Blame liberal democracy’s flaws for Erdoğan’s win, not the voters

How many warnings do liberals need? The victory of Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, hands power, virtually for ever, to a ruler of 80 million people on Europe’s southern border. His opponents are jailed, his press is censored, his promised reforms give him unlimited control. He is undeniably popular.

There is no point in simply deploring Erdoğan and, by implication, insulting his electorate. Europe now faces two populist (and ostensibly popular) autocrats, Erdoğan and Russia’s Vladimir Putin, across its eastern frontier. They are matched by similar “strong-man” leaders in Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Austria and Serbia.

These regimes are no longer aberrations. Populism is becoming the norm across a swath of states in eastern Europe, characterised by personal rule, xenophobia and the suppression of parliamentary and media opposition. Churchill’s warning of “an iron curtain descending” returns to haunt the continent, except that this time the curtain is not Soviet communism but populist autocracy.

The one sure way to exacerbate this trend is for western Europe simply to hurl abuse at it. As in Donald Trump’s America, people do not like being told they are idiots, racists or deluded Nazis when voting for what they see as their interest and their national identity. They particularly do not enjoy it from rich countries that, as they see it, steal their young people and make them admit Asian and African refugees in their place.

Two years ago, the world values survey was clear as a bell. While older respondents (over the age of 60) were resolute that democracy was “essential” to their lives, this was true of less than half of those under 30. Almost a quarter of American “millennials” now think democracy “a bad way” to run a country. A sixth – 17% – of young Europeans think likewise, double the figure for 1995. In Germany, Spain, Japan and America, a full 40% of people overall would prefer “a strong leader who does not have to bother with parliaments or elections”. Faith in democracy among the west’s young people is plummeting.

The currently fashionable “death of democracy” movement draws attention to the failure of electorates to vote for the liberal/internationalist programme – hence Trump, Brexit and anti-immigrant parties in Italy, France and Germany. But the fault, if fault it is, lies not with the voters but with the institutions that are failing to respond to their demands. If the traditional vehicles of public debate – political parties, the media, academics – do not hear them, they will turn to leaders who do.

Western abuse of populism is not the answer. It will not alter these elections, though its “soft power” could try to aid oppressed parliaments and newspapers. More realistic is to set an example, to reassert that democracy is not about validating power but about curbing it. Since Aristotle, it has been about checking “mob rule” through constitutional balances, criticism and opposition, diversity and devolution.

The real message of the Turkish election is that there is nothing inevitable about a mature democracy. It needs constant refreshment, everywhere. Parliaments and parties need updating. Local government needs liberating. Media pluralism needs defending. Social media hysteria needs limiting. One person, one vote, one time is not democracy but autocracy. Turkey is not our business. But democracy is.

• Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist