Donald Trump, the new president of the U.S., is quick to cast away "former President Barack Obama's legacy." The first two weeks of Trump was quite something as he signed executive orders en-masse, most of which were in line with his most controversial campaign promises.
The most discussed executive order he signed so far has been the so-called "Muslim ban," which blocks travelers from seven countries — Iran, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Sudan and Somalia — from entering the U.S. for three months. In addition to that, refugee admissions have been suspended for 120 days, while Syrian refugees are banned indefinitely.
The order sparked the ongoing anti-Trump protests while he drew a rebuff globally. It was an interesting experience to see the people who did not care when the Muslims were bombed by jets or drones, those who said that it was not their problem while Muslims were brutally killed, and the ones who were concerned about how to get rid of Muslim refugees while they were drowning in the cold deep waters of the Mediterranean Sea, suddenly came to be in solidarity with Muslims. Amid all the mess and chaos, it must be the one and only pleasing result of the new U.S. president's thrilling policies; the liberal democrats of the Western world first need to find someone like Trump as their president in order to recall the fact that Muslims and refugees have rights as well.
Anyway, starting from his candidacy, the American media did not stop for a second attacking the new president. But now, the leading industrial giants, top diplomats, federal judges, intelligence services of the U.S., and many more, or in short, almost all the dominant elements of the U.S. authority, which is referred to as "the Establishment," has waged a war against Trump along with the ordinary liberal democrats. Following some federal judges halted Trump's immigration ban, the quarrel became more serious when the new president fired the Acting Attorney General Sally Yates (a holdover from the Obama administration) who announced that she would direct Justice Department lawyers not to defend Trump's travel ban, accusing her of treason. Breaking his silence, former President Obama said, "American values are at stake." And most recently, the U.S. appeals court rejected the Justice Department's request for an immediate reinstatement of the ban. We will see what will happen next, but as a result of the quick actions of "the leader of the free world," the rule of law, separation of powers and basic rights and freedoms, in short, the democracy itself, have come into question in the U.S.
Some say that Donald Trump's being elected to the office of the president of the U.S. is the latest event of the global trend toward "illiberal democracy." The liberal democrats usually forget to say that Trump and the global trend in question are the results of the Obama administration's wrong policies, and try to handle the subject isolating it from the former president's legacy. This is ironically another fallacious approach that will not help putting things back on the rails, but obviously neither the Establishment nor the liberals care. In addition to that, the new president did not suddenly pop up out of nowhere; he has been elected by the people of the U.S. and not surprisingly, most of his voters support his controversial executive orders. So, the liberal democrats' problem is not only Trump himself, but also approximately half of the U.S. population.
When the "democracy" in popular usage became shorthand for liberal democracy — or we can say "Western democracy" — they characterized the system as a form of government that has the rule of law, a separation of powers, freedom of expression, et cetera. An illiberal democracy, then, is defined as a system where these characteristics are weak but still fair and free elections are held, and leaders are elected by the public. However, the whole story was not only that. Making the liberal democracy as a predominant system in the world, some other characteristics were quested in practice such as whether the elected rulers in a Muslim-majority country are secular, whether the economy is liberal and most importantly, whether the politics of the country serve Western interests. If not, a country has been easily labeled as "illiberal democracy" by the liberal democrats. That is exactly why the overthrow of President Mohammed Morsi, who came to power in Egypt through a fair and free election, was defined as "restoring democracy" by liberal democrats. That's why they allowed Syria to become a war-torn country, worrying that Bashar Assad's regime would be replaced by an Islamic government. That's why they supported coup attempts against the conservative democratic government of Turkey and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. In other words, the liberal democrats whitewashed all kinds of anti-democratic moves, including coups, civil wars or massacres, for the sake of the establishment of liberal democracies.
They thought that democracy and liberalism would never stop going hand in hand and yet here we are. It hasn't been a month, and we can sense that the U.S. is on the horns of a dilemma. Now what will they do? Will they respect the American people's will and accept to become an "illiberal democracy" during the Trump administration? Or will they get rid of their president too through an anti-democratic way? Will they stage a coup? Will they assassinate him? Or will they choose a more elegant way of overthrowing a president and impeach Trump? We will see, but either way, the result will shake the world.
