The generation born or raised after the lifting of martial law in 1987 was the first to experience democratization and enjoy the initial fruits of Taiwan’s freedom. Many of the generation following those who witnessed martial law lifted are now high-school and college students. The political background in which they grew up was the second eight-year governance of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).
Taiwan’s democracy has issues that need to be addressed in each generation, but the social environment of this latest voting-age generation is freer and more open. If they take universal values such as democracy, freedom and human rights for granted, then they are testing Taiwan’s democratic resilience and putting these staples at risk.
Politics has become increasingly vulgar, populist and beholden to celebrity worship, and the eyeballs come before the brain. The more often Internet celebrities and politicians grab the attention of people on social media, the more they get to shape this generation’s political ideas and attitudes.
Thus, slogans such as “blue and green are equally bad” and even “taking down the DPP” have become dumbed-down slogans used to criticize politics, making withdrawal of Taiwan’s democratic assets easy, and such dumbing-down is not going to stop until democracy is bankrupted.
If young people, including teenagers are the “democratic trust fund babies” following Taiwan’s democratization, then what we ought to worry about is whether Taiwan’s democracy would be a case of “shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations” after next month’s presidential and legislative elections.
Faced with the crisis of democracy being gutted or bankrupt, the elections, like a national shareholders’ meeting, would determine how Taiwan’s democracy could sustainably operate.
There is still more than a month left until the elections, and we still have a chance to explain to the younger generation how to invest in Taiwan’s democracy.
Just as there are risks in financial investment and management, in the market of democracy, what kind of candidates and political parties you invest in and whether your voting judgement is correct determines whether the democracy you live in continues to thrive independently or be subordinated and dominated.
Yang Tsung-li is a political staff member.
Translated by Lin Lee-kai
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