This is also why to liberals term limits are one of the most important of those “rituals”. In the US they were specifically instituted because FDR just kept winning elections on account of people believing their lives were improving because of his policies.
That one specifically is a very American point of view as term limits don’t even exist in all western liberal democracies. Xi still hasn’t been in power as long as Angela Merkel was. Canadian prime ministers tend to serve for a very long time as well.
True, but we all know the general western reaction to amending the law to extend the term limits in any way.
But here we arrive at another unspoken assumption of western democracy, namely that whatever idiosyncratic procedures a particular liberal democracy might have, they are more or less set in stone and any proposed reform will easily be portrayed as anti-democratic.
Spot on.
This is also why to liberals term limits are one of the most important of those “rituals”. In the US they were specifically instituted because FDR just kept winning elections on account of people believing their lives were improving because of his policies.
That one specifically is a very American point of view as term limits don’t even exist in all western liberal democracies. Xi still hasn’t been in power as long as Angela Merkel was. Canadian prime ministers tend to serve for a very long time as well.
True, but we all know the general western reaction to amending the law to extend the term limits in any way.
But here we arrive at another unspoken assumption of western democracy, namely that whatever idiosyncratic procedures a particular liberal democracy might have, they are more or less set in stone and any proposed reform will easily be portrayed as anti-democratic.