Is the US experiencing authoritarian collapse?

[darkprincealain]

When I first found AW, there used to be more Republicans around the boards, and as I remember it there were some good and respectful convos - which didn't happen so much with the Libertarian mob.

I don’t know if it’s a cultural difference or maybe I’m misunderstanding you, however I don’t remember this subforum’s Libertarians being disrespectful or arguing in bad faith. Certainly not to the point that I would have called them a mob. I think the temperature here was hotter then and less educational than it is now. I’m pretty sure we all wrote some things we might not have meant exactly as they were worded.

Back on topic, we progressives said 45 was a symptom of a larger problem back in the day, and I think recent experience tends to bear that out. Even if 45 loses in November, I really think DC needs to figure some stuff out so that we don’t end up in the same boat in 2028. Flirting with fascism every couple years is not sustainable.

 

[Introversion]

Even if 45 loses in November, I really think DC needs to figure some stuff out so that we don’t end up in the same boat in 2028. Flirting with fascism every couple years is not sustainable.

Yes, and the only way any meaningful protections against creeping fascism will happen, is if Democrats regain Congress. The Republican party, in the condition it’s in, is literally is not capable of governing today. And certainly not of standing against fascism.

 

[CWatts]

I'm not sure discourse would ever have solved this. These people did not acquire Trump-like values the moment Trump became the GOP nominee. What we have here is a long-term tire fire that's blown up. It was lit many, many decades before Trump was on the political radar.

The Centralia, Pennsylvania coal mine fire may be a better analogy. It's been burning since the 1960s until it eventually destroyed the town.

But this fire of racist insurrection may go back a century further. If or when we win, we need to fucking FINISH Reconstruction this time.

 

[Maryn]

For a short time, we're closing this thread to allow people to cool off. It's brilliantly sunny here just now, over fifty degrees, and you're all welcome to enjoy the patio or explore the quarry behind the house.

 

[Maryn]

And we are now open for business as usual. Cite your sources, respect your fellow writer, and send muffin baskets to the moderators.

 

[Introversion]

And we are now open for business as usual. Cite your sources, respect your fellow writer, and send muffin baskets to the moderators.

 

[darkprincealain]

Top of the muffin to the moderators.

 

[CMBright]

And we are now open for business as usual. Cite your sources, respect your fellow writer, and send muffin baskets to the moderators.

 

[Meg]

So far you've gotten two empty baskets and no muffins! And that would be because there is no muffin emoji. Here, have a cupcake:

 

[Meg]

Insights by a former Hungarian parlimentarian about authoritarianism in the U.S.: supremacism is a big part of it, but so is abandonment of the working people by the neo-liberal Democratic party. Pause for a moment to appreciate that. It was the "liberals" who drove people into the arms of the populists.

Essay: I watched Hungary's democracy dissolve into authoritariansm as a member of parliament—and I see troubling parallels in Trumpism and its appeal to workers

tl;dr? Here's a video interview (video starts at the relevant point): Warning to America: Hungarian Green on Authoritarianism as Trump Hosts PM Viktor Orbán at Mar-a-Lago

 

[ElaineA]

Full disclosure, I haven't yet read the linked article yet (I will), but I am always skeptical of such arguments for the same reasons poor McCardey got pushed back on the other day. People outside of the US think they know what it's like here. For good reason! Because we sell this very specific image of ourselves to the world (and at home), but the lived experience of America is radically different than that Shining City PR snow job.

We sell an image of "freedom," but we don't have anything close to an actual free society. And lord knows I wish we had a well-established, truly liberal faction, but we have never been a liberal country. The only time we do anything slightly "progressive," is in an emergency. In the Civil War era, in the Great Depression/WWII, in the Civil Rights era. But once the emergency is over, we revert to what we have always been. The façade of a government, specifically constructed to aid and assist unfettered capitalism. And capitalism will never be progressive.

So saying things like, "the liberals pushed voters into Trump's arms" belies the actual truth of how Americans exist in a socio-political sense: we (as a body politic) have been indoctrinated over the course of more than 250 years to believe that wealth, money, and obeisance to our financial superiors is the only way to happiness, and that unanimous support for unfettered capitalism is the surest way to keep our country free. The people happy in Trump's embrace are the status quo people.

