A number of posts claimed that with the rise of Donald Trump and similar populist politicians in other countries, the distinction between Chinese autocracy and what one contributor calls ‘autocratic capitalism’ has become blurred, if not moot. For example David Sanderson said:

Trump is in office because of the currents of 'Western civilisation superiority' and radical Christanity. Trump and the forces of reaction and authoritarianism that he represents are the real threat.

… a view supported by Andris Heks:

Both Trumpianism and China's autocracy are 'real threat' against democracy 

… who later went on to claim:

Deep south fundamentalist Christian supporters of Trump in USA are as virulent enemies of democracy as Islamic theocracy and China's autocracy

Opening Response

These claims are simply bizarre. How on earth can anyone claim a moral equivalency between the Chinese Communist Party dictatorship and ‘Trumpian’ America?

I concede that Trump and his administration have some pretty serious flaws, but in what respect is Trump a threat to democracy? What are you saying here? I presume you would concede that he has not, as yet, managed to turn the United States into an autocracy. 

If he has, it is a pretty strange kind of autocracy in which almost all the major media outlets, with the exception of Fox News, have for the past three years engaged in 24 by 7 vilification of the alleged dictator, and where he has had to fight non-stop battles with the Congress and the courts, and has faced constant undermining by figures within the state apparatus.

Maybe you think he would like to impose an autocracy. Do you have any evidence for this? If so, do please present it. Even if he did aspire to impose a dictatorship, he would be hamstrung in the attempt by the legal and constitutional framework in which he has to operate. 

Short of a military coup, which no-one to my knowledge has suggested he is plotting, or would be remotely capable of effectuating, this would be an insuperable obstacle. This, of course, is what distinguishes a constitutional democracy from a dictatorship like China

To compare this with a regime that can intern a million Uighur Muslims, and has routinely murdered religious and political dissidents to harvest their organs, and which represses the slightest glimmer of free expression and calls for democracy, is not just absurd – it is grotesque.

With these comments, you exemplify the central point I was making in the talk. The identarian prism through which you view our type of society, its institutions, and its civilizational heritage, renders you incapable of seeing the wood for the trees. And this mindset reigns supreme, almost unchallenged, in academia, so activists can at the same time be enraged by courses on Western civilization and sit idly by while the Chinese dictatorship seriously compromises the integrity and freedom of our universities.

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