Democracy on Sickbed, Not Deathbed

ALIVE KICKING AND SCREAMING Getting kicked out of the Knesset plenum for yelling and screaming is part of Israel’s parliamentary culture not necessarily a sign of an ailing democracy (Photos: Flash90/AFP/Imagebank)

T his hasn’t been an easy year for America’s battered and bruised democracy.

For the first time ever the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index downgraded the United States from the ranks of full democracy to a “flawed democracy” citing surveys by the Pew and Gallup polling agencies confirming that public confidence in government has slumped to historic lows.

And it’s not President Trump’s fault. “Donald Trump is not to blame for this decline in trust which predated his election but he was the beneficiary of it ” according to the report.