[Verse 1] Nineteen seventy-four, Lisbon streets are singing Soldiers slide carnations down their rifle barrels, bringing Petals where the bullets go, a revolution soft and slow Huntington was counting waves, he names this wave the third one flowing First wave eighteenth century, second after Hitler's fall This one swept through Spain and Greece, then vaulted over walls Latin America woke up, the generals packed their bags Eastern Europe tumbled too when Communism sagged [Chorus] Third wave, third wave, started with a flower Carnation in the gun barrel, mark the opening hour Rich and free, do they agree? Lipset said money built the stage Przeworski said not quite — wealth just guards the cage Remember Moore's old line, scrawled in bourgeois chalk: No bourgeois, no democracy — that's the only walk [Verse 2] Lipset in fifty-nine said wealth and freedom hold hands tight Modernization theory: get rich, democracy's in sight But Przeworski checked the numbers, found a twist inside the tale Money doesn't plant the seed, it stops the sapling going stale Once you're free and coffers fat, you rarely slide back down Poor democracies are brittle things, quick to shut the town So wealth's not quite a father to freedom, more a bodyguard that stays Keeping the system breathing through recessions, droughts, delays [Verse 3] Barrington Moore went digging back through England, France, Japan Found the merchants and the traders were democracy's first fans No bourgeois, no democracy — a class that owns the shop Pushes kings to share the crown, refuses when to stop The middle rank with money wants a vote to match their purse That's the gear that turns the wheel of history, line by verse [Verse 4] Two thousand eleven, Tunisia lit the fuse Arab Spring came blooming, old regimes sang the blues Tahrir Square was roaring, Egypt tasted thinner air But the generals circled back around, Assad dug his heels in there Syria burned, Libya splintered, Egypt's door slammed shut again Only Tunisia kept it standing — one success among the ten [Bridge] Levitsky and Ziblatt wrote the manual for the fall Democracies don't always die with tanks against the wall They die in daylight, voted in, then strangled soft and slow Executive aggrandizement — grab the reins and never let it go Orbán up in Budapest rewrote the referee's own book Courts and cameras bent his way, a careful, legal hook No coup, no curfew, just a thousand small erosions That's the quiet autopsy of democratic notions [Chorus] Third wave, third wave, started with a flower Carnation in the gun barrel, mark the opening hour Rich and free, do they agree? Lipset said money built the stage Przeworski said not quite — wealth just guards the cage Remember Moore's old line, scrawled in bourgeois chalk: No bourgeois, no democracy — that's the only walk
← Authoritarian Regimes | Revolutions and Political Violence →