What it means to be a liberal democracy

The current political moment is a serious misunderstanding of what it means to be a liberal democracy.

Liberal means liberty. Democracy refers to the right of people to govern their own affairs.

This period is neither more liberal nor more democratic, by those standards. Meaning, though many of us live in liberal democracies, the notion that we are making progress on the road to becoming more liberal and more democratic is not borne out by the illiberal efforts of those with power to undermine liberty and self-determination by liberal democratic peoples.

This moment is hardly progressive by any liberal democratic standard.

And political leaders in both parties are in for a rude awakening at how illiberal practices by government square with liberal democratic peoples' need and pursuit of greater liberty and democratic self-governance as the standard for their progress.

Those principles mean something, even when we pretend that they do not.

Thank goodness we live in a liberal democracy that can correct for the illiberal practices of our political leaders.