{"id":3472,"date":"2023-01-05T03:41:49","date_gmt":"2023-01-05T09:41:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=3472"},"modified":"2023-03-16T21:33:13","modified_gmt":"2023-03-17T02:33:13","slug":"will-democracy-still-be-on-a-roll-in-2023-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=3472","title":{"rendered":"Will democracy still be on a roll in 2023?<\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"

2022 was the year democracy bounced back. But will the worst political system apart from all the others keep up its lead in the year ahead?
\nIn the US last year, midterm election voters\u00a0repudiated\u00a0Donald Trump\u2019s election-denying extremist candidates; now the former President\u2019s reelection campaign \u2013 which is based on lies about 2020 \u2013 faces an existential crisis. Congress also passed a new law designed to make it harder for sore loser presidents like Trump to mess with the Constitution. In another blow to populist extremism,\u00a0Brazilian voters\u00a0ousted one of Trump\u2019s proteges, former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro. And in April,\u00a0French President Emmanuel Macron\u00a0defeated far right challenger Marine Le Pen.
\nAs democracies showed resilience, autocrats lost momentum in several countries last year. Soon after securing a norm-busting third term,\u00a0Chinese leader Xi Jinping\u00a0was embarrassed by nationwide outcry and forced to abandon a controversial \u201cZero Covid\u201d policy. Iran\u2019s clerical regime is still being rattled by\u00a0a furious protest movement. And the pitfalls of surrounding yourself with yes men were exposed by Russian leader Vladimir Putin\u2019s miscalculated \u201cspecial operation\u201d in Ukraine, which has raised the profile of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as a champion for democracy and revived the West\u2019s Cold War alliance.
\nDemocracy\u2019s enemies won\u2019t rest. There\u2019s no sign that the challenges facing Moscow, Tehran or Beijing could loosen their iron grasps on power. Even in the US, Trump is on the comeback trail and\u00a0a Republican majority\u00a0(dominated by members who voted not to certify President Joe Biden\u2019s election in 2020) is poised to take over the US House of Representatives.
\nBut those who thought they had democracy on the run in 2022 got a surprise. The simple magic of a voter marking their ballot in a polling booth or a protestor willing to put their life on the line for the right to do so remains as powerful as ever.
\nMeanwhile, here\u2019s what will define the new year in American politics
\nWashington is bracing for a new era of divided government likely to bring governing showdowns, shutdowns, withering political investigations and the opening shots of the 2024 presidential race.<\/p>\n

Cnn<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

2022 was the year democracy bounced back. But will the worst political system apart from all the others keep up its lead in the year ahead? In the US last year, midterm election voters\u00a0repudiated\u00a0Donald Trump\u2019s election-denying extremist candidates; now the former President\u2019s reelection campaign \u2013 which is based on lies about 2020 \u2013 faces an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":3473,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[2932,3614,1399,1236,3391,3615,3165,1441,838],"class_list":["post-3472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-american-politics","tag-candidates","tag-democracy","tag-democrats","tag-midterm-elections","tag-political-system","tag-voting","tag-was","tag-will"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3472"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3472\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7808,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3472\/revisions\/7808"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}