP is set to shift to the right-wing and develop a much closer co-operation with both the DUP and TUV in time for the May 2027 Assembly and council elections.

Butler, a born again Christian, a former deacon in an Elim Pentecostal Church and a veteran of both the Prison Service and Fire Service, was somehow viewed as being from the liberal wing of the party conceived politically by the late David Trimble, one of the key UUP architects of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.

Currently the UUP’s deputy leader, Butler was seen as a continuation of a team of radical moderate leaders, such as outgoing leader Mike Nesbitt, Steve Aiken of South Antrim, and South Antrim MP Robin Swann.

Butler and Co had recognised the significance of the electoral threat posed to the UUP by the rise of the Alliance Party, especially under the latter’s leadership of Naomi Long, the former East Belfast MP, and particularly when Long took the UUP’s European seat in 2019 in the aftermath of the Brexit referendum - a seat the UUP had held since 1979.

The perception is that the Burrows camp wants to expose Alliance 2026 for what it really is ideologically - a soft r republican party and a key component politically of the pan nationalist front along with Sinn Fein and the SDLP.

That perception is that Alliance is no longer the soft u Unionist party it was under the leadership of Presbyterian minister’s son Lord John Alderdice. The Burrows camp is taking the view that many in the moderate pro-Union community voted for Alliance because they mistakenly saw Alliance as a genuine middle of the road, centrist, liberal movement.

The Burrows strategy would be to build closer ties with other Unionist parties to conceive the ideological alternative to the pan nationalist front - namely a pan unionist front.

This could inevitably lead to a realignment within the pro-Union community party-wise into two movements - a socially conservative, right-wing organisation comprising the right-wing of the UUP, the DUP and TUV, and a liberal Unionist movement comprising pro-Union folk who had once voted Alliance plus the liberals within the existing UUP.

The right-wing shift in the current UUP grassroots is further emphasised by the inevitability that Butler will be replaced as deputy leader by co-opted Fermanagh and South Tyrone MLA Diana Armstrong, the daughter of former UUP leader and Fermanagh and South Tyrone Westminster MP the late Harry West.

In terms of membership, the border regions of Fermanagh and South Tyrone, which suffered terribly during the Troubles, boasts a handsome UUP contingent.

Indeed, anyone wanting to win the UUP leadership via a contest would more than likely need the vast bulk of the Fermanagh and South Tyrone membership to be assured of victory.

Such was the late Harry West’s influence in the UUP that a pressure group, known as the West Ulster Unionist Council, held as much political clout within the party as the right-wing pressure group, the Ulster Monday Club.

The so-called Burrows/Armstrong ‘dream team’ is the UUP grassroots’ high stakes gamble to revive the party’s electoral fortunes come May 2027.

But what about the tens of thousands of moderate Unionists who defected electorally to Alliance? How can they be won back into the UUP camp, especially among new first time voters and young people? And what about the tens of thousands of apathetic potential pro-Union voters who have abandoned the ballot box completely? How can they be energised to vote UUP?

Liberal moderate Unionism does not have an impressive track record electorally. In the Seventies, the pro-Assembly Unionists spearheaded by the late former Northern Ireland Prime Minister Brian Faulkner were consistently trounced at the ballot box by the combined strength of the UUP, DUP and Vanguard under the banner of the Unionist Coalition.

Faulkner then launched his own middle of the road party, the Unionist Party of Northern Ireland (UPNI), which was making slow but steady inroads into the centrist pro-Union voter base until Faulkner’s tragic and untimely death in 1977 in a horse riding incident.

While the current UUP is to the fore in promoting Diana Armstrong as a female deputy leader, it should not be forgotten that Mrs Anne Dickson replaced Faulkner as UPNI leader after his death.

Put bluntly, after the Burrows coronation later this month, could liberal Unionists like Butler and his ilk see the increasingly right-wing leaning direction of the UUP as too bitter a political pill to swallow and leave to form a new moderate pro-Union movement in any Unionist realignment?

