Has the world forgotten what it means to elect a fascist?

Big questions are being asked about democracy. Around two billion people – about half the world’s adult population – will have a chance to vote this year. So many elections in one year is a record which means democracy is safe, right? Not right. These elections are taking place against a rising tide of post-truthism and authoritarians slouching towards once-revered old parliamentary democracies, while younger people wonder about the whole purpose of elections.

In the US, Liz Cheney’s warnings about “sleepwalking into dictatorship” are showing little uptake among the young, despite Trump’s repeated vow to govern as “a dictator for one day”. His fans still riff off the old line about taking him seriously but not literally despite the irrefutable evidence laid before them. A year-old mood of the nation poll from Penn State University found that while over three quarters of all respondents said democracy is “the best political system in all circumstances”, nearly half of 18-25 year olds answered that it “makes no difference” whether they live under a democracy, or that “dictatorship could be good in certain circumstances”.

A large survey of 30 countries – including Italy, France, Germany, Poland and the UK – published last September by Open Society Foundations (OSF), suggested that 86 per cent of respondents would prefer to live in a democratic state, but among 18-35 year olds, that fell to 57 per cent. Worse, 42 per cent said they were supportive of military rule and more than a third felt a “strong leader” who did not hold elections or consult parliament was “a good way to run a country”.

Meanwhile democracy is up against serious challenges within the EU with rising extremism and polarisation, a perceived lack of engagement between citizens and politics/political candidates and the rise of disinformation all playing a part, according to the Commission.

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Are millions of European voters really veering far-right or is it more of a slap for the traditional parties?

The bloc breathes a massive sigh of relief when Donald Tusk beats the odds to wrest back Poland; despairs at Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban’s “illiberal democracy”, his links with Putin and his trampling on the rule of law; shudders at anti-Islam extremist Geert Wilders’ shock win in the Netherlands’ national elections and at reports that members of Germany’s far-right AfD – surging at 22 per cent in the polls – have discussed mass deportations of people with an immigrant background, those with German passports included.

The hundreds of thousands of appalled Germans who took to the streets at the weekend to protest against the AfD were a reminder that they know too well the cost of electing a fascist. The question is how many others do.

Italy is being run by a party with neo-fascist roots. The Netherlands, Sweden, Hungary, France, Austria and Germany are all mainstreaming the far-right. Are millions of European voters really veering far-right or is it more of a slap for the traditional parties?

Do we think we’re immune? Well, goes the customary answer, no hard-right party candidate has been elected to the modern Dáil. The question is whether we will still be able to say the same about individual Oireachtas members or aspirants after the coming elections – especially given the expectation that a motley crew of anti-immigration candidates may emerge to run in the locals.

How do we perceive our own democracy? It’s only so-so according to a Eurobarometer survey published this month. Just over half of us are very or somewhat satisfied with the way democracy works here. That’s hardly stellar, though it ranks us 9th in the EU. Yet it scores us lower in our satisfaction levels than the Netherlands at 59 per cent or Germany at 62 per cent.

In the void, bad faith actors frame the debate, distorting truth, amplifying lies...

Despite those two countries’ lurch toward the far right, their citizens had fewer perceived problems with their democracy than the Irish apparently. Between 30 and 40 per cent of us had above-average levels of dissatisfaction with our democracy – that means unhappiness with access to accurate information, or with our ability to express political opinions without negative consequences (whether “negative consequences” mean nasty social media comments or being targeted by a malevolent government is not clear) or believed that Irish citizens can’t engage with political parties or candidates in debate. That compares to around three in 10 in Germany and the Netherlands.

At the same time nearly a quarter of us believe our democracy is threatened by regular citizens’ lack of engagement and interest in politics and elections. The figures for Germany and the Netherlands were 26 per cent and 19 per cent respectively. And we were three times more likely than Germans to answer that we were exposed “very often” to disinformation and fake news over the previous seven days.

[ Fintan O’Toole: Ireland faces a rising threat from a far-right that is growing in ambition ]

[ Far-right’s goal is to misdirect anger to divide and oppress ]

This muddled picture tells us important things about how many perceive our democracy. That just about half of us are happy with it. That in a country with near permanent access to politicians and political argument, and with a populace that argues loudly and ceaselessly across countless outlets, a large minority seems unaware of politicians’ ubiquity, anticipates “negative consequences” for expressing political opinions and feels it cannot access accurate information from multiple media sources about topics at stake.

Since the fieldwork for the survey was carried out last March these perceptions have almost certainly worsened. In the void, bad faith actors frame the debate, distorting truth, amplifying lies, destroying faith in democratic institutions, skilfully camouflaging themselves as a freedom movement.

Our democracy is a long way from bulletproof.