A very real crisis of democracy is unfolding throughout the world. Authoritarian governments are on the rise, and far-right politicians who pine for the days of dictatorship are rising to prominence, even winning power, and forging cross-continental alliances as they do so. Joe Biden is not wrong when he says renewing democracy “is the defining challenge of our time.”

Unfortunately, if Biden’s just-finished Summit for Democracy is anything to go by, the US liberal establishment neither understands this threat to democracy and their part in creating it nor has any real solutions for reversing it.

Biden’s summit — a two-day-long Zoom call between 110 countries — was largely a symbolic affair aimed, first, at reestablishing Washington’s traditional self-conception as the “leader of the free world,” and second, as a coded slap in the face to an emerging axis of Russia and China. Participants were meant to agree on a set of democratic commitments that they would make real in months and years ahead. Kicking things off on Thursday, Biden called on governments to not just protect civil liberties and the right to vote but to tackle corruption. Other ideas put forward include protecting journalists and ending internet shutoffs.