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Many American liberals obsess about a possible Trump dictatorship should the former President return to the White House this fall. In Europe, the mainstream media have long been haunted by the specter of right-wing politicians like Hungarys Viktor Orbn, whom they claim are undermining democracy and the rule of law. But, at present, it is in Germany where democracy is really under threat.

This is not because of the rise of the right-wing populist party Alternative fr Deutschland (AfD), as many media commentators and politicians would have you believe. It is rather because of the undemocratic reaction of Chancellor Olaf Scholzs embattled coalition, some fake conservatives, and the corporate media, to the AfDs emergence as a powerful challenge to their left-liberal consensus. Under the leadership of Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla, the party has surged to more than 20 percent in national polls, second place and well ahead of Scholzs Social Democrats with just 15 percent. In recent weeks, the establishment has moved towards hysteria. The welcome trigger was a dubious report by a left-wing organization about the AfDs alleged plans to deport millions of migrants. They are crying for drastic measures against the partymeasures that could upend German democracy.

Some politicians and media are calling for an outright ban on the AfD, whom they present as enemies of democracy. More than one and a half million people have signed a petition to strip Bjrn Hcke, one of the AfDs more hardline regional leaders, of his basic constitutional rightslike freedom of speech, the right to teach or protest, or to vote or run for office. And there are many other ways the legacy parties try to, or really do, restrict the AfDs constitutional rights.

For example, they deny them the right to nominate a vice-president position in Parliament, as any other opposition faction can do. Furthermore, the Greens, and the leader of the center-right Christian Social Union (CSU), Markus Sder, are trying to find ways to exclude the opposition party from the state system of public financing of all parties that have attained a certain level of electoral support. This would deprive the AfD of dozens of millions of euros every year, and would significantly damage electoral fairness.

Can a country where the ruling class attempts to ban or suppress their fiercest opposition really be called a democracy? No other European country has ever banned a large opposition party, however much it may be disliked by the ruling class. Any ban on the AfD would be an affront to freedom, and a declaration of moral bankruptcy on the part of German democracy.

AfD is the second strongest party at national level. In eastern German Lnder (states) like Saxony or Thuringia, it is by far the strongest party and has the chance of winning state elections in September. This prospect petrifies the establishment, which is trying to isolate the party and keep it behind a firewall. Millions of voters are deeply disenchanted with Scholzs Ampelkoalition (traffic light coalition, so called because of the party colors of the three parties involvedthe Social Democrats, the Greens and the Free Democrats). Around 80 percent of voters say they have lost all confidence in the government, which has consequently gone into panic mode.

Uncontrolled mass immigration, the cost of living and economic recession in Germany, also due to deeply controversial energy and climate policies, not to mention the general disdain of the condescending political class, are all fueling anger. AfDs rise is part of a larger picture in Europe, with similar parties on the rise in many countries in the run up to Junes elections to the European Parliament. The European Council on Foreign Relations, a liberal think-tank, last week published a forecast warning that right-wing and Eurosceptic parties (anti-European populists) could become the largest or dominant party in 18 of 27 of the blocs member states. In France, Marine Le Pens Rassemblement National is leading the polls, in Italy the right-wing Fratelli dItalia, in the Netherlands Geert Wilders, and in Austria the Freedom Party, to name just a fewall of them promising to end the influx of illegal aliens and proposing much tougher policies on immigration and crime.

The Ampelkoalitions utter incompetence has propelled the Christian Democrats (CDU) and their Bavarian sister party, the CSU, to a combined 30 percent in polls, but many voterstraditional conservatives, as well as blue collar workerswho still remember the CDU Chancellor Angela Merkels disastrous immigration policies, have steered increasingly towards the populist alternative. Although it was established only in 2013, the AfD has become the real rallying point of right-wing opposition. Even official accusations of extremism by the domestic spy agency Verfassungsschutz (Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution) have not dented the AfDs electoral support. People often ignore those warnings, because they understand that the agency has been politicized by the ruling parties and is used as a weapon to attack opposition groups they dislike. Meanwhile, the AfDs membership has climbed by more than a third to over 40,000, and is still growing fast.

In the last two weeks, however, the establishment has almost lost its mind completely, following the report by a left-wing investigative and activist organization named Correctiv, which spied on a private meeting that took place at Potsdam, near Berlin, in November. Among the 20 or so attendees were a handful of mid-ranking AfD functionaries, a couple of CDU members, and some wealthy entrepreneurs. At this small private conference, which Correctiv hysterically dubbed a secret meeting, a political activist from Vienna presented his ideas for a remigration plan to move migrants who have no legal right to stay in Germany or who have committed severe crimes back to their home countries. Correctivs journalist-activists, sensing the potential for a report that would make their names, cunningly likened this master plan to a notorious Nazi scheme.

