The unsubtle dichotomy in the title of "On Democracies and Death Cults" will remain one of the most impressive intellectual sacrifices Douglas Murray has made for Israel, second only to going on Joe Rogan against Dave Smith.

His occasional co-host, Pierce Morgan, once walked himself into the corner of claiming that Israel is uniquely worth defending. When he was pushed to provide a reason why, his hasbara programming took over and he simply blurted out, "because it is the only democracy in the middle east." The propaganda should not be made this obvious for it to have any value. He was immediately pushed on this response and had to change topics.

During the months of British debate on the Gaza genocide, the Zionist side (including Pierce Morgan and Rabbi Schmuley) kept invoking the British Nationalists' reverence for Churchill to draw a parallel between indiscriminate British bombing of German cities in WWII and the Israel's Gaza response. This forces such a power dissonance in the nationalist British mind, that they are forced to legitimize both at the risk of losing the only British hero. Subjective morality lives in constant fear of being reduced to arbitrarism, and clings onto the semblance of objectivity from

Recently, a disturbing reddit post shows a religious congregation claiming that the gods whose favor week seek in freedom, security, prosperity, also demand sacrifice, "some need to die for the world to flourish".

Only few are The Ones who walk away from Omelas, and for the remaining city, the spectacle of happiness and prosperity must go on, believing wholeheartedly that the sacrifice of the child in the dungeon is worth the glitter, and that their right to happiness allows them ownership of the child's fate. For Israel, their right to demacracy allows them ownership of human life and international law. Once this principle is accepted, sedation of the centrist outrage at atrocities is just a game of hyponises using the right symbol.

Democracy as red herring

Liberalism is also against using democracy against progress. What allowed the rise of Hindutva politics in India was the Treason of the intellectuals like Pratap Bhanu Mehta, who wrote the following in a 2014 article:

“Modi cannot be exonerated of marginalising minorities or worse. But consider this. The secular-communal divide in India, except at the extremes, is not so much a divide between two different species of citizens as a fissure running through most of them. This divide is activated by circumstances. It is not a structural fact. Second, we hope that the law will take its course and deliver justice. But Gujarat has, at least, been subject to serious court scrutiny, direct SIT investigations and so on...You can look at the convictions of Modi’s cabinet colleagues and point to those as proxy proof of his culpability. You can also look at them and wonder why so many Congress cabinet ministers still have not been made to answer for 1984. The point is not to use 1984 to politically exonerate Modi. The point is that it is hard to attack evil when we so widely condone it in other contexts.”

The spectre of fascism is said to be haunting India. It is easy to dismiss this concern over fascism as the hyperbole of a crumbling elite that has often used moral outrage as a substitute for addressing genuine political challenges....Can the the combination of military power, total mobilisation and eliminationism that marked fascism really be reproduced in India?”

Democracy cannot be the excuse for immobilising questions of individual liberty and security. But invocations of fascism often express a kind of distance from Indian democracy that is also disquieting. We are not on the high tide of fascism. It is more about a complicated country feeling its way through difficult times, fed up with old power structures.