Democracy worked as it supposed in South Korea, as a president who abused power was peacefully removed from power. It’s a lesson for all of us. In 2021, Republican senators failed to protect democracy by not convicting Donald Trump and barring him from ever holding public office again.
On Dec. 3, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol invoked martial law, under a rationale that remains somewhat nebulous. Friday, the nation’s highest court upheld the parliament’s impeachment of Yoon and ordered him removed from office, capping a lightning collapse of the conservative rising star in just the four months since he took aim at the country’s democracy.
South Korea might be a very different culture than ours, but the political circumstances of this debacle don’t sound wholly unfamiliar; Yoon’s supporters maintain that he was protecting the country from nefarious North Korean-aligned political enemies, or even that shadowy figures have subverted the country’s elections, spurred on by right-wing influencers on YouTube and other social media.
Yoon’s critics point out that he made the bizarre moves while facing long-running questions about his wife’s alleged corrupt dealings and in a politically delicate moment for himself, apparently in a short-sighted attempt to hold onto power.
The Occam’s razor explanation is that the brash president gambled on a plan to subvert the country’s democratic process and save his own skin by fanning the flames of conspiracy and refusing to accept political realities, and lost. South Korean legislators, including those from Yoon’s own People Power Party, understood the gravity of the situation and moved quickly to quash his coup and oust him.