The 'defending democracy' people don't like democracy

They want the people to shut up, accept their lot, and bow to their crony masters

It is true. I hate to say it because some of the people who “wax eloquent” (see below) about “threats to our democracy” are friends of mine. They are decent people. For the most part they are pretty reasonable people. But when they talk about preserving “democracy” these days it seems like they are mostly talking about preserving the institutions that are nominally part of a (one time?) democratic system. They are concerned that Trump is a change agent. They are concerned that he will reform the administrative state (which is at the very core of our crony capitalist system.). They fear that Trump will bring pressure on the United Nations and NATO. They are concerned that the European Union, a largely undemocratic bureaucracy that is trumpeted as a “democratic institution” will be held to account. They are are afraid that propaganda organizations like Media Matters will get much more attention. They are afraid that if Trump is redeemed by voters that the establishment media, the old media, the corporate media, will die even more quickly. They are afraid that the vast experiment that Obama started will be repudiated and that a new zeitgeist will break forth. They are afraid that the money taken from taxpayers that flows into their pockets via government, and NGOs will dry up. They are afraid that public schooling, government schooling, will be scrutinized and reformed. They are afraid that they won’t be able to get away with something like (the response to) Covid ever again.