European prosecutors have searched offices in Brussels and Strasbourg as an investigation into alleged misuse of parliamentary funds by the former Identity and Democracy group raises questions over financial liabilities inherited by Patriots for Europe.

European prosecutors carried out searches at the European Parliament’s offices in Brussels and Strasbourg on Wednesday, 21 October, as part of an investigation into alleged financial irregularities involving the former Identity and Democracy (ID) parliamentary group.

The investigation concerns approximately €4.33 million in European Union funds that were allegedly improperly spent during the 2019–2024 parliamentary term. The European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) confirmed that searches had taken place in connection with an ongoing inquiry into the use of EU funds by a former parliamentary group.

The premises searched are now occupied by Patriots for Europe, the European Parliament’s third-largest political group, which includes France’s National Rally, Hungary’s Fidesz, Italy’s Lega and Spain’s Vox. Patriots for Europe insists that it has no legal continuity with Identity and Democracy and denies being involved in the investigation.

Investigation into parliamentary expenditure

The European Public Prosecutor’s Office opened its investigation in July 2025 following concerns identified by the European Parliament’s financial administration about expenditure incurred by Identity and Democracy.

The former group, which dissolved following the 2024 European elections, included representatives of France’s National Rally, Italy’s Lega and Germany’s Alternative for Germany.

According to details of the parliamentary financial examination subsequently reported in France, investigators are examining approximately €3.6 million in contracts awarded to external service providers, including businesses with political connections to parties represented within the former group.

The financial examination also identified more than €700,000 in donations to organisations whose activities were allegedly unrelated to the parliamentary group’s official functions.

The authorities are examining whether parliamentary resources were used in accordance with EU financial rules, including restrictions on using public money for national party-political activities.

These are allegations under investigation, not criminal findings. The EPPO has not announced convictions arising from the current inquiry, and the individuals and organisations concerned retain the presumption of innocence.

Earlier investigative measures were conducted in France, Belgium, Spain and Italy in June 2026. Wednesday’s searches mark a further stage in the proceedings.

Can Patriots for Europe inherit the liabilities?

The investigation has opened a separate dispute over whether Patriots for Europe could be required to repay money allegedly misspent by its predecessor.

Identity and Democracy ceased to exist after the 2024 elections. Several parties previously represented in the group subsequently joined Patriots for Europe, a new parliamentary formation that also brought together Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz and Spain’s Vox.

Patriots for Europe maintains that the two groups are legally separate. Its representatives argue that the dissolution of Identity and Democracy ended that group’s institutional existence and that the present parliamentary organisation is not responsible for its predecessor’s financial affairs.

However, the European Parliament’s budgetary authorities have examined whether responsibility for outstanding liabilities can pass to a successor group.

An opinion approved by the Parliament’s Budgetary Control Committee in September considered the circumstances in which continuity between parliamentary groups might establish financial responsibility.

Such an assessment may consider whether members, administrative personnel, operational resources and other assets were transferred from one organisation to another.

The outcome could determine whether the current group is exposed to potential repayment demands, irrespective of whether its present members were personally involved in the expenditure under investigation.

No final determination of such liability has been established through Wednesday’s searches.

Political consequences in Strasbourg

The searches come at a time when Patriots for Europe has become a major political force within the European Parliament.

Its member parties have challenged EU policy on immigration, economic regulation and the distribution of powers between Brussels and national governments. National Rally and Fidesz are also influential actors in the domestic politics of France and Hungary respectively.

An investigation involving their parliamentary organisation is therefore likely to attract scrutiny beyond the immediate financial questions.

Nevertheless, the political influence of the group and the criminal investigation must be considered separately. The presence of prosecutors at parliamentary premises does not establish wrongdoing by the current group’s MEPs.

The case also raises broader questions about financial accountability within the Parliament, particularly when a political group dissolves following an election and its members establish a new organisation.

Unlike national political parties, European parliamentary groups receive funding specifically to support their legislative, administrative and political work inside the institution.

Those resources are subject to financial controls intended to prevent their diversion into activities that should be funded by national parties or other organisations.

Further proceedings

The EPPO is responsible for investigating and prosecuting offences affecting the European Union’s financial interests. It operates independently of national governments and EU political institutions.

The European Parliament has confirmed its cooperation with the authorities but has declined to comment on the substance of the continuing investigation.

Prosecutors must now assess the evidence obtained during the searches alongside financial records and material collected during previous investigative measures.

Any decision to bring criminal proceedings would depend on the evidence available and the relevant national and European legal requirements.

Separately, the Parliament will have to establish whether any recoverable funds are owed by the former group and, if so, which organisation is legally responsible for repayment.

For Patriots for Europe, the immediate issue is not only the progress of the criminal inquiry but whether the financial arrangements of a dissolved parliamentary group can create obligations for its successor.

In his book The Nerd Reich, journalist Gil Durán examines how Silicon Valley’s wealthiest investors are extending their influence over American politics, democratic institutions and national sovereignty. His warnings come amid unprecedented political spending by technology billionaires and growing concern over private control of strategic infrastructure.

Elon Musk has contributed more than $276 million since July to Republican political causes ahead of the United States midterm elections on 3 November. Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said decisions over Ukraine’s access to SpaceX satellite communications rest with the company rather than the White House. Both developments demonstrate how private technological and financial resources can influence decisions traditionally associated with government.

For journalist Gil Durán, author of The Nerd Reich: Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy, published by Avid Reader Press in August 2026, the issue extends beyond campaign donations. In a recent interview, he argued that a group of Silicon Valley investors is using its financial influence and control of technology to challenge the authority of elected governments.

“We’re at a decisive stage of that race,” Durán said when asked about the contest between technology and democracy described by venture capitalist Peter Thiel. His argument is that wealth alone no longer satisfies some of the industry’s most influential figures; they also want a direct role in determining how societies are governed.

The ideological origins of billionaire power

Durán places Thiel at the centre of this movement. In a 2009 essay, The Education of a Libertarian, the PayPal co-founder wrote that he no longer believed freedom and democracy were compatible. He argued that technological innovation could allow individuals to escape the constraints of conventional politics.

Thiel subsequently clarified that he was not advocating disenfranchisement. His stated position was that majority rule often frustrated individual liberty. Durán, however, interprets the essay and Thiel’s subsequent political investments as evidence of a sustained interest in diminishing democratic constraints on private power.

The book also examines The Sovereign Individual, a 1997 work by James Dale Davidson and William Rees-Mogg that anticipated how digital currencies and technological change might weaken the power of nation states. Durán sees its influence in later arguments for privately organised alternatives to traditional government.

One example is The Network State, developed by entrepreneur Balaji Srinivasan. It proposes that online communities could acquire territory and eventually obtain diplomatic recognition. Advocates describe a voluntary model of political organisation; Durán regards the prospect of corporate-financed jurisdictions as a challenge to public accountability.

From venture capital to the White House

The relationship between Thiel and Vice-President JD Vance illustrates how venture capital can translate into political influence. Thiel supported Vance’s early investment career and contributed $15 million to a super PAC backing his successful 2022 Senate bid. Durán attributes much of Vance’s political ascent to that support, although voters, party endorsements and Vance’s own campaigning also shaped the result.

Musk’s latest contributions offer a more immediate example. His donations since July include $158 million to the Senate Leadership Fund and more than $76 million to America PAC. Such spending is lawful under the rules governing independent political committees, which cannot coordinate their expenditure with candidates.

Durán contends that similar pressures affect Democrats, arguing that wealthy donors can exercise influence across party lines. His criticism therefore concerns the political system’s dependence on private funding as much as any particular administration.

