It's a slippery slope, but it doesn't always make it to the last stop. Like I said, it's a factor of institutions and levels of tolerance for extremism by the general populace. Hitler took power with something like 29% of the vote. They don't need half the country, they just need enough. The rest is a matter of how the public reacts once autocratic movements start grabbing the levers of power within institutions. If the public is mostly indifferent--kind of like how Jamie Dimon is when thinking about a 2nd Trump presidency--then the autocrats can read the room and figure out that they can get away with it. If the public and institutions forcefully push back, they eventually lose and go back into hiding.
YouтАЩd think that with the shit Jamie Dimon came out with, a great payback to those assholes once Biden is reelected (hope), is to say тАЬtime to tax these bastards a lot moreтАЭ. IтАЩm sure youтАЩd approve Travis!
Yes, and it will be in November when we know. We'll also know then whether the public and the institutions push back enough. The critical institutions, I think, are the military and law enforcement. I keep asking for some investigative reporting on how infected both of those institutions are with Trumpism. I think that's an even bigger question.
One good sign is how well law enforcement performed in the cities where Trump was arraigned - New York, Miami and Atlanta. There was no violence.
As to the pubic, I'm more and more convinced of JVL's recent diagnosis - decadence. That parallels Germany as well, yes?
I would say no on the Germany question, because coming out of WWI they were made to pay other countries for the damage they had done. Those people weren't decadent, they were poorer and were looking for a scapegoat to blame. That's when Hitler came around with his "stab in the back" narrative that blamed German elites for surrendering in WWI when Hitler said Germany could have kept going. He made it clear to Germans that they were poor because German elites had given up on the war when German soldiers were still willing to fight, and that the stab-in-the-back surrender is what brought on the economic sanctions that impoverished Germany when they could have kept fighting and won the war instead (according to Hitler).
Remember: Hitler was a decorated veteran who was at the Battle of Passchendaele--one of the most violent battles in the whole war. Hitler wasn't some rich kid who skipped the draft, he was a war hero in the eyes of many. And he wrote Mein Kampf from a jail cell where he claimed to be a victim of the same elites he was rallying his fellow Germans against.
I guess I'm thinking about Berlin, not the entire country, as it was depicted in the musical, "Cabaret". The musical was based on a 1939 Christopher Isherwood book that described Berlin's slums and nightclubs and comfortable villas, filled with Jewish artists, intellectuals and scientists. About a third of Germans lived in such large cities. The two-thirds is who you described.
Well, if there was that much wealth inequality in the aftermath of WWI then it's no surprise that Hitler's anti-elite rants caught on. If most people are poor because of WWI and they see their elites living it up, and then Hitler comes around with his anti-elite stab-in-the-back narrative, well, as Sgt Drucker said in Heat: "I don't have to sell this and you know it, because this kinda shit right here sells itself."
I wanted to make that point about the relationship between epistemic certainty and authoritarianism. You made it for me!
I also love your steps on the path toward autocracy.
It's a slippery slope, but it doesn't always make it to the last stop. Like I said, it's a factor of institutions and levels of tolerance for extremism by the general populace. Hitler took power with something like 29% of the vote. They don't need half the country, they just need enough. The rest is a matter of how the public reacts once autocratic movements start grabbing the levers of power within institutions. If the public is mostly indifferent--kind of like how Jamie Dimon is when thinking about a 2nd Trump presidency--then the autocrats can read the room and figure out that they can get away with it. If the public and institutions forcefully push back, they eventually lose and go back into hiding.
YouтАЩd think that with the shit Jamie Dimon came out with, a great payback to those assholes once Biden is reelected (hope), is to say тАЬtime to tax these bastards a lot moreтАЭ. IтАЩm sure youтАЩd approve Travis!
Oh I certainly would!
The big question now: have the autocrats already figured out they can get away with it? Are they getting away with it?
Time will tell.
Yes, and it will be in November when we know. We'll also know then whether the public and the institutions push back enough. The critical institutions, I think, are the military and law enforcement. I keep asking for some investigative reporting on how infected both of those institutions are with Trumpism. I think that's an even bigger question.
One good sign is how well law enforcement performed in the cities where Trump was arraigned - New York, Miami and Atlanta. There was no violence.
As to the pubic, I'm more and more convinced of JVL's recent diagnosis - decadence. That parallels Germany as well, yes?
I would say no on the Germany question, because coming out of WWI they were made to pay other countries for the damage they had done. Those people weren't decadent, they were poorer and were looking for a scapegoat to blame. That's when Hitler came around with his "stab in the back" narrative that blamed German elites for surrendering in WWI when Hitler said Germany could have kept going. He made it clear to Germans that they were poor because German elites had given up on the war when German soldiers were still willing to fight, and that the stab-in-the-back surrender is what brought on the economic sanctions that impoverished Germany when they could have kept fighting and won the war instead (according to Hitler).
Remember: Hitler was a decorated veteran who was at the Battle of Passchendaele--one of the most violent battles in the whole war. Hitler wasn't some rich kid who skipped the draft, he was a war hero in the eyes of many. And he wrote Mein Kampf from a jail cell where he claimed to be a victim of the same elites he was rallying his fellow Germans against.
I guess I'm thinking about Berlin, not the entire country, as it was depicted in the musical, "Cabaret". The musical was based on a 1939 Christopher Isherwood book that described Berlin's slums and nightclubs and comfortable villas, filled with Jewish artists, intellectuals and scientists. About a third of Germans lived in such large cities. The two-thirds is who you described.
Well, if there was that much wealth inequality in the aftermath of WWI then it's no surprise that Hitler's anti-elite rants caught on. If most people are poor because of WWI and they see their elites living it up, and then Hitler comes around with his anti-elite stab-in-the-back narrative, well, as Sgt Drucker said in Heat: "I don't have to sell this and you know it, because this kinda shit right here sells itself."