Moving to a more progressive future in the US would mean not tweaking the parties, or making the Dems less neo-liberal. It would essentially mean building a whole new country. One the Financial Lords, Political Lords, and Judicial Lords are not going to allow to exist.

 

[Meg]

Full disclosure, I haven't yet read the linked article yet (I will), but I am always skeptical of such arguments for the same reasons poor McCardey got pushed back on the other day. People outside of the US think they know what it's like here. For good reason! Because we sell this very specific image of ourselves to the world (and at home), but the lived experience of America is radically different than that Shining City PR snow job.

We sell an image of "freedom," but we don't have anything close to an actual free society. And lord knows I wish we had a well-established, truly liberal faction, but we have never been a liberal country. The only time we do anything slightly "progressive," is in an emergency. In the Civil War era, in the Great Depression/WWII, in the Civil Rights era. But once the emergency is over, we revert to what we have always been. The façade of a government, specifically constructed to aid and assist unfettered capitalism. And capitalism will never be progressive.

So saying things like, "the liberals pushed voters into Trump's arms" belies the actual truth of how Americans exist in a socio-political sense: we (as a body politic) have been indoctrinated over the course of more than 250 years to believe that wealth, money, and obeisance to our financial superiors is the only way to happiness, and that unanimous support for unfettered capitalism is the surest way to keep our country free. The people happy in Trump's embrace are the status quo people.

Moving to a more progressive future in the US would mean not tweaking the parties, or making the Dems less neo-liberal. It would essentially mean building a whole new country. One the Financial Lords, Political Lords, and Judicial Lords are not going to allow to exist.

This guy is a Professor of Comparative Politics, and is currently residing in the U.S.

And I don't really follow your argument about how the true state of American politics undermines what he is saying.

 

[CWatts]

This guy is a Professor of Comparative Politics, and is currently residing in the U.S.

And I don't really follow your argument about how the true state of American politics undermines what he is saying.

I didn't read the whole article, but what I feel is missing is that it's the white working class that supports Trump. People are voting their identity, not their wallet.

 

[Meg]

I didn't read the whole article, but what I feel is missing is that it's the white working class that supports Trump. People are voting their identity, not their wallet.

He addresses exactly this starting at 1:02:02 in the video.

 

[Meg]

Heads up everyone, I will no longer be responding to people who are attempting rebuttals without knowing the source material. I think it's possible to intelligently disagree with this guy, but I don't have the bandwidth to re-explain his point of view when he already explains it himself.

 

[Unimportant]

Heads up everyone, I will no longer be responding to people who are attempting rebuttals without knowing the source material. I think it's possible to intelligently disagree with this guy, but I don't have the bandwidth to re-explain his point of view when he already explains it himself.

And that is not only fair enough, I reckon it ought to be a mandate. If someone comments on a link, I kinda assume they've read it and parsed it.

 

[ElaineA]

I just want to make clear that I did read the essay and watch his interview. I am not disagreeing with his broad fears for the US trajectory, or his observations. I just think his lens is a bit narrow.

This guy is a Professor of Comparative Politics, and is currently residing in the U.S.

I understand, but I don't think it's quite the same as having been born and raised with all the "stuff" that gets communicated culturally.

We carry a lot of baggage Hungary - and most other "Western" nations - doesn't have. We are orders of magnitude larger, for one thing. We can send 10 million, 20 million people into the streets to protest and no one in DC has to bat an eye because we're spread so far and wide. Mostly, it's that we are far more *historically* multicultural (not just recently), with that history built upon the institution of slavery and a revolving subjugation of specific groups within our population that shifts with the times: immigrant waves, poor people, economically secure people with the wrong skin color, religious out-groups, the list goes on. Those prejudices dwell deep in the American psyche in general, and it's difficult for people not steeped in it to account for all the ways our institutionalized faults act on the political whims of Americans.