The same could also be said of the Alliance Party between those who are middle of the road ideologically, but pro-Union constitutionally, and those in Alliance who are left-wing ideologically and would favour Irish Unity. If the former faction defected or split from Alliance and joined with the liberal UUP faction, could a rebirth of the UPNI be on the cards?

Skeptics may point to the fate of another liberal pro-Union experiment which crashed and burned electorally before it had even left the runway - the short-lived NI21 party formed by two former liberal UUP MLAs, Basil McCrea of Lagan Valley and John McCallister of South Down.

One criticism that was made of the late Lord Trimble in that whilst he was a tremendous political visionary in Unionism, he moved too far forward tactically without bringing Unionism’s grassroots with him. In the end, it was his undoing in the Upper Bann constituency as Westminster MP.

Since announcing his nomination for the UUP leadership, Burrows has been outlining his vision for Unionism. His challenge will be not to make the same mistake as Trimble. Burrows will need to carry the pro-Union grassroots with him as he develops his vision of Unionist co-operation.

But in doing so, he will have to bring middle of the road Unionists with him otherwise the UUP will see large scale voting, not for Alliance, but for a new look UPNI. However, the electoral clock is ticking. May 2027 will soon come around.
 
Follow Dr John Coulter on Twitter @JohnAHCoulter
John is a Director for Belfast’s Christian radio station, Sunshine 1049 FM. 

Ghost Of UPNI Could Haunt Burrows’ Coronation

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of One Thousand Nine Eight Hundred And Fifty Five

 

A Morning Thought @ 3032

Anthony McIntyre 🔖 Half a century on from its inception, the blanket protest continues to spawn literature. 


Armagh republican Malachy Trainor spent many years on the protest, having joined it in 1977, and is the author of a number of published poetry works reviewed on TPQ by Tommy McKearney and myself. His prison experience has made its way into the literary world courtesy of a book by Siobhan Hughes.

In I Only Went Out For The Paper, the author admits that because of the trauma in Malachy's life, his story has been hard to tell. She found it challenging to work with a subject who is 'reluctantly dodging traditional paths to speak openly about events in his life.' Malachy Trainor acknowledges that at times he can sound evasive and deliver one-sided thoughts but there is no suggestion here that he is seeking to obfuscate and lay a false trail. He simply finds it difficult to engage and communicate the hardships he endured. 

Siobhan Hughes despite a refreshing bluntness has likely peered through a tinged lens in seeing a man whom the blanket protest 'has broken . . . physically and mentally.' In rightfully seeking to convey the trauma of the elongated prison protest, the author's assertion that Malachy Trainor was broken by it would not chime with the view of others. The arduous stance by the protesting prisoners without question left scars that can run very deep in some cases, even if they are worn with pride. Muffles, as he was known in the H Blocks, refers to suffering from post traumatic stress, yet his writing - in which he seeks to shun sugarcoating - has secured for him a creative victory over a punitive penal system that denied even pens and pencils in its failed bid to extinguish even the tiniest spark of creativity.

Sent out one morning in 1968 by his father on an errand to buy a paper, he was confronted by the hatred that came to be known as Paisleyism. The experience kickstarted his political odyssey, beginning with People’s Democracy, a left wing body. He was:

hooked by the civil rights movement, the expression of socialism ran like a wave through my veins . . . civil rights, socialism, republicanism and the INLA.

Hence, there is no puzzle that he would end up an INLA prisoner rather than an IRA one. The INLA would have within its ranks a considerably higher number of people inclined towards socialism than would be seen within IRA ranks, although within the prison both sets of prisoners embraced left wing ideas with gusto. While the INLA at times was not beyond the reach of sectarianism Muffles had an aversion to it. He rued that people like the late Brendan McFarlane, who led the protesting prisoners during the hunger strikes,  carried out violence against the Unionist community rather than exclusively against the British. 

Yet oddly for a blanketman at the coal face of resisting criminalisation he refers to the killings of Narrow Water Paratroopers as indiscriminate murder. That is a description better applied to the Paras of Bloody Sunday than the IRA volunteers who mercilessly settled the score in response to the Derry war crime. Furthermore, his description of the hunger strike as a 'horrific suicide' is likely to jar with most of those who wore the blanket alongside him. 