Technology as an instrument of strategic power

The consequences extend beyond elections. Ukraine’s dependence on satellite communications has exposed how a privately owned service can become essential to military operations. Restrictions affecting Starlink-related services have prompted competing accounts from US officials and SpaceX over responsibility for the decision. Rubio’s latest remarks point towards commercial control, while earlier reporting attributed the decision to Washington.

Artificial intelligence raises comparable questions of ownership and oversight. Durán argues that investors promoting transformative AI may also seek regulatory conditions that protect their substantial financial commitments. His prediction of a possible investment bubble remains a judgement, not an established outcome.

In Europe, the debate has immediate regulatory consequences. The EU’s Digital Services Act requires major online platforms to assess risks to elections and civic debate, while enforcement of important provisions of the AI Act began in August 2026. These measures address the influence of companies whose platforms and systems operate across borders.

Durán’s interpretation of Silicon Valley as a coherent anti-democratic movement remains contested. The entrepreneurs he discusses have differing interests, and their political influence does not itself establish a common plan to dismantle democratic government.

Their influence is nevertheless measurable in campaign finances, government contracts and control over infrastructure essential to national security. None of these forms of power requires holding elected office.

Back in June, I wrote a post about Canada's two active secession movements: one in Alberta and one in Quebec. Since then, there have been some important developments. Alberta secessionists suffered a major defeat. Quebec secessionists are in better shape, but the odds are still against them succeeding anytime soon. That said, both movements may well persist for a long time to come.

Yesterday, Alberta secessionists lost a referendum on secession by a massive 75-25 margin. Pollsters expected a blowout, but this margin is close to the outer edge of expectations. Moreover, the result may actually understate the true extent of opposition to secession in the province. As noted in my earlier post, the question put to the voters was not directly about secession, but rather on whether "the Government of Alberta [should] commence the legal process required under the Canadian Constitution to hold a binding provincial referendum on whether or not Alberta should separate from Canada." Essentially, it was a referendum on whether to hold another referendum. Some "yes" voters might have been confused about what it meant or wanted to hold a second referendum, while planning to vote "no."

United Conservative Party Alberta Premier Danielle Smith (who played a key role in arranging yesterday's vote, despite opposing secession herself) has pledged not to hold any further referenda on secession. She may well be happy to sideline an issue that divides her party (Alberta secessionists are overwhelmingly right-of-center UCP voters).

All of this is bleak news for Alberta secessionists. But it's too early to say their movement is dead. As noted in my previous post, secession movements often persist for many years, even in the face of defeats in referenda and other political setbacks. Scotland, Quebec, and Catalonia are all examples of this phenomenon. And some 25% of Alberta voters did express support for secession, despite opposition from the leaders of all major political parties. That's a minority, but far from an insignificant one.

Meanwhile, in Quebec, on October 5, the secessionist Parti Quebecois (PQ) won the provincial election. But they got only 28% of the vote (the lowest percentage for any winning party in the history of Canadian provincial elections). That translated to a "minority" government that has 59 seats in Quebec's National Assembly (the provincial legislature), 5 short of a majority. And, as discussed in my previous post, secession remains unpopular, with polls showing opposition by a margin of 2-1 or more. For much more detailed discussions of the Quebec election and its ramifications, see analyses by Canadian election/polling experts Eric Grenier and Philippe Fournier.

As Fournier emphasizes, PQ leader Paul St. Pierre Plamondon (known as "PSPP") remains committed to holding a secession referendum. But the minority nature of his governments makes it unclear whether the PQ can find the votes to enact legislation to hold one. The left-wing Quebec Solidaire party (which holds 9 seats) is also pro-independence. But they may not be willing to work with the PQ. In addition, PSPP has promised not to hold a referendum so long as Donald Trump remains president of the United States, claiming it would be too dangerous to do so while Trump continues his trade war with Canada and otherwise threatens the country. Unless Trump dies or gets impeached and removed (both relatively unlikely), he will remain in office until January 2029. Canadian minority governments generally don't last more than two years. So PSPP may not be in power long enough to outlast Trump.

While Quebec secessionists seem unlikely to prevail in the near future, the fact that they managed to return to power is still a sign of the movement's persistence. And they have survived referendum defeats in 1980 and 1995. Thus, the movement is likely to continue to be a thorn in the side of Canadian federal governments, perhaps for many years to come. It has demonstrated its staying power over many years, much more so than Alberta secessionists.

Many Canadians believe Trump's threats against their country have weakened secessionists in both Alberta and Quebec. PSPP's stance is just part of the evidence for this conclusion. Trump's trade war and threats to make Canada the "51st state" have bolstered national unity and made the Liberal Party government of Prime Minister Mark Carney much more popular than might otherwise be the case. Trump is making Canadian national unity - and the Canadian Liberal Party - great again! But for him, the Liberals would likely have lost last year's Canadian federal election to the Conservatives.

Perhaps, all along, Trump has been trying to help the Liberals and stymie secessionists. If that's the true objective of his Canada policy, then maybe it's not quite as evil and stupid as otherwise seems to be the case. On a more serious note, Trump's policies have illegally usurped congressional authority over trade,  damaged our economy, and alienated a crucial ally - all for no good reason.

In my June post, I outlined reasons why I am more sympathetic to Alberta's secession movement (motivated by conservative economic ideology and grievances about federal fiscal transfers and energy policies), than Quebec's (motivated by Francophone ethno-nationalism). Although I think the Alberta movement has greater merit than Quebec's, for reasons also summarized in the earlier post, I remain skeptical that Alberta secession would accomplish more good than harm. I also explained why these movements may be of interest to many non-Canadians and why I (an American) comment on them them:

[T]hese events are… of interest to students of federalism and secession, and to anyone who cares about the future of America's northern neighbor and one of our most important allies. And history shows that secession movements often persist even after defeat in a referendum….

From a US perspective, I worry that a successful secession movement would make Canada a weaker and less effective ally. Unlike our current president, I think a strong Western alliance is essential….

Some might find it inappropriate for an American to comment on Canadian politics. I disagree. Canadians and other non-Americans often express views on US politics. And they have every right to do so. Political analysis should be judged on its substance, not on the background of the author. In addition,… Canadian secessionism potentially impacts the US in various ways, and raises broader issues about the morality of secession movements that Americans and others have reason to take an interest in…. I am a longtime academic expert on federalism and secession-related issues, and I know French, as well as English. Thus, I think have the necessary qualifications to write about these issues. Whether the commentary is any good or not, is for others to judge.

The post Update on Canada's Two Secession Movements appeared first on Reason Magazine.

Europe's political class loves democracy – right up until voters choose the wrong people. From Sweden to Germany and Britain, Steven Tucker says the establishment has found plenty of ways to keep the public in its place.

The post Democracy Dies in Fakeness: False Elections All Across Europe appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

Venezuela popular consultation lets more than 5,400 communes choose from 37,205 community projects, expanding participation to condominium boards.

Related: Venezuela Holds the Second National Popular Consultation of 2026

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Venezuela Popular Consultation Becomes Democratic Tradition

The Venezuela popular consultation is taking place across the country on Sunday, October 18, as more than 5,400 communes choose between 37,205 community development projects.

Venezuela’s Sectoral Vice President for Planning, Ricardo Menéndez, said the Second Popular Consultation of 2026 reaffirms the principles of grassroots democracy and strengthens the country’s participatory political system.

Menéndez described the consultation as a space that brings neighbors together to improve daily life and build broad national consensus.

The official said the exercise has become part of the democratic culture of the Venezuelan people. He argued that participation has gradually become a cultural practice within each commune, helping to create a new form of government and reorganize the state.

Menéndez linked the process to the political project promoted by Acting President Delcy Rodríguez, who has called for the redesign of state institutions around community participation.

The consultation allows residents to decide which projects should receive public financing and which priorities should guide local development.

The process is based on proposals selected during open community assemblies. Residents first identify local needs, then rank projects and submit them for a national vote.

The initiative seeks to move beyond traditional representative democracy by giving communities a direct role in allocating public resources.

More than 5,418 communes are participating in the vote. Each community is choosing among seven projects selected during assemblies held in the weeks leading up to the consultation.

The projects were developed through the Concrete Action Agendas, a planning process designed to identify local needs and organize community priorities.

The proposals address basic services and infrastructure needs, including drinking water, road repairs, school rehabilitation, health centers, electricity, public lighting, agriculture and sports facilities.

The consultation is taking place in 11,495 voting centers across Venezuela. Authorities said the centers will remain open as long as voters are waiting in line.

The process is supported by more than 12,700 electoral tables and approximately 48,086 communal councils organized within the country’s communes.

Unlike ordinary elections, the popular consultation allows citizens aged 15 and older to participate. The rule expands participation to young people who are not yet eligible to vote in general elections.

🇻🇪 Venezuela inicia hoy 18 de octubre la Segunda Consulta Popular Nacional de 2026. Millones de ciudadanos participan en más de 11.000 centros de votación*en todo el territorio nacional. #18Oct #ConsultaPopular2026 #ConsultaPopular #Venezuela pic.twitter.com/bNHaAyEqay

— teleSUR TV (@teleSURtv) October 18, 2026

Venezuela Popular Consultation Expands Participation

Venezuela’s Ministry of Popular Power for Communes | Venezuela’s National Electoral Council

The Venezuela popular consultation includes a major new feature: for the first time, condominium boards are participating in the process.

Approximately 120,000 condominium boards and neighborhood organizations are voting on 428 projects related to health, school rehabilitation, roads, agriculture and sports areas.

The inclusion of condominium boards expands the consultation beyond the traditional communal councils and communes that have participated in previous editions.

The change reflects an effort to involve urban residents who organize through apartment buildings and housing associations rather than through formal communal structures.

The government says the incorporation of condominiums will allow resources to reach communities that previously had limited access to participatory budgeting.

The initiative is also intended to strengthen links between residents, local authorities and state institutions.

The 428 condominium projects were selected through assemblies held in buildings and residential complexes. Residents identified needs such as repairs to common areas, water systems, electrical installations, elevators, roofs and access routes.

The projects are concentrated in several states, including Anzoátegui, Aragua, Carabobo, Lara, Miranda, Zulia and Caracas.

The pilot program covers approximately 40,097 families and includes 461 condominiums and 83 neighborhood organizations.

Authorities say the experience will be evaluated before condominium boards are incorporated more broadly into future consultations.

The expansion is significant because urban housing has become a central issue in Venezuela. Many buildings require maintenance after years of limited investment, economic pressure and damage caused by natural disasters.

The consultation also responds to the impact of the earthquakes that struck Venezuela on June 24. Some communities have proposed projects to rehabilitate vulnerable housing and repair public infrastructure affected by the tremors.

The government says the process ensures that resources are directed according to community priorities rather than decisions made exclusively by central authorities.

The consultation is the eighth national popular consultation organized since 2024 and the second held during 2026.

The first consultation of 2026 took place on March 8. The second was originally scheduled for July 12 but was postponed because of the June earthquakes.

Delcy Rodríguez announced the new date after community organizations requested additional time to address the damage caused by the seismic events.

The consultation is therefore taking place amid reconstruction efforts in areas affected by the earthquakes, including La Guaira and other parts of central Venezuela.

The government has emphasized that the process is supported by Article 70 of the Venezuelan Constitution, which recognizes referendums, consultations and other forms of direct participation.

The constitutional framework provides the legal basis for citizens to participate in decisions affecting public life, including the selection of local development projects.

Community Projects Target Basic Services

Venezuela’s Ministry of Planning | Venezuela’s Communes and Social Movements

The Venezuela popular consultation is designed to direct public resources toward projects identified by residents themselves.

The proposals reflect the immediate needs of communities across the country. Water supply is one of the most common concerns, with approximately 14 percent of the projects related to improving access to drinking water.

Water shortages have affected many Venezuelan communities because of damaged infrastructure, irregular electricity supply and limited maintenance capacity.

Other projects focus on road repairs, public lighting, electricity, school rehabilitation, health centers, sports facilities and agricultural production.

The projects are intended to address both immediate needs and longer-term development goals.

In Mérida state, for example, more than 1,700 community projects are being voted on. Local priorities include roads, water, education and public services.

In Caracas, communities have proposed projects to rehabilitate vulnerable housing damaged by the June earthquakes, repair building facades and improve communal spaces.

The consultation gives residents the opportunity to select the project they consider most urgent. The winning project is expected to receive financing, while other proposals may be included in a project bank for future funding.

The process is intended to prevent resources from being allocated according to political discretion or administrative convenience.

The government says the consultation is part of a broader effort to build what it calls a communal state. That model seeks to strengthen local organizations and give communities greater authority over public resources.

The communal model is based on the idea that citizens should participate directly in decisions affecting their neighborhoods, rather than relying solely on elected representatives.

The government argues that the consultation creates a new form of governance in which communities become the foundation of public planning.

Critics question whether the process has sufficient transparency and whether resources are distributed equitably across all regions.

They also point to Venezuela’s economic difficulties, including inflation, shortages and limited access to foreign currency, which can affect the implementation of approved projects.

The government has responded by saying that the consultation is a mechanism for organizing communities and directing scarce resources toward priority needs.

The participation of condominium boards and neighborhood associations could make the process more inclusive, but it also increases the administrative challenge of verifying projects and ensuring that funds are used correctly.

The consultation’s results will provide information about the priorities of Venezuelan communities. They may also influence future planning and budget decisions.

Geopolitical Context

The Venezuela popular consultation has political significance beyond local development because it forms part of the government’s effort to strengthen communal democracy.

The process is designed to consolidate the role of communes, communal councils and neighborhood organizations in public administration.

The government presents the consultation as a response to external pressure and as evidence that Venezuela’s political system remains active despite economic difficulties and international sanctions.

The consultation also has a regional dimension. Venezuela’s communal model has been promoted as an alternative to traditional representative democracy and has influenced political debates in other Latin American countries.

The inclusion of condominium boards could expand the model to urban communities that have historically been less connected to communal structures.

The process may therefore influence how other governments think about participatory budgeting, local planning and community organization.

The consultation is taking place during a period of reconstruction following the June earthquakes. The government is seeking to demonstrate that communities can participate in decisions about recovery and public investment.

The popular consultation also reinforces the government’s argument that public resources should be directed toward social needs rather than private profit.

The challenge will be to ensure that approved projects are completed and that communities can monitor their implementation.

The Venezuela popular consultation is therefore both a voting exercise and a broader political process aimed at reorganizing the state around community participation.

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On October 4, I published a post on "Libertarianism and Democracy," critiquing political philosopher Matt Zwolinski's earlier Liberalism.Org article on the same topic. Earlier today, I posted Matt's response to me. The present post is my rejoinder:

I would like to thank Matt for his interesting and insightful response. We agree on several key points, including that democracy is generally superior to authoritarianism, that libertarian critiques of democracy have great merit, and that - in much of the world - the most serious threats to liberty now come from the nationalist right, rather than the the political left. But we still differ on a few key points related to libertarianism and democracy.

