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General trend towards dictatorship

Or not, by disapproving Trump.

Welcome to November 2020. Trump lost.
 
I believe in limited and selective democracy (only those with skin in the game should be able to vote). If that can't happen, I would rather a hyper nationalist strong man leader than letting the easily brainwashable masses take the country to ruin as has happened in the US and Western Europe.
 
The framers were prescient:

Washington, of course, was not the only framer who viewed our Constitution largely as a bulwark against demagogues. In the surviving records of the speeches given at the Constitutional Convention, the word “demagogue” was used 21 times by the framers as they crafted the Constitution’s essential checks and balances against despotism and tyranny.

“Demagogues are the great pests of our government,” said Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts during the convention, “and have occasioned most of our distresses.” Gerry further described demagogues as “pretended patriots,” unprincipled politicians who steer the people toward “baneful measures” through “false reports.”

James Madison of Virginia twice alluded to “the danger of demagogues.” Alexander Hamilton of New York spoke of this peril of democracy more than any other delegate, naming it seven times. Demagogues, Hamilton said on the floor of Independence Hall in late June 1787, “hate the controul of the Genl. Government.”

Later, Hamilton went on to predict an ominous decline in republics from demagoguery to tyranny. As he put it in Federalist No. 1: “History will teach us that ... of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people; commencing demagogues, and ending tyrants.”

Other framers who raised the red flag of demagoguery during the Constitutional Convention were Gouverneur Morris of Pennsylvania, Pierce Butler of South Carolina, and Edmund Randolph and George Mason of Virginia. Mason declared outright that “the mischievous influence of demagogues” was one of the top two “evils” that can befall republican forms of government.


www.latimes.com

Opinion: Why demagogues were the Founding Fathers’ greatest fear

For the Founding Fathers, impeachment was democracy's defense against demagogues who placed their own ambitions above the nation's interests.
www.latimes.com www.latimes.com
 
highroller said:
Dictatorships aren’t set up by majority rule.
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They're usually set up by military force (El Salvador). Secondarily by changing the rules from a position of popularity (Mugabe). Only thirdly by seizing power from a minority position (Hitler).

The American democratic tradition is so long, I simply can't imagine a minority seizing power by intimidating legislators. If this even looked likely, I think a short (but nonetheless damaging) military dictatorship would reset democracy. The danger is in type II: states have so much control over the voting process and so much power in the Senate, that a political minority could entrench themselves just by gradually changing the rules.
 
Channe79 said:
Any. First step is to increase the voting age to 25 and make anyone under exempt from taxes and the draft.
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Exemption of under 25's from taxes and the draft is welcome. There's no need to disenfranchise them though. Sufficient rationale is that they are relatively powerless (money is power) and they've already lived under a government they had no say in, for 18 years.
 
Ug make hammer said:
They're usually set up by military force (El Salvador). Secondarily by changing the rules from a position of popularity (Mugabe). Only thirdly by seizing power from a minority position (Hitler).

The American democratic tradition is so long, I simply can't imagine a minority seizing power by intimidating legislators. If this even looked likely, I think a short (but nonetheless damaging) military dictatorship would reset democracy. The danger is in type II: states have so much control over the voting process and so much power in the Senate, that a political minority could entrench themselves just by gradually changing the rules.
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[my emphasis]

2021 tidal wave of restrictive voting legislation will continue in 2022

Between January 1 and December 7, at least 19 states passed 34 laws restricting access to voting. More than 440 bills with provisions that restrict voting access have been introduced in 49 states in the 2021 legislative sessions. These numbers are extraordinary: state legislatures enacted far more restrictive voting laws in 2021 than in any year since the Brennan Center began tracking voting legislation in 2011. More than a third of all restrictive voting laws enacted since then were passed this year. And in a new trend this year, legislators introduced bills to allow partisan actors footnote1_1enof4o1 to interfere with election processes or even reject election results entirely.

Unfortunately, the momentum around this legislation continues. So far, at least 13 bills restricting access to voting have been pre-filed footnote2_12f7c3w2 for the 2022 legislative session in four states. In addition, at least 152 restrictive voting bills in 18 states will carry over from 2021. These early indicators — coupled with the ongoing mobilization around the Big Lie (the same false rhetoric about voter fraud that drove this year’s unprecedented wave of vote suppression bills) — suggest that efforts to restrict and undermine the vote will continue to be a serious threat in 2022.
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1 These “election sabotage” bills, which are discussed further below, would have empowered a variety of partisan actors to reject or meddle with election results. Some of these bills, e.g. AZ H.B. 2720, would have empowered state legislatures to reject the results of an election. Others, e.g. TX S.B. 7, would have granted such a power to other partisan actors like elected judges.​

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Ug make hammer said:
They're usually set up by military force (El Salvador). Secondarily by changing the rules from a position of popularity (Mugabe). Only thirdly by seizing power from a minority position (Hitler).