No book about the blanket protest is worth the paper it is written on if it fails to mention the prison staff violence. Siobhan Hughes does not spare the reader the detail. Some screws were so brutal that Malachy Trainor still cannot bring himself to talk about them, while pointing out the terror and fear that they brought. 

For a time he shared a cell with Brendan Hughes adjacent to the one holding Bobby Sands, and they often sang together. He refers to the nightly strategising by Brendan and Bobby, speaking to each other through the channel along which the heating pipes ran from cell to cell. Eventually released in 1983 Malachy Trainor settled into a cultural existence, pursuing his interests in music, singing, poetry, playwriting and reading.

Works in this genre add threads to the tapestry that helps readers understand the intensity of the blanket protest. and the determination with which it was prosecuted. The book, while informative, poses a difficulty in that a failure to always identify whether it is the voice of the author or that of Malachy Trainor that is narrating, leads to a certain confusion. In ways it makes its own case for the application of an editorial ruthlessness unfortunately lacking in the work.

As the narrative moves towards its conclusion Muffles says:

I have no regrets, just a memory of sorts, some people don't even have that. Some people never had a chance. I was lucky in that respect.

The reader is lucky too that Siobhan Hughes, despite the resistance, has coaxed a seasoned but often silent blanketman, Malachy Trainor, out of his personal quietude and intellectual solitude. Not for the first time the thoughts and experiences of this quiet and reflective soul have found expression in the literary world. That is truly a victory for the blanketmen.

Siobhan Hughes, 2025, I only went out for the paper: Memoirs of an Irish Republican Prisoner. Publisher: Nielsons. ISBN-13: ‎978-1836545194

⏩Follow on Bluesky.

I Only Went Out For The Paper

Raw Story ★ Written by David McAfee. Recommended by Christy Walsh.

MAGA allies sounded the alarm over the weekend, with one Trump-associated attorney issuing a panicked plea to Senate Republicans.

It started when Curtis Houck of Newsbusters, which purports to "expose and combat liberal media bias," reported on a video of a liberal political commentator giving her views on what Democrats should do once they finally retake power.

"The blue tsunami means that Congress is going to haul Elon Musk, Big Balls, and a bunch of other peoples' a-- in front, and say what kind of crimes did you commit?" said actress and podcaster Jennifer Welch. "I think they commit crimes every day."

Houck flagged the segment insisting on "accountability," and said Welch "— an influential Democrat podcast — promises mass prosecutions of President Trump, Republicans writ large if Democrats retake power because that will be the only way to achieve true national reconciliation."

"Jim Acosta adds Supreme Court seats must be added if Democrats retake Congress in November so Donald Trump could be hauled off to jail," Houck added when posting the interview between Acosta and Welch.

Continue @ Raw Story.

'Trump Could Be Hauled Off To Jail' 🪶 MAGA Allies Issue Panicked Plea To GOP Lawmakers

Friendly Atheist ★ The bigotry revealed how some people would rather listen to Nick Fuentes than Jesus.

It’s always helpful when racists out themselves.

That’s what a right-wing extremist named Mike—a Groyper and Catholic—did recently when he announced to the world that he refused to accept the Eucharist at church because it was being distributed by an Indian woman. Instead, he walked over to a different line headed up by a white priest because he assumed it was cleaner.

Okay. Well, I did a bad thing in Church today.

I refused to receive the Eucharist from an Indian woman. I was supposed to go to her. She was in my aisle, but across the Church was the white priest, so I walked across all the pews and received it from him, for fear that I might get fecal matter on my Eucharist, receiving it from an Indian woman.

Plus, I’m not gonna receive it from anyone who’s non-white. Sorry.

Considering what’s happening in the U.S. and in the world with our replacement, I’m not doing that.

I guess I’ll go confess this to my priest. But I’ll continue doing it. That’s the compromise.

Continue @ Friendly Atheist.

