Remote Political Theater ...BINARY CHOICE FOR A 2-DAY VIRTUAL ZOOM SUMMIT: Democracy / Autocracy

At this point in time it's looking more like remote political theater from cues and comments published by James Traub today

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James Traub is a regular contributor to Foreign Policy, a nonresident fellow at New York University’s Center on International Cooperation, and author of the book What Was Liberalism? The Past, Present and Promise of A Noble Idea.

 

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When 'the two-channel summit' opens on Thursday, it is probably fair to predict that Americans who do not live and die for politics, as well as other such folk around the globe, will stick to their regularly scheduled programming.

Political junkies will certainly have plenty to watch. 

One of the summit’s two Zoom channels will offer a continuous U.N.-like drone of speeches by heads of state, while the other, potentially more absorbing, will host meetings that will bring together leaders, Biden cabinet members, civil society groups and human rights activists who have braved authoritarian regimes.

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Inside Joe Biden’s 2-Day Zoom Plan to Rescue Democracy

POLITICO |

Magazine

The president went from skeptic to evangelist on global democracy. But over the past year, his ambitions have collided repeatedly—and uncomfortably—with reality.

[...] "The language of “American exceptionalism” now has a nostalgic ring, because the United States is arguably no longer either the world’s most powerful country or its most effective democracy. Indeed, one stated premise of the summit, too plainly true to be dismissed as mere rhetoric, is that America has as much to gain from the experience of other countries as they do from that of the United States. . ."

[ The Biden team hopes to encourage states to stand up to Russia and China on issues like electoral interference and targeting dissidents. | Ding Lin/Xinhua via AP ]

". . .Erosion inside the world’s democracies requires a very different, and yet more urgent, endeavor from the one first articulated by Woodrow Wilson when he promised a new order after World War I that would make the world "safe for democracy.” That crusade now feels like a luxury. Biden, by contrast, hopes to protect or preserve democracy where it already exists. He has frequently cast his ambitious domestic agenda as proof that democracies can “deliver” prosperity and security in a way that autocracies cannot. This is no easy argument to make at a time when China has achieved sustained economic growth at a rate unprecedented in modern history. It is by no means obvious that democracies work better than non-democracies.

[...]

Nevertheless, what looked a year ago like a democratic jamboree now resembles a C-SPAN marathon. Given the high hopes that the prospect of a democracy summit once kindled, the whole affair may be an exercise in anti-climax.

In the course of my conversation with Blinken, I asked what he thought the United States could get out of the summit. "There is a call-to-action aspect of this that also is part of our summoning of our better angels," he said, "which the President strongly believes continues to resonate powerfully with most Americans. Things have gotten lost along the way. This is a moment to try to refocus our fellow citizens on what makes us exceptional. It does speak to something that continues to unite us, and that people aspire to, even despite the frustrations."

I wonder if this is the language of noble aspiration or of nostalgic yearning. . ."