The American democratic tradition is so long, I simply can't imagine a minority seizing power by intimidating legislators. If this even looked likely, I think a short (but nonetheless damaging) military dictatorship would reset democracy. The danger is in type II: states have so much control over the voting process and so much power in the Senate, that a political minority could entrench themselves just by gradually changing the rules.
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Republicans don’t believe we are a democracy. They say we are a Republic, which is now just code for authoritarian dictatorship rule by one party. I’ve talked to them extensively.

Second, once you lose democracy, you don’t just get it back. People in power do not tend to give it up so easily.
 
Somerville said:
[my emphasis]
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Yes. The only valid response is to win State legislatures (or at least Governorships to block the changes) and unfortunately that means the national Dems being less than progressive.

The Senate aside, it is obscene that States have so much power over the House and the Presidency. Federal elections should be administered by Federal authorities, and if States still want to keep their own voter rolls or gerrymander their own legislatures, then it wouldn't be so bad.

What horse-riding, tobacco-chewing inbred designed ... oh, wups, it was the Founding Fathers. Nvm.
 
highroller said:
Second, once you lose democracy, you don’t just get it back. People in power do not tend to give it up so easily.
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Well that's not technically true. European nations lost democracy, and when they got it back it was with improvements based on earlier French and Scandinavian models. Is it really so different to lose democracy by invasion, as to lose it by a military coup?

I do think "Democracy 2.0" after military intervention would be more fragile, and not something to wish for. The threats to democracy in the US are political, and they can be countered politically.

Republicans have moved to the right (see diagram below) but it takes two to tango. The civil war option (which I noticed I left out, a mistake) only happens if Democrats move proportionately left. Maybe you see centrist government as appeasement?

DW Nominate Congress.png
 
Channe79 said:
I believe in limited and selective democracy (only those with skin in the game should be able to vote). If that can't happen, I would rather a hyper nationalist strong man leader than letting the easily brainwashable masses take the country to ruin as has happened in the US and Western Europe.
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The strong man leader will also ruin the country. It's obvious that the state in any form destroys everything it touches.
 
highroller said:
Republicans don’t believe we are a democracy. They say we are a Republic, which is now just code for authoritarian dictatorship rule by one party. I’ve talked to them extensively.

Second, once you lose democracy, you don’t just get it back. People in power do not tend to give it up so easily.
Click to expand...

That's right, but you have a much better chance of getting it back with a market economy than under socialism. Pinochet eventually allowed elections, whereas Stalin, Mao, Hitler, etc didn't and never would have.
 
Channe79 said:
I believe in limited and selective democracy (only those with skin in the game should be able to vote). If that can't happen, I would rather a hyper nationalist strong man leader than letting the easily brainwashable masses take the country to ruin as has happened in the US and Western Europe.
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Who doesn't have "skin in the game"?
 
Channe79 said:
I believe in limited and selective democracy (only those with skin in the game should be able to vote). If that can't happen, I would rather a hyper nationalist strong man leader than letting the easily brainwashable masses take the country to ruin as has happened in the US and Western Europe.
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Are you an American?
 
aociswundumho said:
That's right, but you have a much better chance of getting it back with a market economy than under socialism. Pinochet eventually allowed elections, whereas Stalin, Mao, Hitler, etc didn't and never would have.
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Pinochet didn’t have a choice. He tried to carry out a brutal crackdown after his electoral defeat, but the rest of the junta refused to support him.
 
Tigerace117 said:
Pinochet didn’t have a choice. He tried to carry out a brutal crackdown after his electoral defeat, but the rest of the junta refused to support him.
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Even heavily left-wing biased wikipedia finds that assertion "dubious" and it doesn't matter anyway, because if it weren't for the Chilean economists trained at the University of Chicago, the national plebiscite never would have happened.


INTERVIEWER: When you were down in Chile you spoke to some students in Santiago. Can you tell me about that speech in Santiago?