A Catholic Racist Refused The Eucharist From An Indian Woman 🪶 Then Bragged About It Online

Right Wing Watch 👀 Written by Peter Montgomery.

Rob Pacienza, a Florida-based pastor who heads Coral Ridge Ministries, is devoting a series of his Truths That Transform podcast to the theme of “destroying strongholds.”

The first episode in the series, posted on Jan. 2, targeted progressive Christianity, which Pacienza called “one of the most deceptive strongholds of all.”

It’s a good example of a phenomenon Right Wing Watch has noted before: religious-right leaders are quick to claim that anyone who criticizes their political agendas or tactics is somehow attacking their faith or Christianity itself—but they have no qualms about attacking the faith of others, including Christians who don’t share their religious or political worldview.

Pacienza is deeply connected to the MAGA movement. He regularly interviews Christian nationalist figures on his “City of God” podcast. He is a senior fellow at the America First Policy Institute, a think tank that helped fill the current Trump cabinet. 

Last month, Pacienza and Coral Ridge’s Center for Christian Statesmanship honored Speaker of the House Mike Johnson with a Distinguished Christian Statesman Award, which claims to honor “public servants who demonstrate biblical convictions, courage, and integrity in public life.” (It’s highly debatable whether Johnson qualifies on those terms.)

Continue @ Right Wing Watch.

MAGA Pastor Rob Pacienza On ‘Destroying’ the ‘Stronghold’ of Progressive Christianity

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of One Thousand Nine Eight Hundred And Fifty Four

 


Pastords @ 27

 

A Morning Thought @ 3031

Cam Ogie ✍The controversy surrounding the decision by Britain’s West Midlands Police to bar Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters from attending the Aston Villa fixture has exposed serious institutional failures—most notably in intelligence handling, evidentiary standards, and leadership oversight.

A preliminary review by Britain’s HMIC (His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary) confirmed that the force’s intelligence gathering suffered from “confirmation bias” and included multiple factual inaccuracies. Among the most serious errors was reference to a non-existent football fixture, which was later acknowledged not to have come from verified policing intelligence or open-source reporting, but from an AI-generated output produced using Microsoft Copilot.

Britain’s West Midlands chief constable later acknowledged that the error originated from Copilot rather than verified intelligence or conventional open-source research (Google). This matters because Copilot does not verify facts; it generates plausible-sounding text based on probability. When such output is accepted as intelligence without independent verification, the result is not a minor mistake but a collapse of evidentiary discipline.

In evidence initially given to British MPs, the chief constable suggested the erroneous information had been identified via a conventional Google search. He later corrected this account, explaining in a formal letter to the British Home Affairs Committee that the information was in fact produced through the use of Microsoft Copilot, an AI tool designed to generate text based on probabilistic pattern matching rather than factual verification.

This distinction is not trivial. Copilot does not “check” facts in the way human analysts or vetted intelligence sources do; it predicts plausible outputs based on training data. When such outputs are not independently verified, they can fabricate convincing but entirely false information—as occurred here. The inclusion of AI-generated fiction in a report used to inform a public safety decision represents a profound failure of professional standards and internal safeguards.

That failure fully justifies scrutiny of leadership and process.

The term “confirmation bias,” as used by Britain’s policing watchdog (HIMC), does not mean hostility toward a particular group. It refers to a well-documented cognitive error in which decision-makers:form:

  • an initial assumption or hypothesis, and then
  • give disproportionate weight to information that appears to support it, while
  • discounting, overlooking, or failing to rigorously test contradictory evidence.

In this case, confirmation bias meant that once Britain’s West Midlands Police force had identified Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters as a potential risk, insufficient scepticism was applied to material that appeared to reinforce that view, including unverified AI-generated content. The bias lay not in the existence of concern, but in the failure to adequately test the quality and provenance of evidence used to justify it.

Importantly, confirmation bias describes a process failure, not proof that the underlying risk assessment was invented or malicious.

While these procedural failures are serious, the political response has been unusually escalatory. The British Home Secretary publicly withdrew confidence in the chief constable before the conclusion of the parliamentary inquiry, and the episode was rapidly framed as a matter of “national importance.”

