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Time to establish a new goverance order

Published: 26 Dec. 2024, 19:37

Yeom Jae-ho
The author is the president of Taejae University and vice chair of the Presidential Committee on AI.

It is a gloomy end of the year. While Trump’s reelection increased uncertainties in the world order, Korea is in chaos due to the declaration of martial law and subsequent impeachment. The streets are full of voices for and against impeachment rather than Christmas carols.

The international situation is in turmoil due to the war between Russia and Ukraine, the Israel-Hamas war, North Korean troops dispatched to Russia and the fall of Bashar al-Assad in Syria after 53 years of dictatorship. As the war between Russia and Ukraine started over Ukraine’s entry into NATO, Northern European countries now say they want to join NATO and Japan’s new Prime Minister Ishiba even proposed establishing an Asian version of NATO.

Politics around the world is also extremely abnormal. Political leadership is facing challenges and voter discontent is elevated. Two years ago, British Prime Minister Liz Truss resigned in disgrace after 45 days in office due to tax cuts, support for participation in the Ukraine war and other affairs. Truss’s successor, Rishi Sunak, became the first British Indian prime minister, but stepped down in less than two years. Prime Minister Keir Starmer became the prime minister with a landslide victory of 56.2 percent in July, putting the Labour Party in power. But his rating plummeted immediately.

In France, Prime Minister Michel Barnier’s cabinet was brought down by a vote of no confidence in Parliament on Dec. 4, and calls for President Emmanuel Macron to step down is growing as his rating fell to a mere 19 percent. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s vote of confidence was rejected in the federal assembly on Dec. 16, and an early general election is expected. Japanese Prime Minister Ishiba had boasted of a high approval rating, but after taking office, his rating fell to 29 percent, and the party was crushed in the general election. He barely maintained the position in the runoff vote in the Upper House for the first time in 30 years.

Abnormalities are also commonplace in American politics. In 2020, President Trump refused to shake hands with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi at his State of the Union speech. Pelosi tore up a copy of the speech on the spot after the president finished the speech. Trump supporters stormed into Capitol, refusing to accept Trump’s defeat in the presidential election.

The existing political grammar has been dismantled as the conservative Republican Party brought Trump into politics. The GOP is sitting on its hands even as billionaire Elon Musk exercises enormous political influence in Trump’s second term. An attorney general nominee resigned over allegations of paying for sex with a minor. Trump named the father of his son-in-law as ambassador to France even though the real estate developer served a sentence of imprisonment for tax evasion. President Biden, who has maintained moral superiority until now, broke the promise before stepping down and pardoned his son.

America is the first country in the world to abandon the monarchy and devise a separation of powers and a presidential system. As early as 1780, John Adams, the second president and one of the Founding Fathers, sent a meaningful letter to Jonathan Jackson. “There is nothing I dread So much, as a Division of the Republic into two great Parties, each arranged under its Leader, and concerting Measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble Apprehension is to be dreaded as the greatest political Evil, under our Constitution.”

As human civilization is rapidly reorganizing into a digital society, the middle class in traditional industries collapses. The downfall of the middle class, which is like the core muscle of a human body, leads to a quick collapse of social balance. Social conflict explodes as extended lifespan and consequent worries about elderly life add pressure. Despite countless personal flaws, Trump was able to return because the traditional “WASP” middle class collapsed.

Political tribalism prevails during the collapse of the middle class. Populists use economic disparity to deepen political polarization. A politics of harmony cannot beat a politics of exclusion. Anyone who wins one more vote becomes a member of the National Assembly in Korea, and in the United States, getting even one more vote gets the entire electoral votes of the state. The politics of winner-takes-all make discords fiercer. American constitutional scholars have started discussing revisions to the constitution.

Just as frequent tectonic movements cause earthquakes, routine abnormalities in politics call for new political order. As abnormalities like impeachments by the National Assembly and the president’s declaration of martial law become commonplace in Korean politics, we need to create a new order, including constitutional amendment. If not, Korea will collapse rapidly because of politics in the great transformation of human civilization by AI.

Translation by the Korea JoongAng Daily staff.