Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/06/04/how-america-could-become-a-dic.html
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The most alarming part is that he started writing this book eight and a half years ago.
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Guns
Germs
Steal
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In 1933, Germany was a democracy. 12 years later it was a smoking ruin.
10 years is a modest timetable for the American dictatorship.
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The issue is compromise is not always an option when one side is moving the goal posts.
Bill Maher has talked about this on Real Time for a few years now; the right wing is moving where the middle ground has been and pushing it further and further right. At some point you have to say “NOPE!” and hold your ground.
A perfect example of compromise was always Roe v Wade…its a pro choice solution that allows either side to take their own course of action when faced with the act of abortion. If you don’t want to get an abortion…don’t. If you do…do. But for the pro-life right they see pro choice as “pro abortion” (it isn’t whatsoever, but its how they see it)…so they move the goal post and change the argument, stance, and fight. They find other ways to limit or completely block the CHOICE…that’s the opposite of compromise.
Blame the right on this…BLAME THEM COMPLETELY. It’s their fault.
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I was going to comment about 10 years being generous but that puts in a bit of context.
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I kid. But only a little.
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Thanks Newt!
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the right wing is moving where the middle ground has been and pushing it further and further right. At some point you have to say “NOPE!” and hold your ground.
And the Democrats have let themselves be dragged right along.
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The main reason? Breakdown of compromise is a symptom of the body reacting to the onset of dictatorship. The breakdown of compromise is a reaction to subversion of democracy by money and inequality. I haven’t watched the video, but if that truly is a core takeaway, that is a very cold take.
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Yeah it’s hard to blame the Democrats for this problem. Their health care plan was literally the Republicans’ idea and they still couldn’t get anyone on the other side to support it.
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It’s not a matter of letting “themselves be dragged right along”. Starting in the late 60s - the 1968 Democratic Convention where Labor was excluded and billionaires welcomed into the Inner Party is a turning point - the Democrats have moved towards oligarchy and plutocracy. The Powell Memo is another example of the direction the Dems were heading. Carter’s new direction and the neo-liberal Labor-hating mass-incarcerating Clintonistas cemented it.
Think about how the Dems are always talking up bipartisanship by giving the Right just about everything it wants as an opening position knowing it will get nothing in return. They have consistently shown a love of mass surveillance, austerity, the abandonment of law enforcement against large corporations, “triangulation” and the championing of “moderate centrists” which means Democrats who support and vote along Republican Party lines. They have been running to the Right as fast as they can for fifty years.
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10 years? We can do it in 5.
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We’ve seen article after article on this site explaining that it’s not the compromise, it’s the oligarchy. Sure, America is hopeless divided on some issues that get a lot of coverage, but with 70% of Americans in favour of medicare for all - including over 50% of republicans - it’s not a “lack of compromise” that prevents that policy from being implemented. The problem is that the politicians are working together, they just aren’t working together for the people.
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The Treaty of Versailles is notably lacking from the US scene.
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IMO, the Republicans stopped having ideals to push for, and simply pushed against anything the Democrats presented. You can find so many examples of mainline Republicans commenting about the seriousness of Global Warming, until it became seen as a Democrat pet project, and then the reversal started.
I think this has been happening for awhile, but after Obama was elected was when it was taken up a notch, and got to the point where their stances became absurd. It is a refusal of compromise or agreement to the point of being illogical way too often.
Also - I haven’t read all of Guns, Germs, and Steel, but I have liked what I have read, and IIRC CGP Grey has done some videos that were influence by it (I may be thinking of a similar youtuber) that tells the tale of how the fact so many more animals were domesticate-able in the Old World and that was a major factor in both how civilizations evolved and why there was no reverse plague to the Europeans from the New World.
ETA - eh - he doesn’t really connect the dots here. Maybe this is the start of what leads to a dictator - a government that doesn’t work and manipulated to keep certain people in power - but a quagmire doesn’t mean a dictatorship.
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In fairness every modern president has gradually strengthened the powers of the Executive branch. It is not a partisan trend, except for our latest president publicly mulling about doing so in dramatically larger ways.
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So you’re saying we need a non-modern president?
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