At the same time, prominent pro-Israel communal organisations moved rapidly to demand the chief constable’s dismissal (the Board of Deputies of British Jews called for him to be dismissed without delay). These interventions occurred within a well-documented context where organised pro-Israel advocacy groups maintain longstanding, open, and well-documented relationships across the British political establishment. Acknowledging this does not imply conspiracy; it reflects normal lobbying dynamics in Britain’s Westminster. However, it does help explain why scrutiny in this case has been unusually intense, narrowly focused, personalised, and politically charged — particularly when compared with responses to other serious policing failures. i.e.,

Hillsborough Disaster – A mass-fatality disaster involving evidence manipulation did not provoke instant ministerial declarations of lost confidence in police leadership. No immediate dismissal of the chief constable at the time, No Home Secretary publicly withdrew confidence during the initial revelations, and accountability took over 20 years, driven by victims’ families—not ministerial intervention.

Stephen Lawrence & Metropolitan Police - A finding of institutional racism across the UK’s largest police force did not trigger the same rapid, personalised political escalation. No immediate sacking of the Met Commissioner, reform recommendations were gradual and structural, and Ministers did not frame the issue as a sudden crisis of confidence in leadership.

The result has been a public narrative in which the collapse of a flawed police report is treated not merely as an institutional error, but as proof that the original risk assessment itself was illegitimate.

The collapse of the West Midlands Police report has increasingly been used to suggest that concerns about Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters were wholly unfounded or motivated by prejudice. That conclusion does not follow from the evidence.

Independent and verifiable sources—including UEFA disciplinary proceedings—show that Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters have, on multiple occasions, been sanctioned for racist or discriminatory behaviour. These are formal findings by football’s governing body, not speculative claims. They demonstrate that concerns about supporter behaviour were not conjured from thin air, even though the police failed to evidence those concerns properly in this instance. These findings do not excuse poor intelligence handling, but they do undermine the claim that police concern were illegitimate and arose from nothing. The current political framing risks replacing/substituting one form of confirmation bias with another - reverse confirmation bias which assumes that because the report was flawed, all underlying concern must have been baseless. Thus serving political reassurance rather than public safety. Public-order policing requires evidence-based assessment, not narrative absolution. The appropriate response to this episode is to demand higher evidentiary standards—not to erase documented patterns of supporter misconduct because acknowledging them is politically sensitive.

This case raises urgent questions for all of Britain’s police forces:

  • Are AI tools such as Microsoft Copilot being used elsewhere in intelligence preparation, briefings, or risk assessments?
  • What safeguards exist to prevent AI-generated fabrications from entering official records?
  • Is there any audit trail or disclosure requirement when AI tools are used?

Most seriously, the episode raises questions about past criminal cases. If AI-generated material has been used—directly or indirectly—in intelligence logs, surveillance justifications, charging decisions, or risk assessments, then the integrity of previous convictions may be open to challenge. Generative AI is not designed to meet evidential standards, and its unregulated use risks contaminating the justice process itself.

Conclusion

This case establishes two separates but connected failures:

  1. A policing failure, in which unverified AI-generated content from Microsoft Copilot was accepted into an intelligence product, compounded by confirmation bias and weak oversight.
  2. A political failure, in which that policing error has been leveraged—under sustained establishment pressure—to advance a one-sided narrative that shields certain actors from scrutiny while treating procedural failure as proof of moral innocence.

The lessons are clear:

💡 Accountability must be consistent.

💡AI tools must never substitute for verified intelligence.

💡 AI-generated content must never be treated as fact without rigorous verification.

💡 Policing accountability must be applied consistently—not intensified or softened from the disproportionate influence of well-connected interest groups— but insulated accordingly, regardless of the political sensitivities involved,

💡 Public institutions must not allow political pressure to transform due process into theatre.

💡 Decisions must be grounded in evidence.

💡 Tested against bias in all directions.

Until transparent national rules govern the use of generative AI in policing, the risk is not merely reputational. It is judicial

⏩ Cam Ogie is a Gaelic games enthusiast.

