Two Reasons Why Trump's Rapid Push Towards Autocracy Will Fail

[Fiendish Thingy]

?si=1bdlwFRI4b6zBgTk

[Skittles]

1. I think the speed is due to Trump's health

yup

[Fiendish Thingy]

3. Either that or Trump and especially Miller's impatience. Nt

[pat_k]

2. Fantastic follow-up to the John Burn-Murdoch's quantification of Democratic backsliding, which found the United States'

...descent toward autocracy under Trump to be steeper than any recent precedent.

DU's muriel_volestrangler posted the original Financial Times article and Paul Krugman's comments on it here:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016422654

And I think Mallen Baker's analysis is spot on.

There are seeds of hope in the speed and magnitude of the horrors the felon's regime is inflicting on the nation.

[Fiendish Thingy]

5. It was this video's deeper dive into the FT report that impressed me

Most outlets just showed the main graph comparing the speed of the decline between countries, but this video went further, showing additional graphs that provided more context and supported Baker’s analysis.

In other words, it’s an evidence based presentation, not just some rando pontificating on the internet.

[rampartd]

4. has this been that rapid a fall??

this guy begins his graph at trump's third term (history will not consider biden a legitimate president, and a case can be made that trump ruled from exile in mar a lago) . at the very least this time line should include trump's first term, and the "patriot act" era of gw bush.

as a southerner i might recognize that some form of authoritarianism has existed in many states since reconstruction, but ok, lets call it january 2017 or maybe chalottesville (founding of proud boys and commissioning of their commander gen flynn.

i'm rambling but the point is, we are much farther along this project time line than this guy recognizes.

i took william of normandy about 5 years to complete the doomsday book. musk took control of our data in a matter of weeks.

[Fiendish Thingy]

6. The graphs shown were from the Financial Times report

So, not just some rando’s opinion.

Although there were certainly feints towards authoritarian rule during Trump’s first term and even earlier, the indicators of Democratic decline reset to zero with the elections of Obama and Biden.

You might quibble over ticking time bombs like the Patriot Act, but if you rewatch the video and listen to Baker’s rundown of each of the markers, it’s an accurate assessment.

[pat_k]

7. Paul Krugman reviewed the index and endorsed as reasonable

I would agree that the index of Democratic backsliding produced by John Burn-Murdoch of the Financial TImes underestimates the damage and lasting effect of co-opting and decimating executive agencies, but it captures the reality that Trump is far from capturing all the levers of power.

The mid-terms, and the response to the actions he will take to corrupt the results, will tell us a lot about how far gone we really are

Here's what Paul Krugman had to say about the index.

https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/american-democracy-will-not-die-in

Almost everyone, myself included, underestimated how far MAGA would go in engaging in open violence and abuse of power against those it considers enemies. On the other hand, we overestimated the movement’s impulse control, its ability to mask its tyrannical goals until its power was fully consolidated.

As Steven Levitsky said in a recent interview, comparing Donald Trump with Hungarian strongman Viktor Orban,

Orbán doesn’t arrest journalists. And in Hungary if you walk the streets of Budapest or other Hungarian cities, you will not find heavily armed masked men abducting people. That doesn’t happen in Hungary.

The startling extremism of the Trump regime, even compared with other modern wannabe dictatorships, is obvious to the naked eye. But I always find quantification useful. So I was very pleased to see that the estimable John Burn-Murdoch of the Financial Times has risen to the occasion, producing an index of democratic backsliding that lets us compare the trajectory of the United States under Trump with those of other nations we used to view as cautionary tales. (I’ve looked at how the index is constructed, and it’s reasonable.) We’re on a uniquely steep descent, at least for modern times.

[rampartd]

8. we have been comparing maga to "authoritarian" movements,

mostly the modern authoritarians. in contrast to democracy.

maybe we need to look at the totalitarian model, and would there be a practical difference between authoritarian battista and "totalitarian" castro?

https://quillette.com/2021/08/24/revisiting-kirkpatrick/

According to Kirkpatrick, the Islamic Revolutionaries and Marxist Sandinistas that came to power in Iran and Nicaragua, respectively, were “totalitarian” groups that were even more oppressive than the tyrants they had replaced. US support for right-wing dictatorships was thus not just strategically justified—it was also morally justified, since traditional autocracies were essentially the lesser of two evils compared to their totalitarian opponents.

it is the religious aspect of trumpism that concerns me. the intolerance of "heresy."