This Is How Democracy Dies

Image: GETTY / THE ATLANTIC

In a hushed courtroom, with only litigants, their lawyers, and three other journalists present, a judge convicted the Philippine journalist Maria Ressa for an article she did not write, edit, or supervise, of a crime that hadn’t even existed when the story was published.

In sentencing Maria and the story’s author, Reynaldo Santos Jr., to a jail term of six months to six years, Judge Rainelda Estacio-Montesa quoted Nelson Mandela, saying, “To be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.”

This is how democracy dies in the 21st century: in a musty courtroom, with a judge invoking Mandela. There are no power grabs in the dead of night, no tanks rolling down the streets, no uniformed officers taking over TV stations. Just the steady drip, drip, drip of the erosion of democratic norms, the corruption of institutions, and the cowardly compromises of decision-makers in courts and congresses.

Click here to keep reading. NYSEAN member Sheila Coronel writes for The Atlantic.