Ludicrously, and tastelessly, this little meeting with its vague talk about repatriation of illegal foreigners was dubbed Wannsee Conference 2.0 (the Wannsee Lake, where Nazi officials agreed on the final solution to murder the Jews in January 1942, is a half-hour drive away). This grotesque and unhistorical equation of a small private talk among people without any real power with the 1942 event arguably downplays the monstrous crimes of the Holocaustbut it worked wonders, creating a perfect scandal for the system. (This weekend, the Correctiv deputy did declare on public TV that they have in fact never used the word deportation and this was an interpretationbut the perfect storm is underway anyway.)

The left is gleefully exploiting the affair with lies and distortions about the Potsdam gathering which mainstream media, spearheaded by the public broadcasting corporations, are happy to parrot. The last two weekends, the SPD, the Greens, die Linke (the Left, the successor party of East Germanys Socialist Unity Party), and mass organizations like trade unions, liberal churches, the Council of Muslims, migrant associations, and Antifa groups have called for public demonstrations.

Almost a million people obediently took to the streets to protest against the right. (In Germany, the right is lazily used as a synonym for right-wing extremism). Not all the marchers were peaceful or liberal; in Aachen, some protesters flew a banner reading Kill AfD. Ignoring such banners, President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, a Social Democrat, thanked the demonstrators and praised their courage. Scholz rejoiced that we are morethat in Germany democrats are more numerous than anti-democrats, which in the circumstances is an ironic reversal of reality.

It is hard to tell where these debates will lead. The political climate is extremely heated. Robust debates are always welcome, and the AfD is no stranger to polemics. Yet even contemplating the idea of suppressing a party with several million voters is fundamentally anti-democratic. This is why my newspaper, Junge Freiheit, has launched a petition against a ban, which so far 120,000 people have signed. Leading Social Democrats, like party leader Saskia Esken, want to start the process by submitting a request to the Constitutional Court, but cooler headseven within the SPDsuspect the move might backfire, just as the lawfare against Trump seems to be only increasing his support.

Vera Lengsfeld, a former dissident in the communist German Democratic Republic (GDR) who fought against political oppression before 1989 and later became a respected CDU Member of Parliament, has spoken passionately about how Germany is turning into a soft-totalitarian state where the ruling class tries to control and suppress dissent. In the GDR, she points out, there were also mass demonstrations organized by the government to solidify support for the regime, and stir up passions against supposed enemies of the state. An internal spy-organization infiltrated and denounced dissident groups. She writes, The state of affairs, which became clear during the demonstrations against the Right, are fatally reminiscent of the GDR. It is hard to disagree.

For now, in Germany as much as the United States, many establishment figures have a dream to rid the country of those opposition groups who threaten their positions and ideologies by turning them into moral pariahs. One can only hope that their undemocratic dreams fail.

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Inside the German War on Democracy - The American Conservative

We are the party of democracy!

Thats the asinine campaign message Democrats are using heading into the 2024 election to convince voters that Donald Trump and his MAGA Republican supporters are an existential threat to the republic. Because as everyone knows, the political party that attempts to throw its primary political opponent off the ballot and into prison; prosecutes praying pro-lifers; targets practicing Catholics; interferes in elections to its candidates benefit; and coordinates with Big Tech to silence dissent online is the standard-bearer of democracy.

For all their disingenuous rhetoric about upholding the will of the people, Democrats are actively fighting against Americans wishes especially when it comes to the integrity of U.S. elections.

Last week, the Honest Elections Project (HEP) released a report recommending 14 policies for states to implement to ensure an electoral process thats fair and accountable to the people. Democrats are actively fighting against many of the commonsense practices outlined in the analysis despite their popularity amongst the American electorate.

Take, for instance, voter ID requirements. In July, the HEP released survey data showing that a whopping 88 percent of U.S. voters back laws requiring eligible citizens to show a form of identification in order to cast their ballot. Polling by Gallup in 2022 produced similar results, with 79 percent of respondents in favor of a photo ID requirement. But that doesnt seem to matter to Democrats, whose acolytes have spent years ignoring voters wishes and engaging in dishonest lawfare to dismantle states existing voter ID requirements.

From Ohio to New Hampshire, leftist lawyers and groups have filed frivolous lawsuits aimed at gutting voter ID statutes. Many of these suits are based on unsubstantiated claims that such laws disenfranchise nonwhite voters.

