It seems that the GOP has fully committed to their new vision of illiberal democracy. This is bugger than trump or McConnell or any particular party member. Many GOP officials have privately expressed disdain for the current direction of the party, and on rare occasions in public as well (see McCarthy after Jan 6, I remember listening to him and agreeing with his horror). But they all refracted their statements.
The GOP has a new ideology and what is terrifying is that it is bottom up and not top down. I have perianal seen many GOP voters itching to be able to attack/kill liberals and leftists as part of this ideology (not saying they all are, but I have seen increasing calls for violence, lethal violence, in the right with my own eyes). This new ideology has been fully embraced by Tucker and other Fox News hosts and others. It's called illiberal democracy and tucker flat out endorsed the leading proponent of it: Viktor Orban. It is authoritarianism with the veneer of democracy. You still have elections, but they aren't usually representative of popular will.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illiberal_democracy?wprov=sfla1 "An illiberal democracy is a governing system in which, although elections take place, citizens are cut off from knowledge about the activities of those who exercise real power because of the lack of civil liberties; thus it is not an open society. There are many countries "that are categorized as neither 'free' nor 'not free', but as 'probably free', falling somewhere between democratic and nondemocratic regimes"."
I am reading up on and learning about Hungary and this system. I still got a lot of learn tho.
Since it looks like the GOP will likely win the midterms, and given biden's popularity, potentially the presidency I have to ask:
What would this look like in America? What would a second trump presidency bring? He was already impeached twice, but that hasn't really hurt him. Many who opposed him are gone, replaced by loyalists. What about a smarter/component trump?
What does American illiberal democracy look like? What specifically do we have to fear/worry about? What can be done to stop it if anything?
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781839701399
Thanks! :)
Christopher R. Browning is ΒProfessor of History Emeritus at the University of North Carolina and a historian specializing in the Holocaust, Nazi Germany, and Europe in the era of the world wars.
He has written a deeply disquieting piece in the New York Review of Books that is worth reading in its entirety, but which I will attempt to summarize here. I think it provides useful context for everything that we are attempting to Keep Track of here.
> βThe most original revelation of the current wave of authoritarians is that the construction of overtly antidemocratic dictatorships aspiring to totalitarianism is unnecessary for holding power.β
Instead, would-be authoritarians can leverage this playbook.
Fig leaves
> "ErdoΔan in Turkey, Putin in Russia, Duterte in the Philippines, and OrbΓ‘n in Hungary have all discovered that opposition parties can be left in existence and elections can be held in order to provide a fig leaf of democratic legitimacy, while in reality elections pose scant challenge to their power. Truly dangerous opposition leaders are neutralized or eliminated one way or another."
Fake news
> [Full control of the press is unnecessary, provided that a flood of] "managed and fake news so pollutes the flow of information that facts and truth become irrelevant as shapers of public opinion."
Friendly judiciaries
> "Once-independent judiciaries are gradually dismantled through selective purging and the appointment of politically reliable loyalists."
Goodbye Justice Kennedy, Hello Justice Kavanaugh.
Flagrant oligarchy
> "Crony capitalism opens the way to a symbiosis of corruption and self-enrichment between political and business leaders."
Fierce nationalism
> "Xenophobic nationalism (and in many cases explicitly anti-immigrant white nationalism) as well as the prioritization of βlaw and orderβ over individual rights are also crucial to these regimes in mobilizing the popular support of their bases and stigmatizing their enemies."
Flow of dark money into closely contested campaigns
> "The Supreme Court decision declaring corporations to be people and money to be free speech (Citizens United v. FEC) in particular has greatly enhanced the ability of corporations and wealthy individuals to influence American politics. We are approaching the point when Democrats might still win state elections in the major blue states b
... keep reading on reddit β‘It seems that the GOP has fully committed to their new vision of illiberal democracy. This is bugger than trump or McConnell or any particular party member. Many GOP officials have privately expressed disdain for the current direction of the party, and on rare occasions in public as well (see McCarthy after Jan 6, I remember listening to him and agreeing with his horror). But they all refracted their statements.
The GOP has a new ideology and what is terrifying is that it is bottom up and not top down. I have perianal seen many GOP voters itching to be able to attack/kill liberals and leftists as part of this ideology (not saying they all are, but I have seen increasing calls for violence, lethal violence, in the right with my own eyes). This new ideology has been fully embraced by Tucker and other Fox News hosts and others. It's called illiberal democracy and tucker flat out endorsed the leading proponent of it: Viktor Orban. It is authoritarianism with the veneer of democracy. You still have elections, but they aren't usually representative of popular will.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illiberal_democracy?wprov=sfla1 "An illiberal democracy is a governing system in which, although elections take place, citizens are cut off from knowledge about the activities of those who exercise real power because of the lack of civil liberties; thus it is not an open society. There are many countries "that are categorized as neither 'free' nor 'not free', but as 'probably free', falling somewhere between democratic and nondemocratic regimes"."
I am reading up on and learning about Hungary and this system. I still got a lot of learn tho.
Since it looks like the GOP will likely win the midterms, and given biden's popularity, potentially the presidency I have to ask:
What would this look like in America? What would a second trump presidency bring? He was already impeached twice, but that hasn't really hurt him. Many who opposed him are gone, replaced by loyalists. What about a smarter/component trump?
What does American illiberal democracy look like? What specifically do we have to fear/worry about? What can be done to stop it if anything?
