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Benjamin Franklin, the first American ambassador to France, is shown in this sculpture. The sculpture can be found in Paris, near the Tracadero, at… [+] Yorktown Square. F. Brou created the bas-reliefs. (Image courtesy of ANDREW HOLBROOKE/Corbis/Getty Images)
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Because Independence Day is on a Sunday this year, the accompanying bank holiday in the United States will be on Monday (5th). This is not unheard of. In Paris, Benjamin Franklin hosted a supper for select friends (including John Adams) to commemorate the first American Independence Day. Franklin’s dinners were part of his diplomacy as America’s man in Paris, and the American Club in Paris has carried on the tradition (while I’m in Paris, visitors and residents alike should pay a visit to the superb, newly restored Hotel de la Marine, which will give a taste of the magnificence of the ‘Franklin era’ in Paris). In Paris, Franklin
Franklin is a good example of a political figure who is linked to food, with Churchill being the most obvious (Cita Selzer’s book ‘Dinner with Churchill’ is excellent) and I suspect practically all French Presidents (see Jean d’Ormesson’s role in ‘Les Saveurs du Palais’ for example). The post-Brexit debate over sausages seems insignificant in comparison.
Franklin, one of my favorite historical figures, also reminds us of a number of other things, the first of which is that we will rarely see anyone like him again – he was a writer/publisher, physicist, diplomat, and politician, among many other things, and he was hugely influential in shaping America’s values and codes.
Leadership Politics has become such a cruel and demanding’sport,’ that someone with Franklin’s many talents (or the other Founding Fathers’) would or could rise to the top (note that the positive trend of rising female participation in top level politics is accompanied by the fact that relatively few European leaders have children illustrating that it is difficult to have a family life in politics).
The other component of Franklin’s life worth mentioning is his stay in Paris and the close ties that existed between America and France at the time. Few people walking down Lafayette Avenue in downtown Manhattan are likely to be aware of the contributions of the Marquis de Lafayette and the novelist Beaumarchais to American history. France and America were the lynchpins of the democratic globe in the 18th century, and they remain so now, along with England, Ireland, and a slew of other European and Asian nations.
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Diamond
What’s more concerning is that democracy, as well as much of what Independence Day stands for, is under constant threat. The global ‘democratic recession’ was coined by American political scientist Larry Diamond a few years ago, and think tanks like Freedom House and the Economist Intelligence Unit have recently noted a broad-based drop in both the number and quality of democracies.
Almost 70% of the nations covered by the EIU’s Democracy Survey saw its overall democracy score drop, while the global average score dropped to its lowest level since the index began in 2006. The EIU’s database demonstrates that the world’s leading democracies are mostly tiny advanced countries, contributing to a sense of democracy’s vulnerability in comparison to larger countries, while Freedom House’s ‘freedom’ maps show how (geographically) polarized democracy is around the world.
If you ask me what concerns me the most about the globe, I would say that democracy, together with the rule of law and the role of credible institutions, is eroding. We can see the consequences in nations like Brazil, Hungary, and Turkey, but they may just as readily be dismissed as rising markets.
The New World
That is incorrect on two counts: the style of administration that populous fast-growing countries like Bangladesh, Nigeria, Rwanda, and Vietnam adopt will shape the world in the twenty-first century. Second, even formerly viewed as bastions of democracy, such as the United Kingdom, the quality of government is plainly declining.
To return to Larry Diamond, he recently wrote in Foreign Affairs magazine that the world may confront the danger of American democracy dying out, leaving the worldwide political economy adrift and shapeless. As a result, the politics of states like Georgia may be more important than what happens in India’s domestic politics.
The concern is that ‘fake news,’ voting restrictions, and a radicalized Republican Party are leading the US further away from democracy, and that there is a leadership vacuum in the absence of a unifying figure to take up the mantle of Hamilton (beyond President Biden, it is unclear who the obvious next candidate will be given the Vice President’s poor performance).
Unfortunately, it’s possible that such a threat is required to produce the next Benjamin Franklin. Happy 4th of July, everyone!/nRead More

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