Expert: Moldovan Democracy Is Being Led along the Evolutionary Dead-End Path

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Anton SHVETS The electoral stimulation aimed at public polarization, protest sentiments and hatred against certain categories of citizens is driving the young Moldovan democracy into a dangerous evolutionary dead end. Its consequences can be seen in the recent Washington events. The revolt, accompanied by US Congress building invasion left many commentators in a state of confusion and made them vying in extremely emotional tones to describe their youthful dreams of American democracy, both overseas and at home. Especially naive and artificial criticism of the events in Washington sounded from Moldova, where protest (marginal or public) has long become a tactical and strategic instrument of the struggle for power and economic preferences. It is hardly possible to find 10 differences between Jacob Chansley, who walked around the Capitol in a fur hat with horns, and Vasile Sinigur, who smashed the door to the Moldovan government building with a mace. From the other flank of the political spectrum, satisfied reports are still being heard about the "wheel of Samsara, which made a circle," bringing revolution to American soil for the first time in hundreds of years. Both approaches, apparently, do not take into account the real context of the socio-political evolution of the United States and reflect to a greater extent commentators’ personal views and preferences. Meanwhile, Donald Trump supporters' frustrations transformation into physical protest (somewhat caricatured, but quite convincing) became an inevitable consequence of the deep-rooted polarization in American society. The quintessence of the American Dream that made the American political model and lifestyles generally so ubiquitous, has been directly linked to diversity and freedom for decades. Due to the peculiarities of its historical development, the United States turned out to be the only country that contained the whole world “in miniature”. The fact that people from all countries and continents lived and continue living in the United States, remaining connected by thousands of inseparable threads with the entire planet, allowed Washington to act globally and at the same time organically, since the notorious diversity and consideration of all interests were provided "at home". However, the U.S. presidential election sparked a catastrophic crisis of representativeness, as Donald Trump scored more votes than any other Republican candidate in history and still lost by a significant margin. More than 70 million people of the extremely mobilized electorate have been recorded by the "democratic" media as outsiders, whose opinions and demands will be ignored as incompetent and unsuitable. Joseph Biden's intention to become “President for All Americans” has not yet translated into specific practical steps to normalize the situation and increase the inclusiveness of American society, as the resulting excesses create the impression of the least protected adult conservative white Americans who make up Donald Trump's nuclear electorate. The conservative-populist revenge organized by the 45th president of the United States collapsed, but consolidated and electrified a whole layer of American society, expressing doubts about the productivity of the Democratic Party's approaches to state governance. However, instead of a dialogue with this part of society which plays, by the way, a significant role in creating the country's national wealth, the US Democratic Party is trying to discredit and marginalize it every possible way, including resorting to openly anti-democratic methods. Propaganda, fake news, aggressive attacks from opinion leaders and celebrities, Donald Trump and his supporters’ social networks blocking, the utilitarian use of social contradictions for the purposes of political struggle turn true democracy into a dictatorship of democratic establishment. The breadth of views is formally welcomed; however, a significant layer of views is strictly taboo and its defense becomes the reason for the most severe bullying and social disqualification. The establishment has, in fact, withstood its holy war against Donald Trump but the socio-political platform promoted by the Democrats and causing growing rejection among tens of millions of Americans has only become more radical. The “detente” in the Capitol building might not be enough in the long run. There is no doubt that after power consolidation, the Democrats who received the presidency, the Senate and the House of Representatives will begin working on mistakes and searching for recipes to restore interests’ representation of all, including by means of curtailing the most striking flirting manifestations with minorities. This path has already been passed by French President Emmanuel Macron. If a correct and adequate approach, the US Democratic Party, despite the unconvincing first steps that should be attributed to the costs of the struggle for power, has every chance to normalize the situation, especially if it can curb the COVID-19 pandemic, restore the economy, traditionally increasing the support of the general population. But even under optimal scenario, the United States will have to go a long way to restore mutual trust, the atmosphere of tolerance and unity, diversity and freedom for all, as well as restore the badly shaken reputation of a “free world” moral leader. The lesson for Moldova and other Eastern European democracies is that it is better not to bring the situation in the country to an evolutionary deadlock, using public polarization and stimulation of protest moods for electoral purposes. Unfortunately, the republic has been following this path for quite a long time. Another milestone can be recognized as presidential elections held at the end of last year, during which the division of society into certain categories was again artificially provoked, with an accompanying infringement of the rights and incitement of hatred towards some of them - primarily representatives of the foreign diaspora and residents of the left bank. Due to the fact that “fateful” elections in Moldova are held more often than annually, flirting with public health and protruding differences is doubly dangerous here, because the stability of the political system and its economic basis are incomparable with that of the United States. At the same time, the degree of disunity of the Moldovan society remains extremely high, even if the stumbling block in Moldova is not so much the attitude to certain internal problems (as in the United States), as adherence to one of the two key geopolitical landmarks. Therefore, it is time for Moldovan elites to learn and not to repeat the mistakes made by the American establishment, in pursuit of opportunistic goals, bringing the situation to dangerous extremes. For example, having brought the resignation of Ion Chicu and a number of his ministers closer, Moldovan farmers did not become richer or happier but realized that they could participate in protests regardless of who administers them, and this will surely come back to haunt Chisinau in the future. A crisis like the American one could easily become the last one for the republic. However, the political short-sightedness of the Eastern Europe leaderships, including Moldova is unlikely to draw the necessary conclusions from the possibly temporary (but still remarkable) exemplary modern democracy’s paralysis.