South Korea, like the United States, is a democracy.
But that didn't stop President Yoon Suk Yeol from declaring martial law today, reversing his order a few hours later following massive outrage and demonstrations from South Korea's citizens and a unanimous vote from parliament rescinding the order. But for a while, troops tried to prevent members of parliament from entering their building, since Yoon's order declared political gatherings unlawful.
For a while, things were really ugly in South Korea.
Yoon's martial law announcement sounded like a dream come true for Donald Trump. If the decree had been put into effect, political assemblies and demonstrations would have been banned, news outlets and journalists would have been jailed for promoting "fake news," and arrests would have been allowed without a warrant.
In short, Yoon wanted to be an authoritarian ruler of a democracy by invoking the danger North Korean sympathizers, communists, and such supposedly posed to Yoon's right-wing sensibilities. A story in The Atlantic, "South Korea's Warning for Washington," starts out with a compelling couple of paragraphs.
A right-wing wannabe authoritarian president—a leader who attacks the press, is accused of abusing power for personal gain, uses his power to block investigations into his family’s potential corruption, hopes to stay in office to avoid heading to prison, and only seems to have concepts of a plan to address his nation’s inflation and health care—declared martial law earlier today.
This is not a dystopian fever dream for what may soon come to pass in the United States, but instead a rapidly unfolding crisis in South Korea, where President Yoon Suk Yeol shocked his nation with a hastily executed surprise power grab under the pretext of an unspecified military threat from North Korea and enemies within. Late Tuesday evening in Seoul, Yoon issued a statement calling the country’s National Assembly a “den of criminals” and claiming that it was undermining governance. Martial law was needed, Yoon claimed, to stop the “anti-state forces that are plundering the freedom and happiness of our people.”
Indeed, parts of Yoon's statement sound like they were adapted from a Trump campaign speech.
Dear citizens, I declare emergency martial law to defend the free Republic of Korea from the threats of North Korean communist forces and to eradicate the shameless pro-North Korean anti-state forces that are plundering the freedom and happiness of our people and to protect the free constitutional order.
Through this emergency martial law, I will rebuild and defend the free Republic of Korea, which is falling into ruin. To this end, I will surely eradicate the criminals of the anti-state forces who have been committing atrocities so far.
This is an inevitable step to ensure the freedom and safety of the people and the sustainability of the country, and to pass on a proper country to future generations from the unrestrained activities of anti-state forces aiming to overthrow the system. I will eradicate anti-state forces as soon as possible and normalize the country. I will crush the anti-state forces and normalize the country as soon as possible.
The declaration of martial law will cause some inconvenience to the good people who have believed in and followed the values of the Constitution of the free Republic of Korea, but I will focus on minimizing these inconveniences.
The good news for lovers of democracy is that South Korea appears to have weathered Yoon's attempt to substitute his own right-wing authoritarianism for the rule of law. After being narrowly elected president in 2022 by a margin of just 0.8% (not a whole lot less than Trump's 1.5% margin of victory in the 2024 popular vote), Yoon's approval rating sank to a dismal 17%.
In April 2024, South Korea's citizens overwhelmingly voted for the opposition party, leaving Yoon with a parliament firmly against him -- for good reason.
Mr. Yoon’s party had seen the 2024 elections as an opportunity to win back the chamber.
Instead the crises and scandals built. A Halloween celebration became a deadly catastrophe, and North Korea ramped up its threats. Doctors went on strike, describing a medical system of harsh working conditions and low wages. Allegations of corruption involving Mr. Yoon’s wife and a $2,200 Dior pouch roiled his party, with one senior member comparing her to Marie Antoinette.
Protests organized on social media by rival political activists became common, with a rough division of churchgoers and other older citizens on the right, and mostly younger people on the left.
The election devolved into vicious recriminations, with left-wing protesters calling Mr. Yoon a “national traitor” over what they called his anti-feminist policies and attacks on news outlets he accused of spreading “fake news.” They also criticized him for the Halloween crowd crush and his efforts to improve ties with Japan, the onetime colonial ruler of Korea.
Opposition leaders warned that Mr. Yoon was taking South Korea onto the path of “dictatorship.” In turn, members of Mr. Yoon’s party called the opposition “criminals,” and voters on the right rallied against what they called “pro-North Korean communists.”
"Instead the crises and scandals built." It sure seems like those words are a premonition of what awaits the United States after Trump is inaugurated next month.
I only hope that our 2026 midterm election hands Trump's Republican Party such a resounding defeat that we too will have shown that Americans value democracy and competent governance much more than bending the knee to a wanna-be authoritarian.
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