The Nature of Libertarian Critiques of Democracy

Perhaps the most crucial disagreement is about the nature of libertarian critiques of democracy. Matt suggests that "[m]ost of what Ilya calls the libertarian critique of democracy is really a critique of big government." If so, libertarians can just focus on criticizing big government generally, while simultaneously extolling democracy.

There are indeed flaws of big government that arise regardless of whether it is democratic or authoritarian. But those outlined in my earlier Liberalism.Org article are in fact specific to democracy. They include tyranny of the majority, voter ignorance, and the tendency of democracy to create opportunities for illiberal forces to seize power and - in the worst case scenario - even destroy democracy itself.  Tyranny of the majority is obviously a problem distinctive to democracy. The same goes for rational voter ignorance, which arises from the perverse incentive structure  of individual voters, who have only an infinitesimally small chance of influencing electoral outcomes. And, while illiberal forces can and do seize power under authoritarian systems, the pathways democracies (usually involving the electoral process) create for them are distinctive.

Authoritarian systems have their own distinctive flaws, which are generally even worse. But the distinctive nature of democracy's flaws means they cannot simply be folded into a generic critique of big government. In addition, as noted in my response to Matt, these distinctive flaws of democracy are at the heart of many of today's most serious threats to liberty and justice in many democratic systems, including the threats posed by the nationalist right. Thus, it is important for libertarians to emphasize the nature and gravity of these weaknesses, and the value of our proposals for dealing them (which in many cases are different from and better than those advanced by other types of liberals). As emphasized in my earlier response, this is an area where libertarians often have a comparative advantage over other liberals. On the other hand, we generally do not have a comparative advantage when it comes to explaining why democracy is better than authoritarianism.

Along related lines, Matt suggests that libertarian critiques of the state aren't "an argument against democratic control of whatever the state does do." But once we recognize that democracy has significant distinctive flaws, there is actually a case for insulating some functions of government from democratic control. Obvious examples include the judiciary and monetary policy (unless we want to cut government out of the latter entirely, and adopt free banking). Indeed, even most non-libertarian liberals recognize that such insulation is desirable in some cases, most notably the courts.

The Problem of Libertarians Tempted by Authoritarianism

Matt argues that we should, nonetheless devote extensive energy to extolling democracy, because doing so is likely to have an impact on fellow libertarians who may otherwise be tempted to embrace authoritarianism. It is likely true that libertarians tempted in this way are more easily dissuaded by other libertarians than by non-libertarians. But such people are a tiny minority within an minority. Libertarians are a small group (probably around 5-10% of the US population or even less, depending on how you draw the line). Those sympathetic to authoritarianism are much fewer still. Thus, it makes little sense to devote more than a modest amount of time and effort to dealing with them, as opposed to addressing the much larger group of non-libertarian liberals who need to be more cognizant of the dangerous shortcomings of democracy.

Moreover, when we look at libertarians who have shifted to the "alt right" or otherwise become advocates of illiberal ideas, the problem in most cases is not excessive skepticism of democracy, but insufficient commitment to liberty - particularly, the liberty of people from different ethnic, racial, or religious backgrounds, that of migrants, and those with unconventional lifestyles. That is pretty obviously the case with Curtis Yarvin and Hans-Hermann Hoppe, both mentioned by Matt. The former's advocacy of a "post-liberal" ideology of repression (which is really based on pre-liberal models) is pretty obviously not the product of a man who thinks authoritarianism is a better way to protect liberty than democracy. Indeed, his concern is exactly the opposite (that democracy allows for way too much liberty). The same goes for Hoppe's advocacy of repression of immigrants, gays and lesbians, and people with various non-traditional lifestyles. Peter Thiel, the third case mentioned by Matt, is that of a person who has abandoned libertarianism for "national conservatism," an ideology focused on exalting the interests of ethnic and culture majorities and using the state to punish perceived "enemies." To the extent we want to focus on dissuading such people, it should be to reemphasize the value of liberty for all, not extolling the virtues of democracy. People who value democracy more than liberty are generally unlikely to become libertarians in the first place.

Two  Smaller Issues

Matt and I also have a modest disagreement over whether there can be situations where some form of authoritarianism can be a lesser evil compared to democracy. I think such cases are extremely rare, but not nonexistent. Matt's position is less clear, and perhaps I misunderstand him. But he does seem to want to deny this possibility. In response to my examples of the allied occupations of Germany and Japan after World War II, he seems to think these don't really count because "those occupations were run by democracies answerable to their own voters, and they ended." But they were still cases where non-democratic government was imposed on a population, and that population itself did not have control over when and if it would end.

In these cases, a non-democratic occupation government was a lesser evil than immediate establishment of democracy, because of the highly illiberal nature of German and Japanese majority public opinion at the time.  Similar circumstances can potentially arise in other countries. And, in some cases, a domestically generated authoritarian regime might still be a lesser evil than any democracy that is feasible at the time.

In some situations, the problem can be dealt with by limiting democracy, rather than abjuring it completely. For example, as noted in my earlier response, post-occupation West Germany long banned Nazis and communists from competing in elections, but otherwise committed to free electoral competition. But there could be situations where such constraints are not enough. Because such cases are highly unusual, this is not a particularly important disagreement. But it does have relevance in situations where we consider how to deal with a society where majority public opinion is deeply illiberal.

Finally - and least important - Matt differs with me about the use of the terms "libertarian" and "classical liberal," arguing that the former are more likely to be democracy-skeptics than the latter. We can, if we want, define the two terms in such a way that people we label with one are generally more suspicious of democracy than those we label with the other one. But that is not the way the terms are typically used. That said, different people use these terms in different ways. To my mind, they are mostly just alternative labels for the same general ideology. But I don't have much of a beef with people who prefer to use them differently than I do, so long as they make clear what they mean.

Ultimately, Matt and I agree on much more than we differ. But a few of the issues we differ have real significance. I am grateful for the opportunity to consider them.

The post Libertarianism and Democracy Revisited - A Rejoinder to Matt Zwolinski appeared first on Reason Magazine.

On October 4, I published a post on "Libertarianism and Democracy," critiquing political philosopher Matt Zwolinski's earlier Liberalism.Org article on the same topic. Matt has written a response to me, which I have agreed to post at this site. The remaining paragraphs of this post were written by Matt Zwolinski, not me (Ilya Somin). I have posted a rejoinder to Matt's thoughtful response here.

Who Should Defend Democracy?

A reply to Ilya Somin

My recent Liberalism.org essay, "Democracy Belongs on the List," made the case that classical liberals should count democracy among their core commitments, alongside private property, free markets, and the rule of law. And it belongs there for the same reason. Like property rights and markets, democracy is a crucial way of keeping power in check.

Ilya Somin has written a generous and thoughtful reply to that piece. And I think he actually agrees with me more than the framing of his post might suggest. Ilya grants that democracies are generally freer and more prosperous than the alternatives, that democracy is "a valuable check on power," that libertarians should arguably stress these points "more often," and that "in much of the world today, right-wing nationalists pose a greater threat to libertarian values and priorities than the political left does." What's left mainly comes down to two questions: what counts as a libertarian critique of democracy, and whose job it is to defend democracy.

Before turning to those substantive issues, though, there's one terminological matter that's worth clearing up. Ilya says that nothing of significance hinges on whether we call our view "libertarian" or "classical liberal." And on most questions I'd agree. On this one, though, I think the difference matters. In The Individualists, John Tomasi and I draw a distinction between strict libertarians and classical liberals. The former group tends to treat liberty as a moral absolute and to derive their politics from a single overarching principle like the non-aggression axiom. Think Murray Rothbard or Ayn Rand. The latter treat liberty as a strong but defeasible presumption and are more empiricist and pluralistic in their approach to politics. Think Friedrich Hayek or Richard Epstein.