While courts across the country have repeatedly determined their voter suppression arguments to be bogus, Democrats continuous use of nonwhite voters as a crutch to smear popular voter ID laws shows how little respect they have for democracy. The aforementioned HEP poll also showed the vast majority of black (82 percent) and Hispanic (83 percent) voters support such requirements in order to vote. Gallup found that 77 percent of nonwhite respondents supported photo ID laws. If Democrats truly respected the will of the American voter, as they regularly claim to do, why are they trying to undercut a policy most of them support?

But its not just voter ID requirements. Democrats are actively waging a nationwide campaign to demolish numerous policies recommended by the HEP that ensure secure elections and are supported by the majority of U.S. voters.

While most of the electorate (89 percent) believes American elections should only be for American citizens, that hasnt stopped Democrats from attempting to authorize noncitizen voting throughout the country. Last year, for example, Rhode Island Democrats introduced legislation to authorize localities to allow illegal aliens to vote in their municipal elections. Some cities, such San Francisco, New York City, andWashington, D.C, have already passed measures permitting certain noncitizen voting.

In response to left-wing nonprofits dumping hundreds of millions of Zuckbucks into local election offices during the 2020 election to benefit Joe Biden, elected officials and voters in 27 states enacted measures restricting election offices ability to accept and use private monies to administer elections. In response, several of those same Democrat-aligned groups formalized the U.S. Alliance for Election Excellence as a way of circumventing these Zuckbucks bans and therefore violating the will of the people in the aforementioned states.

The same dynamic can also be seen regarding mail-in voting. Most voters (66 percent) support terminating no-excuse mail voting as long as states offer two weeks of early in-person voting, including weekends. Meanwhile, Democrats who used the Covid lockdowns as a pretext forexpandingthe use of vote-by-mail and other insecure election practices have continued to push unsupervised mail balloting across the country. Some states, such as Nevada, automatically mail individuals listed on the states voter rolls a ballot ahead of elections.

Whether its banning foreign money in elections, ensuring transparency in the elections process, or backing election audits, the story remains the same: Democrats actively oppose policies supported by voters that bring accountability and security to the U.S. elections system. Their screeds about being the party of democracy are a dishonest talking point designed to obfuscate their contradictory actions and smear their political opponents as extremists.

Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood

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If Dems Love 'Democracy,' Why Do They Attack Election Laws Voters Want? - The Federalist

The Council decided today to imposerestrictive measures against five individualsfor actions that undermine democracy, the rule of law or the peaceful transfer of power in Guatemala.

The listings include theAttorney General of Guatemala, Mara Consuelo Porras Argueta De Porres andthree other officials at the Guatemalan Public Prosecutors Office Secretary General ngel Arnoldo Pineda vila, Head of the Special Prosecution Office Against Impunity Jos Rafael Curruchiche Cucul and prosecutor Leonor Eugenia Morales Lazo De Snchez as well as judge Fredy Ral Orellana Letona.

Those targeted are responsible for undermining democracy, the rule of law and the peaceful transfer of power in Guatemala.

The listed individuals are subject to anasset freeze, and EU citizens and companies areforbidden from making funds available to them. The individuals are also subject to atravel restriction, which prevents them from entering or transiting through EU territories.

Todays decision follows the adoption, on 12 January 2024, of adedicated framework for restrictive measuresin support of democracy and a peaceful and orderly transfer of power in Guatemala. The framework was adopted ahead of the inauguration of democratically elected President Bernardo Arvalo on 14 January 2024, attended by the High Representative Josep Borrell.

"When I travelled to Guatemala City, I did so knowing that the presence of numerous international guests would not only send a strong message of support to democracy in Guatemala, but also a strong signal to obstructionists that circumventing democratic processes would not be tolerated by the international community. The EU stands ready to take further steps to hold those responsible accountable." Josep Borrell, High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy

TheEU remains fully committed to support democracy in Guatemalaand stands ready to work closely together with the new government of President Bernardo Arvalo on key issues of mutual interest such as to strengthen the rule of law, enhance sustainable and inclusive economic development and promote social justice to the benefit of the Guatemalan population.

The sanctions regime in respect of Guatemala was established on12 January 2024, to hold accountable those obstructing a democratic transition following the 2023 general elections, which resulted in a clear victory of President Bernardo Arvalo, as attested by the EU Election Observation Mission (EOM) to Guatemala.

The EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell attended the inauguration of President Bernardo Arvalo in January 2024.

