Immunity in breaking rules with impunity.

"From the rise of right wing governments trying to control or undermine institutions (Turkey, the Philippines, Poland) to the supremacy of military over civilian rule (Zimbabwe, Thailand, Pakistan) to democratically elected leaders whose rule never end (Russia, Venezuela, Cambodia), the symptoms of democratic decline are visible across the globe," B Mishra and W Gordon. However, "Both the US and India are currently undergoing their own democratic crises and struggles due to high level of partisanship that has transformed opposing parties into enemy tribes." Why? "Democracies may die at the hands not of generals but of elected leaders -- presidents or prime ministers who subvert the very process that brought them to power. Some of these leaders dismantle democracy quickly. More often, though, democracies erode slowly through barely visible steps," wrote S Levitsky and D Ziblatt. In Tamil Nadu, a young woman was arrested for raising her fist and shouting, "Down with fascist BJP government," in the presence of the state president of the party. The woman was granted unconditional bail. In May, the Tamil Nadu government shot 13 people to death and injured over 100 in police shooting, for protesting against poisoning of the local water supply by a copper plant. A few days later the same government shut the plant down permanently. The problem is that democracy has been reduced to casting a vote every few years and granting a group of people a monopoly on violence against citizens if they should protest violation of their rights. The rewards of winning an election are so much that losers try to delegitimize the victory of opponents. The US is convulsed with conspiracy theories of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election but there seems to be no outrage at the definite interference in the same election by the British in the form of a false dossier. The FBI even paid for the dossier.  The US is not suffering from too little democracy but too much, according to Prof J Geltzer. In the past news was censored of anything obviously false but now social media gives a voice to everyone. "To put it bluntly, we're increasingly ruled by an online mob. And it's a mob getting besieged with misinformation." The trouble with controlling news is that it creates mistrust in the people. Till today people believe that the US government is hiding bodies of aliens who crashed on a farm in New Mexico in 1947. Hitler was apparently a mesmerising speaker able to convince people about his beliefs in the superiority of Aryans. This was clearly fake news, but was decades before the advent of social media. The trouble with democracy is that politicians are not punished for the crimes they commit. Immunity in breaking rules with impunity.