I don't disagree that the Democratic Party has failed to protect our democracy in a sizeable way. (I also think the GOP has failed in that.) I simply feel there is far more at play than can be dug out by a leftist political party trying to help people who either 1) do not want to be helped by a government they've been taught for generations is the source of all their problems; or 2) continually vote for people who keep them poor and starving and uneducated and unprotected, no matter how hard a left-aligned party tries to communicate to them that there are actually solutions for helping the plight they are in. Our mistrust is also institutionalized, and lately, weaponized.

He seems to be saying (correctly) that the Dems should do *more* to ally with the working class, and Biden is trying. He's right that neoliberalism is snake oil, but the "Men behind the throne" in this country have more power than anyone in government. This quote

While still an independent institution, the U.S. Supreme Court – with three Trump-nominated justices – has become a pillar of Trumpism, handing down rulings overturning the constitutional right to abortion and limiting civil rights.

kind of gives away the limitations in his thought process. SCOTUS isn't a pillar of Trumpism. This SCOTUS is a pillar of a 60-year effort to pull the country backward and entrench power with the Moneyed Class. Trumpism is a tool in the effort, not the other way around, and when the Gilded class no longer needs Trumpism, they'll jettison it and kick its adherents to the curb.

He also danced around the working class moving right in places like Germany and France (and I'll add Italy to that mix) due to factors of immigration and rising multiculturalism in those countries when the host challenged him on that. The effects of increasing numbers of non-white people in Western Europe is driving the white working class toward authoritarians who say they can and will stop it, as he acknowledges. But "The left should propose solutions that embrace the poor and working class" belies political reality. He was elected as a Green Party member. I assume they had solution proposals, but people didn't want them. They wanted the populism more than a political party's policy.

(He also mentioned Poland, but they voted out their right-wing government, so there is at least a limit to the people's willingness to fully embrace populism, regardless of what parties do to woo them.)

The bottom line, as he also acknowledges, is it's an incredibly complex problem, made even more so by the warty culture of the US. He's not wrong in his critique, it's only that, IMO, he has a limitation in depth of understanding such that he makes what we should do sound rather simple and basic, when the truth is that what we actually need to accomplish is anything but.

 

[RedRajah]

He Didn’t Deny Being A White Supremacist. Then He Was Elected To City Council.​

ENID, Okla. — On the evening of Nov. 7, 2023, Judson “Judd” Blevins, a city councilman in Enid, Oklahoma, took his seat inside the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Municipal Complex and watched as local constituents took turns at a lectern.
“A lot of people want to give you a pass, Mr. Blevins, because you’re an honorably discharged veteran,” said Father James Neal, a local priest, wearing a black cassock and white clerical collar. “I am an honorably discharged veteran, and I tell you, as a fellow veteran, the Commandant of the Marine Corps made it clear in 2017 that your actions in Charlottesville were a betrayal of the core values of the Marine Corps and of this country —”
“Time,” Mayor David Mason interjected, enforcing a strict one-minute limit on public comments. Neal ignored him.
“As a priest, I will continue to pray for you,” he continued. “And after you are a private citizen, if you desire and pursue —”
“Your time is up!” the mayor interjected again.

“You’ve had six months of silence!” Neal shot back at the mayor. “Your time is up!” He turned his attention back to Blevins. “We will be ready to help you —”
“I’m gonna have to ask you to stop!” the mayor yelled.
Neal kept his focus on Blevins. “We will be ready to help you on a path to reconciliation,” he said, walking away from the lectern and taking a seat in the gallery among his fellow citizens, some of whom wore purple shirts emblazoned with “Enid Social Justice Committee.”
The scene was the culmination of a simmering political fight in Enid, a deeply conservative town of 50,000, home to Vance Air Force Base, an hour-and-a-half drive north of Oklahoma City, where a small band of progressive activists in town have begged their elected officials to, at the very least, acknowledge that there might be a neo-Nazi in City Hall.

 

[Introversion]

Well, she seems nice?

GOP nominee to run North Carolina public schools called for violence against Democrats, including executing Obama and Biden

The Republican nominee for superintendent overseeing North Carolina’s public schools and its $11 billion budget has a history marked by extreme and controversial comments, including sharing baseless conspiracy theories and frequent calls for the execution of prominent Democrats.

