Is the World Moving Beyond "Liberal Democracy?"

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Jay Nordlinger explains the popularity battle between the ideals represented by Nigel Farage, Steve Bannon and Viktor Orbán, as opposed to those of John Milton, John Locke and J.S. Mill. Among conservatives today, Nordlinger explains, there is no contest. He writes at The National Review (abridged):

A week ago, I wrote a post titled “Liberal Democracy and Us.” I quoted Pat Buchanan, in part because he is so frank — he does not pussyfoot around, as so many lesser Buchananites do. He is perfectly willing to use words such as “authoritarian,” where others play coy.

Last month, Buchanan was hailing Viktor Orbán, the Hungarian prime minister (though “prime minister” seems too weak a term for what he is). “The democracy worshippers of the West cannot compete with the authoritarians in meeting the crisis of our time because they do not see what is happening to the West as a crisis,” wrote Buchanan.

Back to Orbán’s proclamation that “the era of liberal democracy is over.” On Twitter, Simon Schama, the British historian, said, “Well, no, Orbán, liberal democracy will see you and your nativists off because liberal democracy has John Milton, John Locke and J. S. Mill and you have Nigel Farage, Marine Le Pen and Steve Bannon.”

I can tell you this: In my corner of the world — the American Right, and the Western Right generally — Farage, Le Pen (any of them), and Bannon are a helluva lot more popular than Milton, Locke, and Mill. The first three are big at CPAC; the other guys, no.