My sense is that these two camps within the broader "liberty movement" have taken pretty different stances toward democracy, with strict libertarians being much more critical than their classical liberal brethren. Even back in the 19th century, you could find Benjamin Tucker insisting that voting is always a form of aggression, and Lysander Spooner arguing that women "have just as good a right to make laws as men have, and no better: AND THAT IS JUST NO RIGHT AT ALL." Herbert Spencer was even willing to walk back his support of women's suffrage once he decided that women would probably use their vote to support bigger government. That's a pretty different take than anything you're likely to find in Ludwig von Mises or Friedrich Hayek (more on whom later), let alone in John Stuart Mill.

That brings us to the first of the two substantive issues under dispute. Ilya argues that recent events have made libertarian critiques of democracy more important than ever, and that the libertarian solutions to democracy's flaws are "primarily to limit and decentralize government power." I'm with him on that, but I don't think this settles, or even really addresses, the debate about democracy. Limiting and decentralizing government power is a claim about the scope of the state, about how much government should do. It's a principle that would apply to any government, whether democratic or not. And, crucially, it isn't an argument against democratic control of whatever the state does do.

That distinction was at the heart of my essay. Following Jacob Levy, I argued that classical liberals have let a perfectly sound critique of too much government slide into a skepticism about democracy itself, treating democracy, in Levy's words, "as if the contrast to 'democratic' were 'economic' rather than 'autocratic.'" One can be a radical about reducing the scope of the state and still insist that its agents must be answerable to the people they govern. Most of what Ilya calls the libertarian critique of democracy is really a critique of big government. That's an argument I largely agree with, as far as it goes. The trouble comes when we file it under the wrong heading. When we ourselves blur the line between critiques of state power and critiques of democracy, we shouldn't be surprised when people come away thinking libertarians are against democracy.

That brings me to comparative advantage, which is where I think Ilya's argument is most interesting but also most mistaken. Libertarians are a small minority, he says, and "we have no comparative advantage when it comes to extolling the virtues of democracy relative to authoritarianism. Other types of liberals can do this work just as well as we can, perhaps better." So we should stick to what we do best, which is analyzing democracy's flaws.

This argument might make sense in some contexts. But as a general principle, I think it misfires, and it misfires most badly when the audience is classical liberals and libertarians themselves. That, after all, is where the turn against democracy has actually happened. Hans-Hermann Hoppe's Democracy: The God That Failed argued that monarchy was preferable to democracy, and complained that "habitual democrats" had been tolerated rather than "isolated, excluded and expelled from civilization." Curtis Yarvin, who came to neoreaction by way of libertarianism, credits Hoppe with opening "a kind of door to the pre-revolutionary world" for him. And in 2009, Peter Thiel wrote in a Cato Institute publication that "I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible." None of this follows from the libertarian critique of voter ignorance, and nothing Ilya has written points in this direction. But it grew in a movement where, as Janet Bufton recently put it in Liberal Currents, "even liberal libertarians were taught arguments about why democracy fails," and hardly anyone was making the case for democracy on libertarian terms. Any old liberal can explain to the public why democracy beats dictatorship. But a libertarian drifting toward Hoppe or Yarvin isn't going to listen to them. Only libertarians can tell libertarians that democracy is theirs.

So if democracy is a libertarian value, what kind of libertarian value is it? Ilya argues that democracy shouldn't be "a first-order libertarian priority, on par with liberty, constraining coercion, property rights, and increasing human happiness," because its value is instrumental rather than intrinsic. I agree that the value of democracy is instrumental. In that way, it's in precisely the same position as a number of items on the classical liberal list. Free trade, federalism, judicial review, and the rule of law are instrumental too. What I want to resist is the claim that because democracy is only instrumentally valuable it's therefore dispensable – something that can be traded away whenever we can imagine something better. What we can imagine, though, is a poor guide to what works. The better question, as David Schmidtz argues, is what has "an observable history of leading self-interested agents to act in ways that are useful and agreeable to the people around them," and by that test democracy has very few rivals.

Which leaves us with Hayek. Ilya defends Hayek's preference for "a liberal dictator to a democratic government lacking liberalism" as a claim about rare hypothetical cases, and suggests that transitional non-democratic rule "may be necessary" in places like Russia and China, citing the Allied occupations of Germany and Japan. But those occupations were run by democracies answerable to their own voters, and they ended. Russia and China, in contrast, have no outside power that could impose a transition and then hand power back. The only realistic candidate for transitional power in those countries is a domestic strongman, which is exactly the case Hayek had in front of him. Hayek wasn't musing about hypotheticals; he was talking about Chile.

Ultimately, Ilya and I want the same thing. We both advocate a form of libertarianism that resists concentrated power wherever it appears, including when it arrives through the ballot box. Where we differ is on the need to say out loud that democracy is one of the ways we resist it. I think we should, and I think libertarians are better placed to say it than anyone, since the people who most need to hear it are our own.

The post Who Should Defend Democracy? appeared first on Reason Magazine.

More than 25,000 police officers were deployed across New Delhi recently to prevent demonstrations led by India’s new youth-led political movement, the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP). Government authorities had denied the CJP permission to protest on public-order grounds. The ensuing security operation saw the authorities shut one in six metro stations in the capital, barricade […]

The post Can a cockroach movement reverse India’s democratic decline? appeared first on Asia Times.

Venezuela holds its Second National Popular Consultation this Sunday with 5,418 communal circuits choosing among over 37,000 locally proposed projects in water, roads, lighting, health and education.

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Venezuela will hold its second National Popular Consultation of the year on October 18, in which communes across the country will vote directly on 37,205 budget proposals, with each winning project set to receive an initial $10,000 administered by the community itself.

The vote covers 48,086 communal councils grouped into 5,418 territorial circuits, which the source describes as guaranteeing self-government at the neighborhood level.

RELATED: Venezuela Presents Venezuela Renace Plan Update 100 Days After Earthquakes

To facilitate participation, authorities have set up 11,495 voting centers and 12,769 polling tables nationwide. The process will be guarded by 13,000 members of the Republic Plan security deployment, with operational support from more than 36,000 communal members advised by the National Electoral Council (CNE).

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Una publicación compartida de teleSUR English (@telesurenglish)

What Voters Will Decide

The proposals are tied to the government’s Concrete Action Agenda. The City and Services sector has the largest share, with 19,028 projects focused on water, electricity, roads and hospital infrastructure. The social area has 9,217 initiatives, and the economic sector has 4,887 proposals to boost local production.

Each project chosen by popular vote will receive an initial allocation of $10,000, to be managed and carried out directly by the commune. Institutional spokespeople said earlier editions closed with more than 80% successful executions, thanks to what they called the rigorous application of preventive social oversight.

Venezuelans will vote this Sunday on another National Popular Consultation. Each organized community will choose a project, according to local needs, that will receive 10k in state funding. Alongside communes, over 400 condominium boards are also participating pic.twitter.com/ecihlXWs8U

— Venezuelanalysis (@venanalysis) October 16, 2026

First Condominium Vote

One structural change stands out this year. More than 89 condominiums and horizontal property movements from Aragua, Miranda and the Capital District have joined the process formally. It is the first time these residential boards can put forward priority projects of their own, from elevator repairs to improvements in basic services inside buildings.

In the days before the vote, communes carried out house-to-house outreach to promote the proposals now heading to the ballot. That door-knocking campaign carried each initiative into homes and opened neighbor-to-neighbor debate over territorial priorities.

The Sunday vote will also promote the active participation of young people aged 15 and older, which authorities say favors generational renewal in local public management.