Michele Morrow, a conservative activist who last week upset the incumbent Superintendent of Public Instruction in North Carolina’s Republican primary, expressed support in 2020 for the televised execution of former President Barack Obama and suggested killing then-President-elect Joe Biden.

 

[dickson]

Well, she seems nice?

GOP nominee to run North Carolina public schools called for violence against Democrats, including executing Obama and Biden

If she indeed said what is claimed, Secret Service should take an interest.

 

[ElaineB]

For anyone who thinks it’s impossible that Trump will get away with all these crimes, I urge you to read Prequel: An American Fight Against Fascism by Rachel Maddow.

Yesterday I read in the news that a judge had rejected Trump’s motion to dismiss the Mar-A-Lago case, thinking that was good news.

Reading Joyce Vance’s Substack this morning, I recoiled in horror and was reminded of Prequel.

From Vance, bolding mine:

The good news here is temporary. It’s what I’d call an ugly win for the government. The Judge dismissed the vagueness argument—but just for today. She did it “without prejudice,” which means that Trump’s lawyers could raise the argument again later in the case. In fact, the Judge seemed to do just that in her order, essentially inviting the defense to raise the argument again at trial. She says the motion turns at least in part on “disputed factual issues.” That’s significant because those disputed issues get aired at trial when the evidence is presented to the jury. If the Judge had ruled against the government today, the Special Counsel could have appealed. But that’s not the case if, after today’s ruling in the government’s favor, she permits Trump to resurrect the motion at trial. She could grant the motion to dismiss the case then and at that point, with very rare exceptions (that the Judge would be in a position to prevent), the government can’t appeal. That’s because once a jury has been empaneled, double jeopardy “attaches” and prevents the government from retrying the defendant on the same charges if he’s acquitted, which is what would happen if the Judge granted a motion to dismiss at that point and before a jury rendered a guilty verdict. That’s the nightmare scenario here.

Then, I had read about the Manhattan case being delayed because new documents were turned over to the prosecutor and defense but I had no idea where these came from or why the delay.

Again, Vance:

Trump’s lawyers have asked for a three-month delay to get their arms around this volume of new material. The DA agreed that a delay of one month was necessary. He advised the court that he had asked DOJ for the material a year ago, but they declined to provide it.

What the?! These are documents the feds took a year to turn over.

We don’t really know what’s going on yet. Why didn’t the U.S. Attorney’s office turn over the documents when the District Attorney asked for them a year ago? Why didn’t they act promptly when Trump subpoenaed them instead of leaning into the delay? It’s not like federal prosecutors across town in Manhattan didn’t know there was a March 25 trial date and realize that this would interfere with it. So, we’re left with more questions than answers.

If you aren’t familiar with Prequel or the podcast that inspired it, from the blurb:

Before and even after our troops had begun fighting abroad in World War II, a clandestine network flooded the country with disinformation aimed at sapping the strength of the U.S. war effort and persuading Americans that our natural alliance was with the Axis, not against it. It was a sophisticated and shockingly well-funded campaign to undermine democratic institutions, promote antisemitism, and destroy citizens’ confidence in their elected leaders, with the ultimate goal of overthrowing the U.S. government and installing authoritarian rule.

That effort worked—tongue and groove—alongside an ultra-right paramilitary movement that stockpiled bombs and weapons and trained for mass murder and violent insurrection.

At the same time, a handful of extraordinary activists and journalists were tracking the scheme, exposing it even as it was unfolding. In 1941 the U.S. Department of Justice finally made a frontal attack, identifying the key plotters, finding their backers, and prosecuting dozens in federal court.

None of it went as planned.

Spoiler: The court cases were a shitshow and almost no one was prosecuted. And if Hitler had won, there were plenty of people in high places in the U.S. willing to hand the country over to him. It feels like sheer luck that didn’t happen. And brilliant generals and a huge war-fighting machine.

Now we’ve got a presidential candidate who basically works for Putin and Orban and a Congress that won’t help Ukraine, which means if Ukraine falls, so will Europe.

