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Hundreds of scholars say U.S. is swiftly heading toward authoritarianism (1 Viewer)

Bonnot

Bonnot

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A survey of more than 500 political scientists finds that the vast majority think the United States is moving swiftly from liberal democracy toward some form of authoritarianism.

In the benchmark survey, known as Bright Line Watch, U.S.-based professors rate the performance of American democracy on a scale from zero (complete dictatorship) to 100 (perfect democracy). After President Trump's election in November, scholars gave American democracy a rating of 67. Several weeks into Trump's second term, that figure plummeted to 55.

"That's a precipitous drop," says John Carey, a professor of government at Dartmouth and co-director of Bright Line Watch. "There's certainly consensus: We're moving in the wrong direction."

Bang up job Americans.
 
Bonnot said:

A survey of more than 500 political scientists finds that the vast majority think the United States is moving swiftly from liberal democracy toward some form of authoritarianism.

In the benchmark survey, known as Bright Line Watch, U.S.-based professors rate the performance of American democracy on a scale from zero (complete dictatorship) to 100 (perfect democracy). After President Trump's election in November, scholars gave American democracy a rating of 67. Several weeks into Trump's second term, that figure plummeted to 55.

"That's a precipitous drop," says John Carey, a professor of government at Dartmouth and co-director of Bright Line Watch. "There's certainly consensus: We're moving in the wrong direction."

Bang up job Americans.
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I'm no scholar, but I'd say we're pretty much already there - at the "authoritarianism" stage - given trump's refusal to comply not just with judges' orders but also with a SCOTUS decision (or two, perhaps).
 
Bonnot said:

A survey of more than 500 political scientists finds that the vast majority think the United States is moving swiftly from liberal democracy toward some form of authoritarianism.

In the benchmark survey, known as Bright Line Watch, U.S.-based professors rate the performance of American democracy on a scale from zero (complete dictatorship) to 100 (perfect democracy). After President Trump's election in November, scholars gave American democracy a rating of 67. Several weeks into Trump's second term, that figure plummeted to 55.

"That's a precipitous drop," says John Carey, a professor of government at Dartmouth and co-director of Bright Line Watch. "There's certainly consensus: We're moving in the wrong direction."

Bang up job Americans.
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Doesn’t take a political scientist.
 
What gave it away? The shakedowns of media organizations, universities, and prominent law firms? Or shipping off people to foreign torture prisons with no due process? Or maybe it was the oligarchs given free reign to illegally plunder and dismantle the people's government? Or perhaps the total usurpation of legislation powers by the executive (e.g., the illegal arbitrary tariffs)?
 
Pyrite said:
I'm no scholar, but I'd say we're pretty much already there - at the "authoritarianism" stage - given trump's refusal to comply not just with judges' orders but also with a SCOTUS decision (or two, perhaps).
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And attacking news companies for being critical of him.
 
Campbell adds that he thinks many political scientists may see Trump as autocratic because they don't like him or his politics. "I think most of them are coming from the political left," he says. "There's a comfort in all of them getting together and saying, 'Oh, Trump's a bad guy. He's authoritarian.' "
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Ya think?

In another example, Trump has withheld or threatened to withhold billions of dollars from universities, including Harvard, Princeton and Columbia, citing concerns about antisemitism. Scheppele says Orbán also targeted universities that had been critical of his government.
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So the political "scientist" compares fighting the Jew-hating left with being critical of the government. They're practically the same thing, right?
 
Bonnot said:

A survey of more than 500 political scientists finds that the vast majority think the United States is moving swiftly from liberal democracy toward some form of authoritarianism.

In the benchmark survey, known as Bright Line Watch, U.S.-based professors rate the performance of American democracy on a scale from zero (complete dictatorship) to 100 (perfect democracy). After President Trump's election in November, scholars gave American democracy a rating of 67. Several weeks into Trump's second term, that figure plummeted to 55.