Acting President Delcy Rodríguez, speaking in at the Villa Zoila commune, emphasized that “the people are exercising a protagonistic and participatory form of democracy.”

“We are going to democracy, to participation and to the emotion that always comes with going to an election,” she said.

Rodríguez connected the vote to the delivery of the National Budget before the National Assembly. That spending plan, she explained, is built “from the communes.” Communes and community organizations take part in deciding where resources will be invested, an advance she said Venezuela must preserve.

The second edition of the year confirms the National Popular Consultation has moved beyond an isolated event. It now functions as a recurring mechanism of popular decision, with organized communes as the leading actors in local public spending, as a pillar of participatory democracy in Venezuela.

On a recent episode of the Bulwark podcast, journalist Ron Brownstein described the election as a contest between “the wave versus the wall.” The wave being voter anger and President Donald Trump’s plummeting popularity. The wall being structural impediments to voters’ voices, such as gerrymanders and the Republican Party’s stark spending advantage. Now we know […]

The post Don’t let Musk and the billionaires buy America’s elections appeared first on Asia Times.

Despite admitting mass immigration is damaging the country, the ruling classes fail to secure the border while clamping down on dissent. It's accelerating Britain towards crisis, say David Betz and Michael Rainsborough.

The post Britain is Accelerating Towards Crisis appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

Influx of voters from overseas alarms Netanyahu's bloc, with tens of thousands having left during his current term; returning citizens say vote 'crucial' for Israel's future

The most consequential changes in a democracy do not always arrive with a constitutional crisis. Rather, they come through appointments, legal amendments and seemingly ordinary political bargains, accumulating one after another until the political system begins to look different from the one that came before. That is the real value of the “boiling frog” metaphor. […]

The post The slow boiling of Indonesian democracy appeared first on Asia Times.

“Unparalleled and unprecedented” police repression in India, where thousands of protesters demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar were met with mass detentions, internet shutdowns, and a brutal crackdown across Delhi over the weekend. Dr. Nitheesh Narayanan of the Tricontinental Institute for Social Research joins Zoe Alexandra and Rania Khalek, following the deployment of 50,000 police and armed forces to suppress youth-led protests over the Special Intensive Revision’s removal of more than 130 million names from voter rolls.

Narayanan says Saturday’s action marked a turning point in India’s months-long wave of repression, uniting students, the left, and the Gen Z-led Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) in the fight for a democratic, secular India – “and the idea that it’s the people, not power, who define a country.” He breaks down how Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) stacked the committee that appointed Commissioner Kumar, why the SIR disproportionately targets minorities and the poor, and why the outrage and demands for accountability are growing despite the crackdown. And as Trump pushes a unified voter roll in the US, India’s purge could offer a preview of what’s at stake: “Is this democracy, or is it the daylight murder of democracy?”

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Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has apparently started to realize that the ruling conservative New Democracy party will hardly manage to achieve the necessary 30+% of the votes in the upcoming elections and secure a majority government like in the last two parliamentary votes. Over the weekend, PM Mitsotakis made clear if the election result […]

The post Mitsotakis on elections: 25% for ND could mean serious questions for party leadership appeared first on Keep Talking Greece.

Andy Burnham will say that failing to pursue a closer relationship with the EU would be a "dereliction of duty" in a major Commons address today, following his comments blaming Russia for interfering in the Brexit vote.

The post Burnham to Say it’s His “Duty” to Pursue Closer EU Ties appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

By Emran FEROZ

Contact us: info@strategic-culture.su

The war inaugurated a terrible new global order in which armed drones kill civilians who are neither named nor counted.

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There were nights full of terror. Our village was bombed constantly,” says Zalmay Khan. Afterward, he goes to pray. Because of his wounds, he cannot kneel, so he prays sitting down.

Khan is in his early twenties and now works as a Taliban intelligence officer. As a boy, he says, he learned to read the sky before he learned to read words. His village in Wardak province, near Kabul, was bombed, then bombed again. First came American planes, then NATO’s, then those of the Afghan army the West had built. By night it got worse, when jets and armed foreign contractors hit villages and killed civilians seemingly at random.

“I became a Mujahed [a Taliban fighter] naturally,” Khan tells me.

He is not an outlier. In village after village on my most recent trip to Afghanistan a few weeks ago, I met men who grew up as the so-called war on terror’s raw material. Some wear the Taliban’s turbans, and some do not. Almost all of them say the same thing, with remarkable calm: The American narrative of this war belongs to the past. After two decades of war and destruction, it is their turn to control narratives and to rule the country.

October 7, 2026, marks exactly 25 years since the United States began bombing Afghanistan. The anniversary will pass in Washington with little reflection. In Afghanistan, the reality of it is lived daily.

Drones and Ghosts

The war on terror made history in a way few people remember. In its opening weeks, the United States used an armed drone against a target in Afghanistan, one of the first such attacks ever, in an attempt to kill the Taliban’s founder, Mullah Mohammad Omar, in Kandahar. Omar was not hit on October 7, 2001. He survived and reportedly died of natural causes a decade later, which the Taliban kept secret for years.

Who died instead? The record offers almost nothing: no definitive or officially confirmed names, ages, villages. One news report cites unnamed Kandahar residents suggesting the raid killed Omar’s 10-year-old son and the child’s stepfather, but the Taliban’s ambassador to Pakistan declined to confirm or deny this report.

In other words, the first known attempt to kill a man with an armed drone killed people no one has ever definitively identified, and it set the template for the type of warfare that would dominate over the next decades. No one can say who the victims were. But if the pattern of the following years is any guide, many were likely civilians, like the thousands of victims who came after them. During the Obama years, Afghanistan officially became the world’s most drone-bombed country.

That template repeated itself so often that Afghans developed names for the many men who were declared dead after supposed “surgical strikes,” but who then reappeared alive: mord-e zinda (the living dead) in Farsi and khyali marr (the not truly dead) in Pashto. I call them “Taliban ghosts.”

It continued across successive U.S. administrations, even across the bureaucratic, supposedly methodical “kill lists” infamously used by the Obama administration used to mark people for death from the skies.

The obvious question was almost never asked: If Omar was not the victim, who was killed instead? In the logic of the drone war, a body is a statistic, and a body in a targeted area becomes a militant by default. The dead were not counted, and the stories of their families, who were left to count for themselves, largely continued to go unknown.

Strikes did not only create ghosts. They also created recruits. Researchers, journalists, and Afghan elders have long described the same pattern: A village is hit, a family is destroyed, and the Taliban offer the survivors the only form of justice made available to them. By the end of the war, entire districts had made that choice, not out of ideological conviction but out of grief.

Democratic Torture

One of the people I talked to on my recent trip was a Taliban official who had been held at Bagram, the American prison north of Kabul, for several years. He told me what the Americans wanted from him. “Accept our democracy or get tortured and rot here. That’s what they told me,” he recalled.

The aim, as he described it, was reeducation by coercion: Accept our system, our ideology, and the pain stops. He refused. By his account, he left more committed than when he arrived. He was freed in 2020 under the prisoner exchange the United States negotiated with the Taliban, part of the same Doha process that handed the country back to the movement the war was purportedly meant to destroy.

Consider the sequence. A man is imprisoned and tortured to make him embrace a political order. He then walks out of the prison and eventually helps govern. The war’s own methods created much of its failure.

I make no argument here that the Taliban’s rule is benign. Women and girls have been shut out of education and public life, and dissent is severely punished. These facts belong in any honest account. But an honest account also includes what the war did, who did it, and whom they harmed; the powers that waged it have shown little interest in reckoning with that part.

A War Passed On

Here is the part that does not fit the story that the war on terror ended in August 2021: someone else is still fighting it.