MILTON FRIEDMAN: Sure. While I was in Santiago, Chile, I gave a talk at the Catholic University of Chile. Now, I should explain that the University of Chicago had had an arrangement for years with the Catholic University of Chile, whereby they send students to us and we send people down there to help them reorganize their economics department. And I gave a talk at the Catholic University of Chile under the title "The Fragility of Freedom." The essence of the talk was that freedom was a very fragile thing and that what destroyed it more than anything else was central control; that in order to maintain freedom, you had to have free markets, and that free markets would work best if you had political freedom. So it was essentially an anti-totalitarian talk.

INTERVIEWER: So you envisaged, therefore, that the free markets ultimately would undermine Pinochet?

MILTON FRIEDMAN: Oh, absolutely. The emphasis of that talk was that free markets would undermine political centralization and political control.

INTERVIEWER: In the end, the Chilean [economy] did quite well, didn't it?

MILTON FRIEDMAN: Oh, very well. Extremely well. The Chilean economy did very well, but more important, in the end the central government, the military junta, was replaced by a democratic society. So the really important thing about the Chilean business is that free markets did work their way in bringing about a free society.


Commanding Heights : Reform | on PBS

www.pbs.org
 
Channe79 said:
I believe in limited and selective democracy (only those with skin in the game should be able to vote). If that can't happen, I would rather a hyper nationalist strong man leader than letting the easily brainwashable masses take the country to ruin as has happened in the US and Western Europe.
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You never disappoint. What success has 'hyper nationalist strong men' had??? Castro, the Tzars??? Lenin, Stalin, Chavez... ✌️
 
Observer said:
It looks like the US electorate is marching towards the new, modern form of populisim, as communisim and dictatorships , similar to Putin and Erdogan, by approving Trump !
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They want Trump to be a dictator.
 
aociswundumho said:
Even heavily left-wing biased wikipedia finds that assertion "dubious" and it doesn't matter anyway, because if it weren't for the Chilean economists trained at the University of Chicago, the national plebiscite never would have happened.


INTERVIEWER: When you were down in Chile you spoke to some students in Santiago. Can you tell me about that speech in Santiago?

MILTON FRIEDMAN: Sure. While I was in Santiago, Chile, I gave a talk at the Catholic University of Chile. Now, I should explain that the University of Chicago had had an arrangement for years with the Catholic University of Chile, whereby they send students to us and we send people down there to help them reorganize their economics department. And I gave a talk at the Catholic University of Chile under the title "The Fragility of Freedom." The essence of the talk was that freedom was a very fragile thing and that what destroyed it more than anything else was central control; that in order to maintain freedom, you had to have free markets, and that free markets would work best if you had political freedom. So it was essentially an anti-totalitarian talk.

INTERVIEWER: So you envisaged, therefore, that the free markets ultimately would undermine Pinochet?

MILTON FRIEDMAN: Oh, absolutely. The emphasis of that talk was that free markets would undermine political centralization and political control.

INTERVIEWER: In the end, the Chilean [economy] did quite well, didn't it?

MILTON FRIEDMAN: Oh, very well. Extremely well. The Chilean economy did very well, but more important, in the end the central government, the military junta, was replaced by a democratic society. So the really important thing about the Chilean business is that free markets did work their way in bringing about a free society.


Commanding Heights : Reform | on PBS

www.pbs.org
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Hate to break it to you but the US government— specifically, the NSA— says otherwise. Pinochet wanted to crack down hard, but his fellow junta members refused to support him.


The Chicago Boys? Gee, you mean the people you previously tried to deny had any role or complicity in the murderous junta?

😂

Gee bud, and all it took was almost twenty years and the mass murder of numerous innocent people. Friedman’s desperation to cover his ass is comical.
 
Channe79 said:
I believe in limited and selective democracy (only those with skin in the game should be able to vote). If that can't happen, I would rather a hyper nationalist strong man leader than letting the easily brainwashable masses take the country to ruin as has happened in the US and Western Europe.
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For starters Western Europe is not ruined, yours is a stupid, baseless statement.

Secondly, Trump is not a strongman ..he's a weak, thin skinned man boy.

7.jpg
 
notquiteright said:
You never disappoint. What success has 'hyper nationalist strong men' had??? Castro, the Tzars??? Lenin, Stalin, Chavez... ✌️
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Castro, Lenin, Stalin, Chavez were all socialists. They are the result of socialism.
When I say "strong men," I want someone who is a benevolent Tzar - not sure if one is possible, but Russia was much better off under the Tzar than under socialism.
 
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