Democracy needs a filter to block all fascist ideologies that use democratic means to usurp power and undermine democracy in the end. In democratic politics, the single most important vector is the power and capability of political parties to organise and mobilise people to pursue the collective good.
While liberal democratic forces rely on policies and development agenda to rally supports, religious and ultranationalist parties or leaders (be it Netanyahu, Modi, Erdogan, Trump, or their likes) use religion or ultranationalist ideologies that find greater resonance among masses, their supporters seem to be more regimented and loyal, and their use of peoples’ basic, primordial instincts that disregard collective-self and the unleash of negative energies are so profound that orthodox parties are completely outmatched with. Fascist ideologies overpower, triumph over earthly, policy-oriented politics, especially when people are confronted with many uncertainties and live in testing times.
The irony is the fascist and ultranationalist are entrapped in their own rise and gradually fall the victims of their own evils unleashed during the competitive electoral process. They create a monster, release the genie out of the bottle that they cannot put back. The fascist ideologies are a self-destructing process. The problem is during their downfall, they take their entire nation down to the abyss.
For any democracy to overcome this limit, the time is right to think hard about a filter. The fear that such a restrictive practice may ultimately choke democracy’s own lifeline is not greater than the evils that fascism may vociferously unleash—which has already caused far greater harm, deaths and destruction to humankind in our recorded history.
A preventative filter will obviously come up with a caveat, but the system can be made more efficient through dialogue and deliberations, and through a trial and error process.
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