As always, conventional wisdom is wrong.
After the strange events that rocked South Korea earlier this week, the immediate consensus among “experts” who rushed to explain why the besieged South Korean president, Yoon Suk-yeol, declared martial law, was that a failed miss was a successful one. , in fact, an act of desperation.
Yoon made his surprising and powerful move for both narrow and broad reasons with the apparent support of the country’s military which was sick of democracy.
Apparently, the main motive was to fend off the official and parliamentary wolves nipping at his vulnerable heels and return to those heady, not-so-distant days when South Korea was ruled with a brutal and uncompromising fist.
That’s why Yoon’s “tricky” sense took the South Korean people and their comments – martial law was considered a relic of the past; a blunt, independent tool more relevant to yesterday than today.
It’s wrong. It’s wrong. It’s wrong.
Authoritarianism is popular. The gravitational pull of the mythical “strongman” who can frame complex problems in simple, easy-to-absorb words designed to convince the gullible that relief and answers are at hand, is as irresistible today as it was yesterday.
The law, the opposition, the “free press,” and the courts are the annoying distractions that prevent the “beloved leader” from defeating the “communist” criminal enemies who aim to destroy the nation’s “fabric” and soul within.
Taken from Chapter 1 of the authoritarian playbook, Yoon wrote this predictable line during his Tuesday evening speech defending his difficult decision to send in the troops.
Yoon sent in the military — the state’s armed tools of terror and intimidation — in an apparent attempt to silence and perhaps arrest his enemies and force South Koreans to agree to his dictatorial designs.
It is that same satirical direction, but effective, that a number of “powerful men” in many countries have been exploited to gain power or try to take it to satisfy their desire for revenge and revenge and avoid, by happy accident, the dock. .
As I watched Yoon try to usurp absolute power by any means necessary, one name came to mind: Donald Trump.
I’m sure Yoon looked in the mirror recently and saw Trump’s reflection and tried to imitate his brutal dealing style.
Given his Trump-like list of grievances — particularly that he is the victim of a widespread conspiracy to prosecute an innocent man — it’s possible that Yoon views the president-elect of the United States as a kindred spirit.
By winning a second term as chief executive and the cooperation of several Supreme Court justices, Trump, it seems, is escaping the legal exposure he has earned after spending his entire life breaking the law.
Yoon’s calculation, no doubt, was that Trump’s evil plan was the medicine for his political salvation. So, he took this opportunity to save himself just as Trump had escaped a swift tightening action a little over a month ago.
Among other charges, Yoon could be charged with fraud for his gradual attack on what are thought to be the pillars of a functioning democracy – journalism, pluralism and the judiciary.
Trump has devoted his political acumen to criticizing all three as a fifth column, working in concert with the entrenched elements of the so-called “deep state,” who are robbing America of not only its greatness and its promise, but its race and its promise. religious purity, as well.
Throughout his campaign, Trump vowed to unleash gun-toting GIs to rid America of the hordes of immigrants who have “poisoned” the country and torn away its white, Christian identity.
He also threatened to round up federal and state officials and politicians who wanted to prosecute him and warned that he was endangering the US Constitution and, by extension, the ever-decaying “American research.”
Yoon heard Trump’s fascist rhetoric loud and clear and beat him to the punch for imposing martial law.
Yoon may have been emboldened by the failure of the international community to hold another alleged war criminal, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, accountable for Israel’s more than a year-long campaign of genocide in Gaza and the occupied West Bank. the lives of 44,000 and counting Palestinians – mostly children and women.
If America refuses to arrest the corrupt leader of its client state in the Middle East, why would it be motivated to arrest the criminal – to put it mildly – leader of its client state in Southeast Asia?
Alas, Yoon made a mistake.
Brave South Korean parliamentarians set up temporary barriers to prevent Yoon’s loyalist soldiers from entering the National Assembly. Later, they voted unanimously in favor of a resolution urging the president to withdraw his executive order.
Meanwhile, thousands of worried and, at the same time, courageous South Koreans took to the streets to oppose Yoon and insist that parliamentary democracy be restored.
Thankfully, they won in just a few hours.
In retrospect, Yoon should have waited until Trump took the oath of office on January 20, 2025, before trying to seize his power.
Perhaps then one official would congratulate the would-be incumbent and offer his support and encouragement while President Yoon works hard to Make South Korea Great Again Without the Concern of those silly, anachronistic ballot boxes.
Anyway, I’m sorry, I think, Yoon has a few.
Now you face impeachment or worse.
At that critical juncture, Yoon may soon face the same fate as Brazil’s former president, Jair Bolsonaro – yet another self-styled democrat in sheep’s clothing.
In late November, a MAGA supporter, along with 36 of his associates, was charged in connection with a coup plot following his 2022 defeat.
In a statement announcing the charges, the police said the leader of the opposition party and a number of his associates were aiming for a “violent overthrow of the democratic government”.
How does that happen with an Alexis de Tocqueville-like commitment to free and fair elections.
Yoon, Trump, Bolsonaro and Netanyahu are the antidote to the sentiment that nominally free democracies are a safeguard against extremism.
These tricky times call for honesty, not self-control.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.
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