We are in a mess. I need to stop reading the news now.

 

[JJ Litke]

Insights by a former Hungarian parlimentarian about authoritarianism in the U.S.: supremacism is a big part of it, but so is abandonment of the working people by the neo-liberal Democratic party. Pause for a moment to appreciate that. It was the "liberals" who drove people into the arms of the populists.

Essay: I watched Hungary's democracy dissolve into authoritariansm as a member of parliament—and I see troubling parallels in Trumpism and its appeal to workers

I did read the article. For those who don't want to give it more clicks, my summary is that it's the usual MSM parroting of right-wing talking points: liberals don't care enough about the middle and/or working class, therefore it's their fault when people vote for the right-wing.

In the article, this is the key point: "If the liberal center appears uncaring (emphasis mine), authoritarian populists can mobilize voters against both the cultural and economic threats posed by globalization."

If liberals appear uncaring—this is all about appearance.

And while I would agree that the Democratic Party should do even more for the middle and working classes, Republicans portray them as not caring precisely for doing the things that have helped, like ACA, or school lunch programs. Republicans want to end those programs. They also fight against the idea of minimum wage increases, even though most Americans support that. How about student loan forgiveness. Gutting Social Security. And I could go on, but honestly, I'm tired.

So, which party is actually doing something, however marginal, to help the middle/working class?

Personally, I think this is a fourth estate problem.

 

[Introversion]

Kentucky GOP moves to criminalize interference with legislature after transgender protests

Kentucky’s Republican-supermajority legislature is taking steps to criminalize disruptive protests inside the Capitol, raising concerns among advocates that their right to challenge authority will be chilled.

Before big votes on polarizing issues, throngs of protesters have waved signs and shouted out synchronized chants at the foot of the steps that lawmakers climb to reach the House or Senate chambers, creating a din that echoes throughout the ornate statehouse. Activists sometimes pack committee rooms in the Capitol Annex or crowd the galleries to monitor floor debates.

Teachers, union members and abortion-rights supporters have staged massive demonstrations, but it was a protest against anti-transgender legislation — which resulted in the arrests of some demonstrators on criminal trespassing charges last year — that prompted the Kentucky House this week to approve new criminal offenses for interfering with legislative proceedings. The bill is now pending in the Senate.

Republican state Rep. John Blanton considers protesting to be “as American as apple pie,” and “part of the foundation of who we are and I’m fully supportive of that.” But he said there should be consequences when demonstrators “cross the line” and become disruptive.

 

[Jean P. R. Dubois]

Kentucky GOP moves to criminalize interference with legislature after transgender protests

J6 didn't matter, but this? This is a step too far...

 

[Roxxsmom]

On a sadder note, I sometimes wonder if our original Constitution, Democracy 1.0, is written in (metaphorical) code that is now obsolete, or at least too hard to update and keep relevant in a world that is supposed to be more pluralistic, inclusive, and just than our founders could ever have conceived. It's designed to be as difficult to amend in a way that expands basic rights as it is to take them away, and in the divided country we now inhabit, our rights have been at the mercy of the courts, at how they can read the original text and its amendments. Of course even the best and most brilliant of them will interpret it through the lens of their desires and political goals, and the worst of them will twist it into a pretzel, issue by issue, to impose their will.

I was taught, back when this kind of thinking was fashionable, that the strength of our Constitution lies in its flexibility, in its ability to function as a living document that can be interpreted and amended to reflect the needs of a changing society. Sadly, this cuts both ways.

Of course, we don't have a chance of amending the Constitution we have, let alone creating a 2.0, existing in the 21st century, version from scratch.

I wish more Americans could understand, at least, that the changes they so desperately want can't happen with the courts we currently have. Instead of railing at the failures of Democratic POTUSes and of narrow Democratic majorities (when they even occur) to ram their bills through, I wish more voters could play a longer game and vote to keep the Democrats in office long enough for Thomas and Alito, at least, to die or retire. If we had a better court, it might be possible for a more progressive agenda to actually start making a difference (instead of being struck down repeatedly), at the level of states as well as at the individual government.