Protesters, Democracy, Monarchy and Getting the Government You Deserve

WARNING: Some people will find this post to be a rambling mess so feel free to stop reading now before you start in earnest and wonder when it’s reasonable to quit.

"Every country has the government it deserves.” Joseph de Maistre, 1811 

de Maistre, Royalist

I don’t know anything about Joseph de Maistre and I don’t understand the document or context in which he made that statement. The second sentence of his Wikipedia page indicates that de Maistre and I would have some differing views though, “He defended hierarchical societies and a monarchical State in the period immediately following the French Revolution.” In the second paragraph it goes on to say he, “saw monarchy both as a divinely sanctioned institution and as the only stable form of government.” So he was, in Bo Peeple’s damning opinion, a “ROYALIST!” and I am not. 

Don’t get me wrong. I rather like kings and queens and all that but because I find them quaint and I think there’s a logic to separating the ceremonial and legal aspects of being head of state. Plus there’s something gruesomely fascinating about the continued existence of this tiny class of people whose fates are closed at birth. They can run, they can thrash about, but they can never hide and never escape. That used to be true for humanity as a whole and now we keep these golem-like reminders of what was and shall never be again in their gilded cages to “rule” and amuse us. 

Having a monarchy or being in one sounds awful to me, but I am an American so I was conditioned to feel that way. Even so while I’ll point the finger at any society anywhere, regardless of circumstances and say something like “you ought to educate women and men equally” without even a glimmer of imperialist shame; I’d never tell a democratic nation, “You ought to get rid of your monarchy.” If they want to keep them I don’t see the harm in it. In fact, it’s moved me to tears. 

In Thailand when you see a movie in the theater before it begins they play a kind of music video recounting the life of the king that everyone stands up for. There’s bombastic stirring music, the images are stills against a vibrant gold background and made bits of the pictures float around to kind of make them look 3D. The pictures start with the king as a kid and then progress to the present. It’s probably not even two minutes long and the first time I saw it I cried. Well, not cried, but tears did roll down my face. It was the theater of it, the standing, the music, seeing how young he was when he took the crown and how old he is now. It was a moving ritual. I liked it and even thought, “I wish I felt that way about something in America.” In that moment I got what was enticing about having a monarchy.

{FOOTNOTE: Before some Love-it-or-Leave-it-American reading this gets all offended, I realize the reason it’s easy to be moved by other nation’s heroes is at first blush you’re only getting the official version of the story. Whereas back home I know all of the crappy stuff about our heroes and their slaves and their love of killing Native Americans or their inability to see Africans as fully human or their authorizations of coups in other countries because they didn’t like the person in charge or their demands for wars with other countries because they don’t like their leaders. We don’t introduce JFK as “serial philanderer who recklessly pushed the world to the brink of nuclear annihilation who was instrumental in laying the groundwork for covert military operations and aid in the Southeast Asia that led to the deaths of untold thousands of innocent people.” We introduce him as “King of America’s Camelot and Brave Cold Warrior who was tragically cut down in his prime.” You learn about all the other stuff latter (cough… if you learn about it at all… cough). Don’t worry LioLi-Americans, there will be a post in the future about the American stuff I’ve come to appreciate by being away from it.} 

So I can definitely say that, knowing absolutely nothing more about the king than what I’ve seen in that music video and the bits I’ve read in Wikipedia, I like the king. He seems pretty swell. But I can’t imagine a king or queen likable and swell enough that I’d say, “Hey, we should suspend our democracy and give the reigns of the nation back to that dude.” 

This, in part, is what the Shutdown Bangkok protesters want to do (how big a part I can't say because the protesters aren't a monolithic party). They've proposed the inclusion of an advisory panel comprised of representatives from various industries and regions to help guide the king’s decisions, but still. They want to suspend their democracy, which has flickered in and out over the last 80 years amidst coups and the occasional junta here and there, to hand the nation back over to the king and a non-democratically selected panel. 

Keep in mind, I barely grasp the context behind this. I know it has to do with richer folks (minority) not liking the government the poorer folks (majority) keep electing. There’s some regionalism at play dealing with the north versus the south. One of the most famous moments that sums up the differences between the sides was one of the leaders of the protest--Ms. Chitpas, the heiress to the Singha Brewery empire and a politician--said there are too many Thai people (read: poor, rural people) who don’t understand democracy so it should be suspended for the time being. A modern day version of, “Let them eat cake” if ever I’ve heard one. Except that Ms. Chitpas actually said it, admitted saying it, and then said it again, while Marie Antoinette never said anything of the sort. 

I can’t tell you what my intellectual and emotional reaction is to this because I don’t have one yet. Like, in the sense that I’m in a shock-like vacant state about it. A substantial number of middle & upper class people want to suspend their democracy and hand power back to the king because they don’t agree with how the majority of people keep voting. Coming from America that sounds c-o-m-p-l-e-t-e-l-y I-N-S-A-N-E!!!! But here’s the real cockadoodledoo: I’m not entirely sure I disagree with it. At least in theory. 

“I've said it before, and I'll say it again: democracy simply doesn't work.” Kent Brockman, 1995 

Brockman, Realist

This is anchorman Kent Brockman’s response when the bill to save Springfield from a comet is defeated thanks to a congressman tacking on a rider for “$30 million of taxpayer money to support the perverted arts.” The “Springfield-slash-pervert bill” lost by unanimous vote and doomed Springfield (until it was saved by pollution, just like Homer said it would be). 

A survey of politics in the United States--forget Thailand for a second--supports Kent Brockman’s assertion, at least to a degree: debt ceiling negotiations, climate change legislation, national debt vs. entitlement-programs-but-not-the-military. I don’t know how else to say it other than it’s true that democracy doesn’t always work. One of the primary reasons it breaks down is that constituents can be so far apart in their beliefs and aims that they hold each other hostage and gum up the legislative works leaving issues to languish or fester. 

So what do you when your democratically chosen government is its own worst enemy? What do you do when your elected government’s left hand can’t stop slapping its right hand and vice versa? What do you do when a government’s problem is democracy? This isn’t an idle existential question either. Like, I get that climate change is a massive leviathan of a problem, but do you think the solution is to ramp up oil production and point at the other biggest global polluter and say, “If they aren’t changing neither are we.” 

Of course it isn’t but we’re paralyzed on the topic in the US in part because it’s complicated but more so because of the influence of all the constituents involved--energy companies, auto companies, manufacturers, science deniers, tree hugging liberals, suburb loving moderates--and the influence they have over their elected officials. The US can’t come up with a coherent approach to climate change because the US is completely schizophrenic on the subject. Democracy isn’t the solution here, it’s the problem. 

So what do you when democracy is the problem rather than the solution? Squabble with ourselves until it’s too late to save Springfield? What if we had a wise, decent old man or woman waiting in the wings our whole lives? A person who commands the respect of the populace? A person we could look at and say, “Dude, we’re a mess. Please save us from ourselves for a while”? 

In the US we hail George Washington for refusing a lifetime presidential appointment. It’s held up the ultimate example of a person putting the long term good of his nation ahead of his short term personal interests. It’s so obviously thus that I’d never had even a whisper of a thought otherwise. Before this week I’d never considered the idea that it was the worst thing he did for America. Now I can’t stop thinking about it.

Washington, Selfish Quitter?