This week, representatives from 110 countries will gather for a virtual “Summit for Democracy” in order to rally the free nations of the world against authoritarianism and corruption, and in favor of human rights, according to a White House press release.
Does Biden mean to say that there are 110 democratic countries in the world? Sadly, there aren’t. In truth, there aren’t even half that number of free countries, which begs a simple question: what can we possibly learn about anti-authoritarianism from the authoritarians in Pakistan or the Philippines?
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That’s just a part of the gigantic game of “Let’s Pretend” that the 110 nations will be playing during the two-day event that gets started on Thursday. Another aspect is that Biden will have to tread lightly on the subject of human rights, given the differences between what American left-wing activists consider to be “human rights” and what the Iraqi government might consider a “right.”
Even with something as innocuous as “democracy,” Biden can’t resist a dig against Trump and anyone who shared good relations with his administration.
The Hungarian Embassy in Washington said the Biden administration’s decision was “disrespectful.”
“Hungarian-American relations were at their peak during the Trump presidency, and it is clear from the list of the invited countries that the summit will be a domestic political event,” the embassy said in a statement to The Washington Post. “Therefore countries that were on friendly terms with the previous administration were not invited.”
A senior Biden administration official rejected that claim. “I can tell you that there was no consideration of U.S. domestic politics in terms of government partners,” this person said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to share candid details about the summit.
Considering how much Biden truly hates Trump, that denial rings hollow.
But why are countries like Pakistan and Iraq on the list of invitees and not Hungary? It’s because Hungary has a decidedly different view on LGBTQ issues and disagrees with American radical feminists about women’s rights. Biden wouldn’t dare invite Prime Minister Viktor Orban to the party, given all the red lines he has crossed with gays and women. It’s a domestic political headache that Biden didn’t feel he needed right now.
Besides, it would have detracted from the real point of the Summit: trying to make Joe Biden look something like a world leader.
Other nations see Biden as a “global Santa Claus, declaring that specific countries are naughty or nice,” and will be treated accordingly.
“I don’t think of this as the administration picking winners and losers as much as the administration trying to rally like-minded partners to fight the threat of authoritarianism, and also maybe trying to rally countries that are not doing well to do better,” said Michael J. Abramowitz, the president of Freedom House, a nonpartisan pro-democracy organization.
Derek Mitchell, a former U.S. ambassador to Myanmar and the president of the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, agreed. “My sense is this is not an initiative to create an exclusive club of democracy but to just celebrate this issue of democracy,” Mitchell said. “But you can’t help geopolitics being here.”
As a matter of propaganda, how do you think Iraq, Pakistan, and the Philippines are going to use their attendance at the summit? Pro-democracy activists in those countries no doubt feel betrayed by Biden and the United States and thus, knowingly or not, Biden has set the cause of democracy back in those countries.
The Summit is an insubstantial bit of fluff that Biden will use to try and buttress his sagging prestige around the world. But by now, other nations have tested Biden’s mettle and found it wanting.