Council Implementing Regulation (EU) 2024/455 of 2 February 2024 implementing Regulation (EU) 2024/287 concerning restrictive measures in view of the situation in Guatemala (including the list of the sanctioned individuals)

Council Decision (CFSP) 2024/457 of 2 February 2024 amending Decision (CFSP) 2024/254 concerning restrictive measures in view of the situation in Guatemala (including the list of the sanctioned individuals)

Guatemala: Council establishes dedicated framework of restrictive measures in support of democracy, press release 12 January 2024

EU Delegation to Guatemala

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Guatemala: European Council sanctions an additional five individuals for undermining democracy and the rule of law - EU Reporter

El Salvadors government has jailed thousands of innocent people, suspended key civil liberties indefinitely and flooded the streets with soldiers. Now the president overseeing it all, Nayib Bukele, is being accused of violating the constitution by seeking re-election.

And even his vice-presidential running mate admits their goal is eliminating what he sees as the broken democracy of the past.

But polls show most Salvadorans support Mr. Bukele, often not in spite of his strongman tactics but because of them.

In elections on Sunday, voters are expected to hand Mr. Bukele and his New Ideas party a resounding victory, cementing the millennial presidents control over every branch of government.

The biggest reason, analysts say, is that the 42-year-old leader has achieved a seemingly impossible feat: decimating the vicious gangs that had turned El Salvador into one of the worlds most violent places.

Some people call it a dictatorship, said Sebastin Morales Rivera, a fisherman living in a former gang stronghold. But I would prefer to live under the dictatorship of a man with a sound mind than under the dictatorship of a bunch of psychopathic maniacs.

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He Cracked Down on Gangs and Rights. Now He's Set to Win a Landslide. - The New York Times

Guatemala, so often defined by dysfunctional government and horrendous human rights abuses, has become a symbol of democratic hope, tenuous though it is, in a world where authoritarian models are ascendant.

The inauguration on Jan. 15 of anti-corruption reformer Bernardo Arvalo as the president of the most populous country in Central America is, in several ways, a full-circle moment. The Catholic contribution to this moment is, as you will see, formidable.

Arvalo's landslide victory in an April runoff election was described by The New York Times as "a stunning rebuke to the conservative political establishment" in that country. Time magazine saw it as "a rekindling of the revolutionary flame that once sought to transform Guatemala from a feudal autocracy to a more inclusive social democracy."

If the civil realm in our country has finally learned something from its long complicity in the suffering of Guatemala, so should the religious realm, especially the U.S. Catholic community.

That revolutionary flame was initially carried by Arvalo's father, Juan Jos Arvalo, an academic who became the first democratically elected president of Guatemala in 1944. The reforms he advanced in health care, education, labor and democratic rights were a sharp departure from decades of military dictatorship. Those reforms were advanced by his successor, Jacobo Arbenz. Both were seen as threats to the established order, and Arbenz' proposed land reforms were particularly upsetting to the U.S. firm United Fruit, which not only owned vast amounts of land, but also much of the countrys infrastructure.

The situation is described in great detail in, among other sources, Bitter Fruit: The Untold Story of the American Coup in Guatemala by journalists Stephen Kinzer and Stephen Schlesinger.

Guatemala as US target

Guatemala in that era became a target of the Eisenhower administration in the person of Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, easily convinced by United Fruit that the reforms were a communist plot. He inspired a CIA-backed coup that overthrew the Arbenz government in 1954 and replaced it with a military dictatorship. The result? The beginnings of guerrilla warfare in Central America, 36 years of civil war in Guatemala, the disenfranchisement and eventual genocide of the Indigenous population there and the otherwise brutal savaging of the civilian population by government-aligned death squads.

Through all of it ran U.S. complicity, from military training in the United States to the constant presence of CIA operatives and military personnel.

Perhaps the darkest moments in this bleak stretch of decades came in the 1970s and1980s, when some of the most egregious human rights horrors occurred.

Then-president Gen. Lucas Garcia engaged in a vicious, individual-by-individual, intimidation of institutions by death squads. He governed from 1978, the year the Carter administration stopped military aid because of the level of human rights abuses, until 1982 when he was overthrown in a coup by Gen. Efrain Rios Montt.

President Ronald Reagan, who saw communists behind every coffee plant in Central America, was either astoundingly nave about what was going on in Guatemala or intentionally blind to it. He assured the world that Rios Montt was "totally dedicated to democracy in Guatemala," was a victim of a "bum rap" and was "a man of great personal integrity." The Reagan administration reinstated military aid in 1983.

Despite Reagan's guarantees, the general was no democratic savior. Montt was a religious right-wing dictator who oversaw what the United Nations determined was a genocide against the Indigenous population. He was, in fact, convicted by his own national court of genocide but died in 2018 before a final judgement could be rendered.