Confirmation Bias And AI - Specifically Microsoft’s Co-Pilot - The Real Concern For The British Politicised Response To The Maccabi Tel Aviv Report

Guardian ★ Written by Alex South.


A rise of murders is traumatising inmates and staff, and making life harder for staff. But even in prison, violence isn’t inevitable.

There are hotspots for violence in prison. The exercise yard, the showers. There are peak times, too. Mealtimes and association periods are particularly volatile.

But first thing in the morning is not when you expect to hear an alarm bell. I certainly didn’t, at 6am in my office on the residential wing of a high-security prison in late 2018. All prisoners were locked up at that time. But overcrowding has long been a problem in UK prisons, and keeping three men in cells designed for one can be a recipe for disaster.

When I reached the scene, I found one of my colleagues standing outside a cell with his keys in the lock, poised to open the door. The control panel next to the door showed a blinking orange light. The cell bell can be activated by prisoners inside to call for officer assistance. Normally this would be a request for toilet roll or paracetamol. But that day was different.

Inside the cell, one man sat trembling on the top bunk. 

Continue @ Guardian.

Death On The Inside 🪶 As A Prison Officer, I Saw How The System Perpetuates Violence

Matt Bowen ✍ I always immediately recall this very question being asked in the 1971 Dalton Trumbo movie Johnny Got His Gun, based on the 1939 novel of the same name and Author, to which an excerpt of the answer given is; "It’s got something to do with young men killing each other".

I would say that Johnny Got His Gun is primarily an anti-war movie, I can’t honestly say I enjoyed the film, but this is not a movie review, I’m more concerned with the themes it explores and the analysis of those themes. It critiques the use of democracy as a justification for war and explores how ideals such as democracy are manipulated by those in power. It suggests that if democracy is used to justify unimaginable suffering without consent or clarity, it becomes a hypocritical slogan, not a genuine principle. Not too dissimilar from that explored in Johnny Got His Gun, over fifty years after the movie was released, a recent well-written article here on TPQ(1) by Cam Ogie outlined concern for particular actions of late, and suggested that if these actions are democracy, then words have lost meaning. Indeed Cam suggests the same; “Democracy as slogan, not principle”.

I asked in the comments section under Cam’s article the same question from the movie; what is democracy?

I mentioned that democracy means different things to different people, but the intent of my question was more to do with; what is the definition of democracy? If we have a definition, then we can say whether the word has indeed lost it’s meaning, and then explore the differences between what it now means, and what it is supposed to mean. Easier said than done.

According to Wikipedia, a precise definition of democracy does not exist.(2)

Although democracy is generally understood to be defined by voting, no consensus exists on a precise definition of democracy. Karl Popper says that the "classical" view of democracy is, "in brief, the theory that democracy is the rule of the people and that the people have a right to rule". One study identified 2,234 adjectives used to describe democracy in the English language.

2,234 adjectives in the English language to describe democracy, that's a fair amount. Does this mean that everytime anyone uses the word "democracy" they have all 2,234 adjectives in mind? I would suggest not. In fact, whenever someone uses the word, without significant context it's very difficult to ascertain exactly what they mean. I have often sought clarification in personal discussions whenever someone uses the word, and more often than not, I fail to receive it. It seems that some are much more clear on what it isn't, rather than what it is.

Philosophers and Scholars have long discussed this topic.

Perhaps if we start with Popper's classical view and also the general understanding that democracy is defined by voting. I would suggest that the former has a certain amount of ambiguity but, from my understanding, it does not appear to me that in practice it's "the people" that rule, and as to whether the people can exercise "the right to rule" has it's own set of problems. But what about the latter; voting. It could be said that these two are intertwined. If it's the people that vote, then does that mean it's the people that rule? Again, I would say that it does not appear that way in practice to me.

We can contrast "direct democracy" where people can vote directly on policy, with "representative democracy" where people vote on representatives that will then decide policy. Some countries have a semi-direct system, but by-in-large in The West, the dominant system is representative. Elections are supposed to be free and fair, where each vote is equal, and the impression is given that the result is the majority rules.

