As always, the conventional wisdom is wrong.
In the aftermath of the jarring events that rattled South Korea earlier this week, the instant consensus among the instant “experts” who rushed to explain why South Korea’s besieged president, Yoon Suk-yeol, declared martial law, was that the failed gambit amounted to, in effect, a desperate act of nostalgia.
Yoon made his surprising and authoritarian-steeped move for narrow and broad reasons with the apparent support of the country’s historically democracy-allergic military.
Clearly, the primary motivation was to stave off the legal and parliamentary wolves nipping at his vulnerable heels and to return to those bucolic, not-so-distant days when South Korea was ruled with a ruthless and uncompromising fist.
That is why Yoon’s botched “tactical manoeuvre” took South Koreans and the commentariat off guard – martial law was considered a passe relic; a blunt, autocratic instrument more in keeping with yesterday than today.
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
Authoritarianism is in vogue. The gravitational pull of the mythic “strongman” who knows how to fix complex problems with simple, easy-to-absorb rhetoric designed to convince the gullible that relief and the answers are readily at hand, is as irresistible today as it was yesterday.
The rule of law, opposition parties, a “free press,” and the courts are irritating nuisances that prevent the “dear leader” from defeating the conniving “communist” enemies who are intent on destroying the nation’s “fabric” and soul from within.
Plucked from Chapter 1 of the authoritarian playbook, Yoon parroted that predictable line during his late evening address on Tuesday in defence of his draconian decision to send in the troops.
Yoon deployed the military – the state’s armed tools of fear and intimidation – in a blatant effort to silence and possibly jail his adversaries and force South Koreans to capitulate to his dictatorial designs.
It is that same cynical, but effective, guide that a host of “strongmen” in a host of countries have exploited to achieve power or attempt to seize it to satisfy their lust for retribution and vengeance and to avoid, by happy coincidence, the dock.
As I watched Yoon try to wrest absolute authority by whatever means necessary, one name sprang to mind: Donald Trump.
I am convinced that Yoon looked into a mirror recently and saw Trump’s reflection and then went about trying to emulate his ruthless modus operandi.
Given his litany of Trump-like grievances – principally that he is the target of a widespread conspiracy to persecute an innocent man – Yoon likely views the United States president-elect as a kindred spirit.
By winning a second term as commander-in-chief and with the complicity of several prostrate Supreme Court justices, Trump has, it appears, evaded the judicial comeuppance he has earned after a lifetime spent offending decency and the law.
Yoon’s calculation, no doubt, was that Trump’s sinister blueprint was the prescription for his political salvation. So, he seized the moment to save himself just as Trump had escaped the fast-tightening vice a little more than a month ago.
Among his other alleged offences, Yoon could be charged with plagiarism for his near-verbatim attack on the supposed pillars of a functioning democracy – journalism, pluralism and the judiciary.
Trump has devoted his rancid political instincts to vilifying all three as constituting a fifth column, who, working in concert with entrenched elements of the so-called “deep state,” are draining America not only of its greatness and promise, but its ethnic and religious purity, as well.
Throughout his campaign, Trump vowed to unleash gun-toting GIs to rid America of the hordes of immigrant “vermin” who have “poisoned” the country and hollowed out its once dominant white, Christian identity.
He has also threatened to round up the federal and state officials and politicians who sought to prosecute him and warn that he poses an existential risk to the US Constitution and, by extension, the ever decaying “American experiment”.
Yoon heard Trump’s fascist clarion call loud and clear and beat him to the despotic punch by imposing martial law.
Yoon may have been emboldened by the international community’s failure to hold to account another indicted strongman turned accused war criminal, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, for the genocidal campaign Israel has waged for more than a year in Gaza and the occupied West Bank which has claimed the lives of 44,000 and counting Palestinians – mostly children and women.
If America refused to rein in the corrupt leader of its client-state in the Middle East, why would it be moved to restrain the rogue – to put it charitably – leader of its client state in Southeast Asia?
Alas, Yoon miscalculated.
Courageous South Korean parliamentarians fashioned makeshift barricades to prevent Yoon’s obedient foot soldiers from entering the National Assembly. Later, they unanimously voted in favour of a resolution urging the president to rescind his imperious order.
Meanwhile, thousands of anxious and, at the same time, brave South Koreans flooded into the streets in defiance of Yoon and to insist that parliamentary democracy be restored.
Gladly, they prevailed in just a few hours.
In retrospect, Yoon should have waited until Trump took the oath of office on January 20, 2025, before attempting his flagrant power grab.
Perhaps then one authoritarian would have congratulated a would-be authoritarian and offered his giddy support and encouragement while President Yoon worked hard to Make South Korea Great Again without the bother of those silly, anachronistic ballot boxes.
Still, regrets, I think, Yoon has a few.
Now he’s facing impeachment or worse.
On that depressing score, Yoon might soon be confronting the same fate as Brazil’s former president, Jair Bolsonaro – yet one more pretend democrat in sheep’s clothing.
In late November, the MAGA fanboy, along with 36 co-conspirators, was charged in connection with a plan to stage a coup d’etat following his defeat in 2022.
In a statement announcing the charges, police claimed that the far-right leader and a host of his cronies had intended the “violent overthrow of the democratic state”.
How’s that for an Alexis de Tocqueville-like commitment to free and fair elections.
Yoon, Trump, Bolsonaro and Netanyahu are the antidote to the sentimental idea that liberal democracies in name only are the bulwark against extremism.
These treacherous times demand honesty, not complacency.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