"That's a precipitous drop," says John Carey, a professor of government at Dartmouth and co-director of Bright Line Watch. "There's certainly consensus: We're moving in the wrong direction."

Bang up job Americans.
Click to expand...
Traitors, cowards, and crooks, oh my!
 
aociswundumho said:
Ya think?



So the political "scientist" compares fighting the Jew-hating left with being critical of the government. They're practically the same thing, right?
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Post #7


Wrong. Trump isn't fighting "Jew-haters".

He's trying to suppress the rights to assembly and to free speech.

More broadly, he's attempting to bring our institutions of higher learning under the thumb of the President. To make them subservient to the whims and wishes and wants of the President. To make them Presidential propaganda outlets.
 
Once we're done with Trump, it will be time for a constitutional convention. The shattering of so many norms is a genie that cannot be put back in the bottle under our current system. And even once Trump is gone, we will know that it's possible for another Trump to emerge in the future.

I think we're going to need to move to a parliamentary system to future-Trump-proof the government. They are less likely to become dictatorships (although not entirely immune as Viktor Orban demonstrates). We are also going to need a better judicial confirmation process and a much clearer delineation of judicial responsibilities. Congressional districts should be computer-drawn according to the shortest split-line algorithm, to increase competitiveness and reduce partisan polarity.

All of these things would help Trump-proof our government in the future. Granted, none of them will be politically possible unless Trump wrecks the government so badly that no one even wants to go back to the old constitutional order anyway.
 
Pyrite said:
Wrong. Trump isn't fighting "Jew-haters".
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You mean left-wing Jew-haters.

Harvard has faced numerous lawsuits over the issue:

en.wikipedia.org

Shabbos Kestenbaum - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

Judge Rules Anti-Semitism Lawsuit Against Harvard Should Begin - Brandeis Center

Contact: Nicole Rosen 202-309-5724 Washington, D.C., Nov. 6, 2024: Kenneth L. Marcus, chairman of The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and the former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education for George W. Bush and Donald Trump issued the following statement in response to U.S...
brandeiscenter.com brandeiscenter.com

Also from here:

In December 2023, the Presidents of Harvard, MIT and Penn testified before Congress regarding the state of antisemitism in their universities and were asked if "calling for the genocide of Jews" is against the codes of conduct in Penn, MIT and Harvard. The three presidents answered that it was a violation depending on the context. The President of Harvard, Claudine Gay and president of Penn, Lizz Magill subsequently resigned following criticism.[9][16] In August 2024, Columbia president Minouche Shafik also resigned following criticism,[17][18] and this came alongside the resignation of three deans at Columbia who were accused of sending text messages with antisemitic tropes.[19][20]
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and

The Anti-Defamation League graded 85 American universities in 2024 regarding policies to protect Jewish students from antisemitism on campus. 12 universities including Harvard, MIT, Stanford, University of Chicago, Princeton and others received an F.
Click to expand...
 
Gatsby said:
Once we're done with Trump, it will be time for a constitutional convention. The shattering of so many norms is a genie that cannot be put back in the bottle under our current system. And even once Trump is gone, we will know that it's possible for another Trump to emerge in the future.

I think we're going to need to move to a parliamentary system to future-Trump-proof the government. They are less likely to become dictatorships (although not entirely immune as Viktor Orban demonstrates). We are also going to need a better judicial confirmation process and a much clearer delineation of judicial responsibilities. Congressional districts should be computer-drawn according to the shortest split-line algorithm, to increase competitiveness and reduce partisan polarity.

All of these things would help Trump-proof our government in the future. Granted, none of them will be politically possible unless Trump wrecks the government so badly that no one even wants to go back to the old constitutional order anyway.
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Gatsby:

Be careful what you wish for. Such a convention could go as far awry as the last election. I don't have a better answer than yours but it could cause more problems than it solves or prevents.

Be well and be safe.
Evilroddy.
 
