Thucydides wrote The History of the Peloponnesian War for people wishing “to understand clearly the events which happened in the past, which human nature being what it is, will at some time or other and in much the same ways, be repeated in the future.” In his recently published Inverted Democracy in America, Jean-Luc Baslé, going through mass of media news and data—misnamed “information” but for the most part a jumble of fabrications, distortions, and lies—attempts to understand what it all means. Relevant past and current events are thus analyzed in their proper context, giving the reader a better understanding of the “events” that shape the world and can be viewed as an assault of democracy.
The book begins with a brief review of three major events: 9/11, the subprime crisis, and the Covid pandemic, and their impact on the Constitution. It then shows that the neoliberal and neoconservative ideologies have defined the United States’ domestic and foreign policies over the last four decades—an example of their impact is given in the chapter entitled: “Russiagate, or the ideologies at work.” Americans love to think of themselves as an example for the world to follow. The best example of this is Massachusetts Governor John Winthrop’s 1630 speech in which he states New England is a beacon illuminating the world. Be this as it may, reality is somewhat different. Once the Civil War was over, the federal government embarked on a colonialist policy in response to industrialization which requires access to natural resources and new markets. After World War II, foreign policy became imperialist, and hegemonic with the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Constitution is based on a double balance: between the states and the federal government, on the one hand, and the three branches of government, on the other. Colonial and imperial policies upset the balance between the states and the federal government while the hegemonic policy broke the equilibrium between the three branches in favor of the executive branch.
After a brief analysis of the United States’ foreign policy, as seen by Kissinger and Brzezinski, the author analyzes the Ukraine war which he sees as the Empire’s gravedigger. The cost of the war leads him to move on to the American debt-ridden economy which may at any time collapse, as it did in October 1929, either because of major banks’ excessive derivative risks or the BRICS’ dollar weaponization resentment associated with an excessive level of public debt. The subprime crisis is the embodiment of the economy mismanagement. Its main causes are the unbridled deregulation—the forefront of neoliberalism—combined with regulatory authorities’ complacency vis-à-vis Wall Street.
In the last chapter, entitled “ Inverted democracy,” the author concludes that after receiving blow after blow, in the form of assassinations, coups, election frauds, corruption, disinformation and outright lies, the Constitution is a shadow of itself. He concludes with a quote from Sheldon Wolin’s Democracy Inc.: “The United States is the showcase of a democracy that has lost its attributes… deceiving the cause of democracy in the world…” The fog of news hides this reality. Baslé’s tacit assumption is that in today’s world truth is a commodity much in demand.
Featured: Air raid at Monte Cassino, February 1944, by Peter McIntyre, painted in 1944.