A form of representative democracy is liberal democracy. Constitutional protections are supposed to be in place, such as an independent judiciary and legal institutions, due process and rule of law. These checks and balances are supposed to protect civil liberties, rights of the minority, safeguard against oppressive governmental over-reach and prevent the "tyranny of the majority".

Austrian Political Economist Joseph Schumpeter’s controversial suggestion(3) was that:

the formation of a government is the endpoint of the democratic process, which means that for the purposes of his democratic theory, he has no comment on what kinds of decisions that the government can take to be a democracy.

Let’s take a closer look at voting for the formation of government.

Suffrage or the right to vote, has changed throughout history all around the world. In modern times more people now have the right to vote, although disfranchisement or not having the right to vote still occurs. Within Schumpeter’s theory for the definition of democracy, his was more “the method by which people elect representatives in competitive elections to carry out their will.”

There are currently different systems that can be used to determine elections, the Single Transferable Vote (STV), First Past the Post (FPTP), Additional Member System (AMS), to name but a few.

The YouTube Channel Veritasium has a very interesting and informative video titled Why Democracy Is Mathematically Impossible.(4)In this video, various voting systems are analysed and explained along with visual aids to show mathematically why this looks very much to be the case, with FPTP in particular receiving criticism. However, that is only a mathematical analysis of voting systems. Of course when other various factors are also taken into account such as; subversion, voter manipulation, voter suppression, gerrymandering, voter intimidation, electoral fraud, voter fraud, election interference, election denial etc, we can add these to the equation, and if the result of the maths looked bad before, it’s now looking even worse.

Election manipulation, and election denial is nothing new. These terms along with election interference were thrown around fairly recently, notably in the U.S.

A 2018 article for The New York Times(5) by Scott Shane mentions a study by Carnegie Mellon scholar Dov H. Levin, where Levin found that from the years 1946-2000 there were 81 counts by the United States and 36 counts by the Soviet Union or Russia of both “overt and covert election influence operations”.

The article quotes Steven L. Hall who retired in 2015 after 30 years at the C.I.A. where he was the chief of Russian operations as saying;

if you ask an intelligence officer, did the Russians break the rules or do something bizarre, the answer is no, not at all,” The United States “absolutely” has carried out such election influence operations historically, he said, “and I hope we keep doing it”.

The dean of American Intelligence Scholars Loch K. Johnson is also quoted as saying “We’ve been doing this kind of thing since the C.I.A. was created in 1947”.
 
The article does state that both Hall and Johnson argue that the interference by the U.S. is not morally equivalent to that of Russia. Somehow that assertion does not surprise me.

I found it an interesting piece that contained other quotes and details, but also in this very same article by Shane, we see a similar question being asked; "what does democracy mean?"

The article does not offer an answer.

It’s not agreed that voting alone for the formation of government is the overall defining element of democracy. So let’s look at some other commonly described attributes.

Consider the following excerpt from Wikipedia(6);

Features of democracy often include freedom of assembly, association, personal property, freedom of religion and speech, citizenship, consent of the governed, voting rights, freedom from unwarranted governmental deprivation of the right to life and liberty, and minority rights.

Those attributes are not exhaustive. Remember that 2,234 adjectives have been found to describe democracy, to try and address all 2,234, it would be a very long article indeed. But have a look through that excerpt from Wikipedia, and whichever "democratic" country you happen to reside in, ask yourself, how many of those attributes do you actually have, or how many do you perceive to be under threat?

In the U.S. right now, is the killing of Renee Nicole Good by I.C.E agent Jonathan Ross not to be considered as unwarranted governmental deprivation of the right to life? Are there other examples of such acts? Does the consent of the governed exist? Do you still have freedom of speech, or freedom of association or assembly?

The answer to some of those questions I am sure would vary between different folk and different countries, but I think we are seeing an increasing amount of people that would claim, perhaps rightly so, that those rights are not being protected, they are being eroded or, they simply don’t exist. Which brings us back to the original question, if democracy is not solely about voting, and if so-called democratic countries are not upholding the other attributes, then what is democracy?