Heading towards?
 
aociswundumho said:
You mean like the UK, where people are arrested every day for mean facebook posts?
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That's an issue of weak free speech guarantees due to no Constitution, not something that would be improved if King Charles had more power or if Keir Starmer were the president.
 
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A survey of 500 Democrat political scientists...... The left always does this sort of illegitimate studies or surveys when there is Republican president.
It's one of their tools in their bag of smear tactics
 
Buster Keaton said:
A survey of 500 Democrat political scientists...... The left always does this sort of illegitimate studies or surveys when there is Republican president.
It's one of their tools in their bag of smear tactics
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Who would have thought that trying to clean up our border and tackle wasteful spending would be considered authoritarian? Crazy times.
 
Pyrite said:
I'm no scholar, but I'd say we're pretty much already there - at the "authoritarianism" stage - given trump's refusal to comply not just with judges' orders but also with a SCOTUS decision (or two, perhaps).
Click to expand...

It's still reversible. But the window to do something about it is closing rapidly.
 
aociswundumho said:
You mean left-wing Jew-haters.

Harvard has faced numerous lawsuits over the issue:

en.wikipedia.org

Shabbos Kestenbaum - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

Judge Rules Anti-Semitism Lawsuit Against Harvard Should Begin - Brandeis Center

Contact: Nicole Rosen 202-309-5724 Washington, D.C., Nov. 6, 2024: Kenneth L. Marcus, chairman of The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and the former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education for George W. Bush and Donald Trump issued the following statement in response to U.S...
brandeiscenter.com brandeiscenter.com

Also from here:



and
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No, it's not "left-wing Jew haters".

It's people who have the RIGHT to assemble and the RIGHT to free speech. The right to protest.

YOU infer that those who protest the Israeli Government's actions in Gaza / against Palestinians in Garza are "left-wing Jew haters". That's an assumption YOU choose to make. That you want it to be true doesn't make it so.
 
Allan said:
No it doesn't.

For years the EIU has ranked America as a "Flawed Democracy". I would suggest they are one step down now and and should be rated a Hybrid Regime, which is one notch above Authoritarian Regime.
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We've had authoritarian regimes before, but it was kind of a voluntary give and understood that the sacrifice in freedom was temporary, situational. In fact, if you go back to the original meaning of the ancient Roman dictator, it was a temporary administrative position, often a specialist, brought in to deal with an an emergency, given emergency powers to deal with whatever he was dealing with, and then order was restored. This has been the fashion and form of American authoritarianism: Lincoln, Wilson, and FDR. This is altogether different. This is an anti-democracy experiment, and they're testing us to see who's awake.
 
Bonnot said:

A survey of more than 500 political scientists finds that the vast majority think the United States is moving swiftly from liberal democracy toward some form of authoritarianism.

In the benchmark survey, known as Bright Line Watch, U.S.-based professors rate the performance of American democracy on a scale from zero (complete dictatorship) to 100 (perfect democracy). After President Trump's election in November, scholars gave American democracy a rating of 67. Several weeks into Trump's second term, that figure plummeted to 55.

"That's a precipitous drop," says John Carey, a professor of government at Dartmouth and co-director of Bright Line Watch. "There's certainly consensus: We're moving in the wrong direction."

Bang up job Americans.
Click to expand...
Are they related to the 51 intelligence officials?
 
venice_ca said:
If DJT refuses to recognize the authority of the courts, are we left to wait for the 2026 elections until he could [possibly] be brought under control?
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Yes.

He seems to be exploiting - or is about to exploit - the fundamental flaw in our system: there's no way to force the Chief Enforcer to comply with the law (including with judicial orders/decisions).
 
venice_ca said:
If DJT refuses to recognize the authority of the courts, are we left to wait for the 2026 elections until he could [possibly] be brought under control?
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He already runs roughshod over the legislative branch. What makes you think Democrat control would make a difference?

You're heading straight into a constitutional crisis.
 
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