«"Democrats united": I use this phrase with care. I don't intend it to be an insult, or to imply that the democratic world should become a mirror of the autocratic world. On the contrary, I am using it because I believe the citizens of the United States, and the citizens of the democracies of Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America, should begin thinking of themselves as linked to one another and to people who share their values inside autocracies too. They need one another, now more than ever, because their democracies are not safe. Nobody's democracy is safe.
Americans, with our long history of imagining ourselves to be exceptional, would do well to remember that our domestic politics have always been connected to, and influenced by, a larger struggle for freedom and the rule of law around the world. Europeans who aspire to a Fortress Europe also need to wake up to the reality that Russian influence campaigns and Chinese commercial interests are already shaping their politics and limiting their choices. We are used to thinking of "the West" influencing the world, but nowadays the influence often runs the other way. Even if we don't believe it or don't acknowledge it, that won't make it go away.
Most Parisians, Madrileños, New Yorkers, and Londoners do not have strong feelings about the political leaders of Russia, China, Iran, and Venezuela. But those rulers pay close attention to what happens in Paris, Madrid, New York, and London. They understand that the language of democracy, anticorruption, and justice - language we often use without thinking about it - poses dangers to their power. They will continue to try to mold our politics and our economics to their advantage, even if we cover our eyes and ears and refuse to notice, as many would prefer.»