Maybe Cam Ogie was right, words have lost meaning. I would certainly say there are plenty of words that have lost meaning over time, but with democracy we can’t even define it.

I think that democracy in practice is an illusion, where the common people believe they have a say, when in reality it’s not the case, and much like the analysis of Johnny Got His Gun, it is also a hypocritical slogan, it's a trigger word. It can invoke something in people. In fact, to accuse someone of being anti-democratic is used as a slur. It is used hypocritically to justify atrocity. It can invoke a reflex reaction that it is something to defend, something to fight for, something to kill for, something to die for. Yet for those in which these feelings or actions are invoked, they struggle to articulate exactly what it is they are killing and dying for. Some so-called democratic countries will actually dictate what other countries can do, and if they don't comply, they're more than happy to bomb "democracy" into them, more so when those countries do not possess the ability to defend themselves and there is less fear of reprisal, they then interfere in their so-called democratic elections, if indeed these elections even take place. Justification for this with a single solitary word that is devoid of meaning just so happens to be sufficient enough for those that are still taken in by the illusion. "Democracy!"

In many ways, democracy can be considered a paradox. Some of these paradoxes are explored by the Belgian political theorist Chantal Mouffe in her collection of essays aptly titled The Democratic Paradox.(8)

Also, consider how Donald Trump is often labelled by some as a dictator. A recent image of him after the illegal invasion of Venezuela and the subsequent kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, shows Trump with a Hitler type moustache of dripping crude oil. Yet some will assert that the very fact Donald Trump is President of the U.S. is down to democratic processes. If a democratic process can result in a dictatorship, is that not paradoxical? We can even see in the U.K. and Europe that those elected and supposed to represent the people, are putting policies into place that are limiting ideals which seems far from representing the very people that voted for them, yet again, paradoxically, these are the results of so-called democratic processes.

Some may point out that democracy contrasts with a dictatorship in that there are checks and balances that limit the power of the elected. I would argue that these checks and balances are far from sufficient. One such check on power in a democracy in attempt to avoid dictatorship is "Term Limits". But is this just another part of the illusion? Do we simply replace one dictator with another after their term limit is reached? Or is the political figurehead the illusion and policy is being dictated elsewhere by others?

Critics argue that modern democracies may fail to be sufficiently democratic and instead function in practice as oligarchies, insofar as governments are more responsive to the preferences of economic elites than to those of ordinary citizens. Numerous empirical studies across various western democracies including the United States, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Canada, Norway and Germany have consistently found that elected representatives tend to respond more to the preferences of very affluent citizens for policy outcomes than those of the average voter.(7)

Some descriptors of democracy make it seem fair in theory, but in practice we can see a different picture. I would suggest, to avoid using the word if you do not also provide sufficient context to make it precisely clear what it is you mean, especially if you’re likely to fold under questioning when asked for clarification. If the word invokes some sort of sense or feeling, perhaps your mind can steer away from being triggered by the word democracy and instead focus on the specific liberal attributes instead; rights, equity, equality, justice, liberty, freedom, and so on. Values like these make sense, but to invoke the word democracy if it doesn’t contain such values, does not make sense at all.

What does democracy mean to you?

The Veritasium video I previously mentioned concludes with the statement;

Democracy is not perfect, but it’s the best thing we’ve got. The game might be crooked, but it’s the only game in town.

If the only game in town is crooked, then it desperately needs repaired, and if it can’t be repaired, then is it time for a new game?

References

(1) The Pensive Quill - Cam Ogie - If This Is “Democracy,” Then Words No Longer Mean Anything - 

(2) Democracy.

(3) Joseph Schumpeter.

(4) Why Democracy is mathematically Impossible.

(5) Scott Shane for the New York Times.

(6) Democracy.

(7) Democracy - Criticism.

(8) Chantal Mouffe – The Democratic Paradox 

⏩Matt Bowen is a researcher and commentator.

What Is Democracy?

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