I'm as terrified of this plague as anyone, but I'm almost equally terrified of our little American Orbans and their orange Leader. War and pestilence are the great enablers of dictators. It is when We the People are the most fearful and beaten that we are willing to trade liberty for "safety". We will get neither - especially given that these new dictators worship the old Gods of the Gilded Age that mean more profits for themselves - but those of us who prize "security" over that liberty will surely be tempted.
And, given our recent history, I cannot be sure we can resist that temptation. Four of ten Americans have already shown they will gleefully support any amount of destruction to small-r republican mores if it means shuttering drag queen story hour and keeping the dusky heathens in their place.
It will be intriguing to watch the reaction to this from the EU. If the leader of a European nation can become an out-and-proud dictator without consequence, what will stop those others (looking at you, Poland...) who are teetering along the border?
Cheer up old chap,
ReplyDeleteDarkest before dawn, you know.
Besides, the very fact that you know (and complain) about it
suggest that this sort of thing is really old fash.
As an aside, there was an interesting Anthro study about village governments. The authors visited thousands of villages, many of which had been given "support" programs to encourage better governance.
There were village councils, hereditary chiefs, matriarchies, you name it, a virtual rainbow of government types.
The surprising answer to what way works best was that "traditional" approach worked best.
The way that the people were used to be governed worked best for them.
The authors posited that this was because the leaders were most likely to take the "long term" approach to problem solving. Various governance "reform" programs invariably tempted those newly in power to take a short term "looting" approach because they had no strong expectations of being around when the bills came due.
It is interesting to think about the implications for democracy and short term election cycles.
Sometimes it's darkest just before everything goes completely black.
ReplyDeleteI remember that back in the late Nineties and early Oughts there was a pot of talk about "resilience" that always centered around how little clusters of people were "resilient" because they could get things done without relying on outside resources. I won't disagree necessarily, but when your little kokholz is overrun by the German Army how well you've been subsisting until that point isn't really germane to the moment. You're just fucked.
It's worth noting that for the vast majority of people in a dictatorship life goes on perfectly sorta-fine provided you keep your mouth shut and the dictator doesn't go utterly Stalin-liquidates-the-kulaks on your ass. A Trump dictatorship will be livable for most people and just peachy for the wingnuts and bible-bangers. I'll end up in the gulag with the beaners, but, hey, omelet, eggs, y'know...
I will hardly disagree that the US in it's current state is fairly fucked. But Hungary is a reminder that it CAN get worse. Trump - as usual - said the quiet part out loud the other day when he admitted that the whole point is to keep people from voting to keep them from voting out Republicans. How y'gonna dictate if the proles hate your dictatorship? Easy-[easy - you don't let 'em vote!