Deep yearning for democracy

The war essentially exhausted itself, and peace accords were signed in 1996. But, as I've noted elsewhere, that was akin to signing legislation banning natural disasters. Official state violence simply morphed into various forms of civil violence. Guatemala became both a route for drug smugglers and a continuing source of resources to be exploited by foreign interests. Those controlling the major political and judicial institutions as well as the country's wealthy business interests heirs of that long legacy of oppression, especially against the significant Indigenous Mayan population resisted Arvalo's election. They even managed to delay his inauguration for nine hours.

That he ultimately was able to take office is testament to a deep yearning in Guatemalan society for democracy, a persistence that seems almost unimaginable in the face of the obstacles those forces for good had to overcome.

I once encountered the face of that persistent hope in the person of Julia Esquivel, a poet, theologian and human rights activist of international renown. It was in 2013, during the latest of a number of trips I made to Guatemala beginning in 1981. Esquivel, who died in 2019, was 82 at the time of my visit. She had been driven into exile in 1980 for eight years for opposing the government. Of our meeting I wrote that while she knew the horrors of recent Guatemalan history, she also spoke in fervent terms of her hope for the future of her country.

"There are people who have been victims of violence, who have suffered terrible violence, women who have been raped, who today are working with other women to process the rage that they feel and to recover their essential humanity," she said. "That to me is a miracle.

"The other thing that seems to be incredible when I think about it is the communities, rural communities, that continue to organize themselves and as they organize they stand up against the exploitation of the mining companies," she said, referring to clashes between mostly Indigenous communities and mining companies over land use and environmental issues. "It is amazing. How is it possible that after everything they have experienced, all that they have suffered, these communities have the strength to unite and resist? It's admirable."

Maybe even she would have been amazed at the degree of strength the women of Guatemala and those communities she mentioned showed in the face of recent opposition. According to journalist Mary Jo McConahay, who has reported deeply on Guatemala over decades and attended Arvalo's inauguration, the Mayan population was essential to the new presidents success.

The Indigenous authorities, she reported, "kept up a constant flow of informational meetings and communiques and organized an extraordinary 106-day peaceful siege of the Justice Ministry to pressure for respect for the vote."

Arvalo, a career diplomat with degrees in philosophy and sociology, faces great odds in his ambition to turn Guatemala into a legitimately democratic society. He campaigned on a promise to end corruption in the country, a Sisyphean undertaking.

If Guatemala has, indeed, entered a new era, it is due not only to determination but also to a host of religious witnesses who gave their lives for the causes of peace and human dignity. The Catholic role in this era has been breathtaking, including such people as the late Dianna Ortiz, an Ursuline Sister of Mount St. Joseph, Kentucky, who survived torture and rape by military forces while serving in the country. She went on to become an advocate for victims of torture.

Fr. Stanley Rother, a priest of Oklahoma, served the Indigenous population in Santiago Atitln from 1968 until 1981, when three masked men killed him. Rother, who had the option to return home to the U.S. after learning he was being targeted, decided to stay with the people he had pastored.

Bishop Juan Gerardi, founder of the Human Rights Office of the Archdiocese of Guatemala and a force behind the Interdiocesan Project to Recover the Historic Memory, known as REMHI, was assassinated in 1998 outside his residence. The killing occurred two days after he had publicized "Guatemala: Nunca Mas" ("Never Again"), a church-sponsored report on the three decades of violence that had torn the country apart.

In late April 2021, the Catholic Church in Guatemala celebrated thebeatificationof the 10 martyrs of Quich, three priests and seven laymen killed between 1980 and 1991. One of the six lay catechists was 12-year-old Juan Barrera Mndez, "who helped prepare younger children for their first Communion," Catholic News Service reported. "Captured by soldiers during a prayer meeting they believed was a meeting of leftist guerillas, the boy was tortured and then shot in 1980."

The United States, supportive of the new president and the initiatives to shore up democracy as well as human rights, seems prepared to finally do something right by Guatemala.

If the civil realm in our country has finally learned something from its long complicity in the suffering of Guatemala, so should the religious realm, especially the U.S. Catholic community. The people in Guatemala we now extol as examples of civil and religious courage were not proponents of militarism, or of a version of religion that appears willing to make common cause with supporters of exploitive economics or nationalistic jingoism.

Quite the opposite.

If Arvalo accomplishes even a fraction of what the population hopes for, it will be a triumph of struggle, of determined humility, of sustained effort to rise above victimhood and to seek ways to elevate the marginalized, especially women and the Indigenous population. Some valuable lessons in all of that for the civil realm and religious leaders of its northern neighbor.

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Guatemala offers hope to a world where democracy is threatened - National Catholic Reporter