Gotham City

A Failed Liberal Democracy

In Batman: The Dark Knight, we are essentially told by Christopher Nolan that liberal democracy, while being the backbone of America and good in theory, does not work in practice. In other words, the liberal democracy being ineffective when it comes to protecting the people in it is a prevalent theme in Batman the Dark Knight. The state of Gotham at the beginning of the film is a city running rampant with crime. When Harvey Dent, the idealistic conservative hard-on-crime District Attorney, decides to put thousands of Gotham's criminals behind bars in an act of retribution and incapacitation (both conservative-leaning goals), he sets off a horrible chain of events. 

The mob's efforts to get back at Dent for sending so many criminals to jail and at Batman for constantly foiling their plans are deficient, so they accept the help of the Joker, an existential enemy of Gotham city and Batman. The Joker's only motivators seem to be showing that even the best people will act out of self-interest and, plainly, evil for the sake of evil. 

The city's police have no power over the Joker, the city has exhausted all political policy options, and even Harvey Dent, Gotham's personification of hope, has no power to stop this massive threat to the city. And so the city officials turn to Batman. 

The city of Gotham is portrayed as a place crawling with crime that liberal democracy cannot possibly control. Even the glimpse of hope offered by Harvey Dent is trampled over by more crisis for the city. Many of the policemen and government officials are corrupt or easily corruptible.  Officer Anna Ramirez, for example, turns in Harvey Dent because of a threat from mob boss Sal Maroni.

The Joker explains people and corruption

The  one person who can save Gotham is Batman. It is surprising that in a democracy, the only person that can protect a whole city is a man who operates entirely outside of all democratic allowances. Batman uses his own judgement and is his own judge and jury.

Batman using his own judgement. A normal person would get charged with assault and battery but in Gotham, it's okay as long as it's in the name of justice. Or if you're a billionaire playboy with cool weapons.

In fact, he even goes so far as to invade on the privacy of about 30 million people for the sole purpose of defeating one threat. Whether this is Christopher Nolan's way of commenting on Bush's Patriot Act or not, it is a completely un-democratic means to a noble end. The sonar device is so ethically questionable, in fact, that Lucius Fox insists on resigning when the goal of the privacy invasion is reached.

Lucius Fox resigns

Everything Batman does to safeguard Gotham is an exception to the rule of law that everyone else has to follow. He does not follow the laws of democracy, yet is seen as the hero and the only person who can keep the Gotham safe. This whole idea is so obviously right-wing that some may go as far as to say it is fascist, in the George Orwell-ian Conservative sense. Yet we view Batman as a hero, a protector of our civil liberties. And, thus, we make exceptions for everything he does, even though any other normal citizen who did the same things would be considered a dangerous criminal who would elicit a response similar to this from us everyday citizens: