Mr. President, I Have Something to Say
First of All, Free Speech
Trump’s VP, speaking at the Munich Security Conference (February 2025), lashed out at the European Union, accusing it of hiding under the U.S. protective umbrella while America foots the bill with massive resources. So basically, Europe is a freeloader, on top of having abandoned democratic values by censoring far-right ideas. Clearly, Vance doesn’t know us.
Here in Europe, we’ve already experienced what happens when you pave the way for dictatorships using democratic tools. That’s how Hitler and Mussolini came to power — just to name the most infamous cases. We’re not making the same mistake again. In a democracy, you can say whatever you want, on one condition: you don’t twist facts to create misleading and manipulative narratives. In other words, you can’t spread blatant lies that distort reality.
Since the early days of Athenian democracy, we’ve been aware of the power of storytelling. And we know some narratives can be lethal, because they confuse, deceive, and lead to war.
We get that “truth” is hard to define, but we’ve learned to separate solid facts from mere interpretations. We may not always know what’s true, but we’ve gotten pretty good at recognizing what’s false!
So, when it comes to Vice President Vance, we’ll borrow the words of Ferruccio de Bortoli from Corriere della Sera (February 17, 2025):
“In the face of the U.S. Vice President’s ‘lesson on democracy’ in Munich, we would have liked to see many of those present stand up and walk out. They were far too polite to be lectured like that by someone who has forgiven the attackers of Capitol Hill. The European Union, for all its flaws — which we never shy away from pointing out — is not the prison of free speech that J.D. Vance describes.”
This distorted view of democracy is not limited to free speech alone, it extends to the very foundation of democratic legitimacy: elections.
Second, Elections
Another favorite talking point among these populist leaders is elections. According to their logic, once someone receives a popular mandate, they embody the will of the people — so anyone opposing them is, by definition, undemocratic. That’s exactly what Musk argued in his Fox News interview on February 17, 2025.
As for President Trump, he went even further, claiming that Zelensky isn’t an elected president! Why? Because after three years of war, Ukraine has suspended its presidential elections. But Trump didn’t stop there. His speech also included another populist obsession: polls! According to him, Zelensky’s approval rating is a pitiful 4%. So really, why even bother with elections at all?
Rigging Democratic Procedures
If needed, there’s always a trick or two to help things along. Just ask Salomé Zourabichvili, the former president of Georgia (another country trying to stay independent from Russia). She was ousted after a vote recount. In an interview with Corriere della Sera (February 17, 2025), Zourabichvili warned that Moscow has adopted a new kind of hybrid strategy. Military conquest is too costly and unpredictable — after three years of war, a Russian military victory in Ukraine is still nowhere in sight.
So now, Putin is trying to tighten his grip by rigging democratic procedures. In Georgia, elections became a testing ground for electoral tricks and public opinion manipulation. “In Georgia,” says Salomé Zourabichvili, “we had fraudulent elections, and now the country is run by a Moscow-controlled puppet government. We’ve seen similar attempts in Romania and Moldova — though Moldova managed to resist, thanks to the votes of its citizens abroad…” Ukraine is next. But Vance strongly disagrees. According to him, the election results — even in Romania — weren’t manipulated at all. They simply reflect “the voice of the people.
The charm and danger of democracy
Of course, history reminds us that ‘the people’ don’t always make the wisest choices. Just ask the Athenians. Their decision to go to war against Syracuse? That was made in the assembly — because in Athens, democracy was direct! And it was a disaster that forever weakened Athens’ power, burying any idea of democracy: it wasn’t spoken of again until the 18th century.”
Modern reflection on democracy acknowledges the superiority of this form of government and emphasizes the importance of popular voting. However, phenomena like propaganda — and thus the manipulation of public opinion (not to mention the more crude and ancient electoral tricks) — are well known. They were already recognized at the end of the Peloponnesian War, about two and a half thousand years ago. This is why modern democracies are representative democracies, with a complex system of checks and balances designed to protect society from the emotional impulses of voting.
It’s worth noting just how powerful the idea of democracy is — even among dictators. If a dictator boasts about having strong popular support (like the Belarusian president, who ‘won’ the election with 87% of the vote), if even a dictator feels the need to present himself as an elected president — just like Putin, now heading into his fifth consecutive term (25 years in power!) — even when elections are rigged and manipulated, it means democracy holds an undeniable allure.
Of course, the principle of checks and balances is far less seductive, more prosaic — though absolutely essential. That’s why it’s fair to say that Musk is missing something fundamental. Opposing decisions that violate the Constitution or demanding accountability from a president isn’t a betrayal of the people’s will — it’s a duty. A vital function of checks and balances to ensure that no one becomes absolute.
Musk doesn’t get it. And he’s not the only one in the Western world.
The Italian Version is on the website italianacontemporanea.com