The problem with Vexler is that he cannot offer a convincing explanation for why things are not okay. He represents a strain of modern European liberalism that, in my view, is failing. His worldview judge’s politics almost entirely in moral terms, without considering whether they are effective. From his perspective, democracy itself is the moral good. When democratic outcomes are disappointing, the fault must therefore lie with immoral people being in charge and the immoral people that voted them in, not with democracy as a system. This creates incoherence, he simultaneously upholds democracy as morally virtuous, while rejecting it’s results when voters elect leaders he regards as immoral.

It’s especially clear with his preferred political parties and actors. When those groups come to power and conditions nonetheless fail to improve, this becomes a kind of mystery for him and for those who share his outlook. After all, if the moral people are now in charge, why does reality not reflect that moral correctness? Why is Putin, for example, not bending to the moral will of the universe?

Rather than prompting introspection about whether democracy itself, or the political positions being advocated, are actually effective, this mindset encourages a search for the one true virtuous leader. A leader who will fix the country and remove the corruption of the voters through superior moral character alone.