A Retired Prophetpastor – John M. Miller
An oxymoron is defined as a “contradiction in terms.” Examples of this would be to speak of a “round square” or a “purple apple.” If something is round, it cannot also be square, and if a fruit is purple, it cannot be an apple.
An expression has emerged over the past several years that refers to what is called an “ilIiberal democracy.” Viktor Orban, the leader of Hungary was one of the first to use these two words to describe Hungary, the nation of which he is its autocratic leader. Vladimir Putin calls Russia an illiberal democracy, and Recep Tayyip Erdogan also describes his nation of Turkey as an illiberal democracy.
To talk of an illiberal democracy is to engage in 1984-speak or Brave New World-palaver. The use of these words in these contexts are deliberate attempts to try to obfuscate an inconvenient reality. Hungary, Russia, and Turkey are not democracies; they are autocracies, and their primary leaders are the autocrats who rule their nations by fiat.
The word democracy is of Greek origin, It literally means “rule by the people.” The people purportedly means all the people, except that it never means all of the people. Children and youth are not part of the ruling class, because they don’t have votes. Criminals aren’t voters either, nor are immigrants, legal or illegal. In previous times women and slaves were also excluded as voters. But in a true democracy, all those who are eligible to vote are the putative rulers, because they elect the representatives in government who, with the executive and judicial branches of government, are the actual rulers in a democracy.
The word autocracy also comes from the Greek language, and it literally means “rule by one person.” Historically, autocrats were either monarchs or other unelected heads of state. Autocrats who were not royals became heads of state either by seizing power or by having power conferred on them by a coterie of oligarchs.
“Oligarchs” is yet another English word of Greek origin. It literally means “government by a few.” And who are “the few”? They ordinarily are a small group of wealthy men (almost always men) who are close to the autocrat, and who help him rule.
Autocrats and oligarchs are almost never elected. Under ordinary historical situations, they seize power when monarchs or “the people” cease exercising power effectively on their own. In the French Revolution, a mob took governmental power away from Louis XVI, the Franch king who was overthrown and executed by the radical mob. Napoleon, who later abrogated power for himself, was later overthrown by other oligarchic forces that led to half a century of unstable French politics.
In less than half a year, the United States of America has become an autocracy under the executive orders of President Donald Trump. For nearly a quarter of a millennium, from 1776 to 2025, we were a genuine democracy. Sometimes we were a rough democracy, under such Presidents as John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, and Theodore Roosevelt, but still, we were a democracy.
All that ceased in a shockingly short period of time under Donald Trump, with no serious opposition from the American people, our Congress, or our court system, Trump has ruthlessly run roughshod over our nation, its Constitution, And its laws. In other words, the people of a democracy allowed that democracy to become an autocracy. Collectively, the American people have disastrously failed themselves as a democratic nation. In yet other words, the USA has become an illiberal democracy through its own political shortcomings.
We deserve what we have allowed to happen to us. Too few people in power spoke up as it was occurring, especially those who are elected officials. They fared that if they opposed Trump openly, they would lose their next primary or general elections. Only five to ten Republican Senators or Hose of Representative members could have prevented the catastrophe of Trump’s autocratic coup, but not enough of them did.
Unless one or both houses of Congress become governed by Democrats in November of 2026, America very likely shall have permanently permitted itself to be governed by a clearly unbalanced, narcissistic individual.
John Miller is a retired minister who lives on Hilton Head Island, SC. More of his writings may be viewed at www.chapelwithoutwalls.org, and he may reached personally at jmmiller2407hhi@gmail.com.