Pakistan is currently bombing Afghanistan. Just a few days ago, Pakistani airstrikes killed at least 10 civilians, most of them children, in the provinces of Helmand and Kunar.

Pakistani authorities say they are targeting militants of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, often known as the Pakistani Taliban. Afghans on the ground, and independent reports, repeatedly describe civilians as being among the dead. Islamabad has also forced hundreds of thousands of Afghans, many of them born there, out of Pakistan.

The phrasing used to justify these attacks is familiar: “Terrorists were eliminated.” Anyone who covered the American war has heard that sentence before, and the same pattern follows. The claims are hard to verify, the dead are hard to identify, and the people left behind are not asked.

Pakistan has run this game before, and it has historically done well for itself out of it. In the first days of the war on terror, Islamabad aligned itself with Washington while, according to critics and many former officials, hedging its bets with the Taliban. The United States poured billions into Pakistan in military aid and reimbursements. A double game paid for itself.

For a military establishment that benefits from a war to fight, an enemy is an asset. That helps explain why the army has so little tolerance for those who challenge its role. This pattern goes beyond the foreign policy of one country alone. It is a system — one created by the U.S. but now adopted globally — that requires a threat to warrant its continued expansion and removes the people who question its logic.

If Pakistan again needs an Afghan threat to justify its budgets, its alliances, and its hold on power at home, the logic is the same as in 2001. The war on terror, seen from Islamabad, is a renewable resource.

The Violence That Made the TTP

The TTP itself is not a mystery. It did not appear from nowhere, and it cannot be blamed on Kabul alone. It grew out of Pakistan’s own tribal areas, where decades of military operations, drone strikes with Islamabad’s tacit consent, and brutality under former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf shattered communities. Many of these massacres have been forgotten outside the region. In the tribal belt they are not.

The result was a generation radicalized by state violence, in much the same process I heard described in Afghan villages. The TTP is, in significant part, a product of the very policies now used to justify the continued bombing of Afghanistan. Without Pakistan’s violence in the tribal areas, the group would not look as it does. Accountability for that history will not come from the same army that carried it out.

The war on terror in Afghanistan was sold as a campaign against a specific enemy. What it produced was a country scarred by airstrikes, night raids, and detention, and an enemy that outlasted the world’s strongest military. It also produced a new precedent: That a state can kill from the sky, in secret, and rarely be asked who died, much less held accountable for its deathmaking.

That precedent traveled. Drones have gone from being an innovation in killing, one shrouded in secrecy, to a mainstay of battlefields on multiple continents.. The language of “surgical” strikes and “militants eliminated” has become standard, notably throughout the genocide in Gaza. And in Afghanistan, the war continues in new hands, with the same justifications and the same result.

On October 7, if this anniversary is marked in the U.S. at all, there will be speeches about sacrifice and lessons supposedly learned. The real lessons are available to anyone who asks the people who lived under the sky, and the most critical question is still the one nobody answered in 2001: Who was killed instead?

Original article:  truthout.org

Scores of the elected opposition members of India’s Parliament were detained by security forces in the capital, New Delhi, on Tuesday, October 6, after they protested against the alleged rigging in the elections and demanded removal of the country’s Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar. 

The Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi and several other MPs also claimed they were manhandled by the police during the detention and forcefully removed from the protests site. All of the detainees were released later.

The protests by the MPs was a part of the ongoing nationwide mobilizations which broke out on Saturday over alleged rigging and irregularities in various elections under the incumbent CEC. The protesters are demanding his immediate removal claiming he manipulated the elections in various states to benefit the ruling party.   

Despite the heavyhandedness of the security forces who have refused to allow any protest gathering in the capital and repeatedly detained opposition leaders, students, and youth group protesters, people turned up on the streets of Delhi and other parts of the country for the consecutive fifth day on Wednesday. 

Several protesters have claimed they were beaten up during detention while some women reporters have claimed they were molested by police personnel on duty during those protests. 

Also on Tuesday, security forces allegedly attacked a cultural gathering organized around the issue by the left-wing Student Federation of India (SFI) in central Delhi. 

On Wednesday, major left and progressive student organizations such as SFI, the All India Students Association (AISA), and the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), a movement which emerged in protests demanding reforms in the country’s education system earlier this year, announced a new joint protest beginning from October 10.

Rigging in elections is murdering democracy 

Rahul Gandhi, who is also the leader of India’s main opposition party, the Indian National Congress (INC), claimed around 300 opposition MPs were marching from the country’s Parliament building to the office of the Election Commission of India (ECI), seeking a meeting with the CEC when the security forces stopped them and detained them.

He reiterated that the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), in collaboration with the CEC, has been responsible for destroying democracy in the country by rigging elections. He called the act “treason” and warned that none of the people responsible for “murdering democracy” in the country will be spared whether it is the Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, or Gyanesh Kumar.

The ultra-right-wing and Hindu-supremacist BJP has been in power since 2014, winning three national elections, including the last one in 2024. It is also ruling a majority of states in India.

Speaking in a press conference in Delhi on Wednesday, Neha Bora, president of AISA and one of the leaders of the movement, claimed that the movement against the manipulations in the national elections by the CEC and the BJP will continue until the removal of Gyanesh Kumar.

Over 130 million Indians have been removed from electoral rolls in the country since the ECI, the highest body responsible for conducting elections in the country, started the so-called Special Intensive Revision (SIR) last year under Gyanesh Kumar’s leadership.

Opposition parties and legal experts have claimed that the SIR is illegal, as it is not mentioned in the ECI rule books and the process was started to manipulate election results to favor the ruling BJP.

A recent report in one of the main English daily paper’s in the country also claimed that most of the decisions taken by Gyanesh Kumar as CEC were illegal.

In the last few weeks, opposition has also alleged that the ECI and BJP collaborated to remove thousands of names, mostly Muslim voters, from the electoral rolls in various constituencies across the country.

Talking to the media on Tuesday, John Britas MP from the Communist Party of India (Marxist) claimed that protests against Gyanesh Kumar are a “historical movement to save democracy” in the country. He accused Kumar, in collaboration with the BJP, of destroying the reputation of India’s electoral process and of being the “real enemy of the nation.”

Britas called for his immediate removal as CEC and demanded he must be tried for his criminal activities.

Something important happened in Germany yesterday, says Eugyppius. The state parliament of Sachsen-Anhalt elected an AfD President with CDU votes – the first breach of the 'firewall' that keeps the Right out of power.

The post Firewall Falls: German State Parliament Elects AfD President With CDU Votes appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

In seiner letzten offiziellen Rede als formelles Staatsoberhaupt der Bundesrepublik Deutschland malte Frank-Walter Steinmeier ein apokalyptisches Bild und skizzierte düstere Szenarien. Die Worte des Bundespräsidenten ließen schwere Zeiten für die deutsche parlamentarische Demokratie erahnen. Sie erinnerten an das traurige Schicksal der Weimarer Republik. Diese hatte sowohl aufgrund objektiver Faktoren wie der weltweiten Wirtschaftskrise als auch aufgrund der politischen Ohnmacht der damaligen deutschen politischen Eliten ihr Ende gefunden. Letztere waren nicht in der Lage, den Aufstieg der NSDAP und die Machtübernahme durch Adolf Hitler zu verhindern.

Steinmeier sprach davon, dass «am 3. Oktober 1990 eine tiefe Wunde verheilt ist – eine Wunde, die Deutschland zuvor über mehr als vier Jahrzehnte hinweg gequält, belastet und in einem unnatürlichen Zustand innerer Spaltung gefangen gehalten hatte. Das Streben nach Einheit – und dieses gab es sowohl im Osten als auch im Westen – ist in Erfüllung gegangen. (…)» stellen die politischen Realitäten des heutigen Deutschlands die Behauptung in Frage, dass es Deutschland 36 Jahre später gelungen sei, eine echte Einheit zu erreichen. Jedenfalls zeigen die jüngsten Landtagswahlen in Sachsen-Anhalt, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern und Berlin deutlich, dass Deutschland in politischer Hinsicht nach wie vor ein geteiltes Land ist.

Leider hat der Bundespräsident einmal mehr die schlimmsten Eigenschaften eines typischen «Wessis» an den Tag gelegt: einen moralischen Überlegenheitskomplex, Arroganz und Verachtung gegenüber seinen eigenen Landsleuten aus dem Osten. Laut Steinmeier haben diese es trotz 36 Jahren, in denen sie frei zwischen zwei oder mehr Kandidaten wählen konnten, immer noch nicht gelernt, die Demokratie zu lieben. Sie seien latente «Kommunisten», «Nazis» und sogar – oh Schreck! – Anhänger von Wladimir Putin. Sie befürworten die Politik der Russischen Föderation und verstehen, warum Russland eine militärische Sonderoperation in der Ukraine begonnen hat.

Allerdings hätte man kaum etwas anderes von einem Menschen erwarten können, der der Ansicht ist, dass die Entscheidung über wichtige politische Fragen nicht den einfachen Wählern anvertraut werden sollte. Und der öffentlich erklärt, dass «Referenden nicht zur DNA der deutschen Nation gehören».

Das ist nicht das richtige Volk

«Fast vier Jahrzehnte nach der deutschen Wiedervereinigung und zahlreichen – wie ich meine – historisch beispiellosen Anstrengungen zum Aufbau und zur Erneuerung bekundet ein erheblicher Teil der Bürger sein Misstrauen gegenüber der politischen Ordnung der Bundesrepublik. Ich will damit nicht sagen, dass sie alle gegen die Demokratie an sich sind. Aber ehrlich gesagt weiß ich es selbst nicht. (…)»

«Die unerträgliche politische Demagogie extremistischer Kräfte, die ihren Zerstörungsdrang ausleben, andere Menschen verhöhnen und bedrohen, gefährdet heute nicht nur Freiheit und Demokratie. Sie gefährdet auch unseren inneren Zusammenhalt. (…)», so sprach Steinmeier leidenschaftlich von der Tribüne in Bremen aus. Dem Bundesland wurde die Ehre zuteil, die Feierlichkeiten im Jahr 2026 auszurichten.

Der Bundespräsident schimpfte über «russische Trolle». Er prangerte die «Zerstörungswut» an. Er entlarvte die «Propagandalügen» «Extremisten» und «Aufhetzer». Offensichtlich versuchte er dabei, die inneren Probleme Deutschlands auf die Machenschaften äußerer Feinde zurückzuführen.

Diese Worte warf der Bundespräsident dem ehemaligen Bundeskanzler Gerhard Schröder, der in der ersten Reihe des Zuschauerraums saß, geradezu ins Gesicht.

Schröder, bei dem Steinmeier einst als Referent seine Karriere in der großen Politik begann und dem er im Grunde seine politische Laufbahn verdankt, wird in seiner Heimat bis heute wegen ˚besonderer Verbindungen’ zu Russland stigmatisiert.

Allerdings muss man zugeben, dass ein Teil der Fragen, die dem deutschen Staatschef vor Publikum gestellt wurden, durchaus berechtigt ist.

«Wir müssen uns unverblümt fragen: Was haben die Regierungen auf Bundes- und Landesebene in den letzten dreieinhalb Jahrzehnten versäumt, sodass sich so viele Menschen von ihnen abgewandt haben und Extremisten so großen Anklang finden? (…)»

Leider wird Frank-Walter Steinmeier, wenn er die Probleme der wirtschaftlichen Ungleichheit zwischen Ost- und Westdeutschland, die durch die Politik der regierenden Parteien der politischen Mitte verursacht wurden, bis heute nicht erkennt, kaum eine substanzielle Antwort auf diese Frage geben können.

«Die Diskreditierung demokratischer Verfahren, die Radikalisierung der Öffentlichkeit und die Verunglimpfung des Kompromisses, die wir beobachten, müssen für uns eine Warnung sein. Ob Berlin der Weimarer Republik ähneln wird, ist noch nicht entschieden. Aber alles liegt in unseren Händen».

«Es ist ein Teufelskreis: Populistische Parteien aller Couleur destabilisieren die parlamentarische Demokratie.»

Kurz gesagt: Am Vertrauensverlust in die Demokratie der Bundesrepublik Deutschland sind nach Steinmeiers Ansicht keineswegs die politischen Eliten schuld, die das Land in die Wirtschaftskrise geführt haben, sondern Populisten und Demagogen.

Ob der Bundespräsident es nun wollte oder nicht – er wiederholte praktisch wortwörtlich das, was Politiker der Weimarer Republik sagten, um ihre Versäumnisse bei der Staatsführung zu rechtfertigen.

Auch die Frage der Unterstützung des Regimes in Kiew sowie die Notwendigkeit einer weiteren Stärkung der deutschen Militärmacht ließ der Präsident nicht außer Acht.

«Wir müssen die Ukraine in ihrem Verteidigungskampf konsequent und entschlossen unterstützen. Es ist gut, dass unsere Streitkräfte an Stärke gewinnen. Ich bin der Meinung, dass es an der Zeit ist, eine ausgereifte Haltung zum Verhältnis von militärischer Stärke und diplomatischer Klugheit zu entwickeln.»

Alle Probleme der Demokratie – durch die neuen Medien

Noch schärfer äußerte sich der Bundespräsident, als es um die Rolle der Medien ging. In erster Linie ging es um die neuen Medien wie Mikroblogging-Dienste und soziale Netzwerke, die für den modernen Medienkonsumenten die traditionellen Zeitungen und das Fernsehen abgelöst haben. Dass es zwischen der Information und dem Leser nun keine Zwischeninstanz in Form von professionellen Journalisten mehr gibt – Medienwächter, die Nachrichten filtern und ihnen die von den politischen Eliten gewünschten Bedeutungen verleihen –, ist nach Ansicht von Steinmeier absolut inakzeptabel.

Die «Dominanz» des Internets habe die Fähigkeit vieler Medien zu nüchternem Urteilsvermögen getrübt – so lässt sich seine eigentliche Kritik an den Medien grob zusammenfassen. Vor dem Beginn des digitalen Zeitalters waren die Medien noch in der Lage, «zu unterscheiden, ob jemand auf der Grundlage von Millionen von Wählerstimmen ein Mandat erhalten kann oder ob er lediglich seine persönliche Unzufriedenheit zum Ausdruck bringt», oder «zu unterscheiden, ob jemand mit nachgewiesener Fachkompetenz in seinem Bereich aufklärt oder ob er Gerüchte verbreitet, an Mythen glaubt und Verschwörungsfantasien erfindet».

Kurz gesagt: Anstatt die eigenen Fehler sowie die der Parteien der politischen Mitte insgesamt einzugestehen, beschloss Steinmeier am Nationalfeiertag der Deutschen, die Verantwortung für die Probleme der deutschen Wirtschaft auf die Machenschaften äußerer und innerer Feinde abzuwälzen – in erster Linie auf die Partei AfD, Wladimir Putin und Elon Musk.

Ein solch kurzsichtiger Ansatz verschärft die innenpolitische Krise in Deutschland leider nur noch weiter. Er untergräbt das Vertrauen in die Demokratie. Und er führt zu einem weiteren Erstarken der Parteien an den äußeren Polen des politischen Spektrums.