I cannot agree more with the impression that the American is falling into authoritarianism… but why I have the feeling the originator of these comments are either a Democrat or an European.
The entire West has been falling into authoritarianism since a while ago, Trump just makes it more obvious, but the trend has been established way before he came. His presidential powers were given by many Congresses before him. The same happend in the EU, where the Commission has been allowed way, way more powers than the instituted in the Treaty of Lisbon (2007), let alone Maastricht Treaty (1992)
Inside the EU countries parliaments I see the same erosion.
But of course, lets all blame Trump so we can get back to normal… because whether you care about immigrants, discrimination, speech freedoms, wars, poverty, famine, etc… it was so much better in 2024!
It’s not “falling into authoritarianism”, it was always authoritarian.
oh otherwise we aren’t in “big trouble” lol
The article draws the line from increased policing in the 90’s and 00’s to today. I think you can also extend that line further back as a response to the great migration. This isn’t a criticism of the article, just adding more to it. And I think the great migration just needs to get talked about more often. We’ve never really dealt with the fact that many Black communities in the north were formed by refugees fleeing terrorism in the south. They weren’t welcomed with open arms in the north, but were rather ghettoized and used as a source of cheaper labor
Of course, the line always goes back further. America’s descent into authoritarianism isn’t really a “descent” as much as an expansion of who the targets are
Yeap, for a long time liberal and conservative politicians utilized putting POC in jail as a middle ground for policy. It’s basically the mortar of third way politics, popularized by the Clinton’s in the US. Their "super predators " policy was instrumental in breaking the gridlock in Congress in the 90s, and basically responsible for current Democrats willingness to capitulate to the GOP at the drop of a dime. Adopting Third way politics is basically opening an express lane to fascism.
That’s why Nixon made weed and cocaine illegal. You couldn’t give black people and hippies felonies (and prevent them from voting) for being black or hippies.
This isn’t a conspiracy theory; one of the administration officials responsible for it straight up said that was why they did it.
In a 1994 interview, Mr. [John] Ehrlichman said, “You want to know what this was really all about?” He went on:
“The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and Black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or Black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and Blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”
https://eji.org/news/nixon-war-on-drugs-designed-to-criminalize-black-people/
People were generally onboard with liberating plantations, but the question of what to do with the previously disenfranchised was asked, framed, and guided by the previously slave owners. There was the option to give out land and cast a broad social safety net, but White hand wringing abolitionists couldn’t get passed “what if Blacks are lazy and stealing from me?” So they leaned on “they can pull themselves up by the bootstraps”, but to clear their consciences they also needed to claim they were lifting themselves up by their own bootstraps as proof that they’d contributed to building a system where that’s possible. Yada yada, the system that manifested was wage slavery, a late 19th century nail in the coffin currently burying us alive!
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Policing in “blue” cities by whom? These right wingers are like an ouroboros of self-deception.
by cops… who are typically directed to do so by mayors… who are usually dems…
“these right wingers” are just predominantly brown leftists you disagree with. Did you even read the article?
If you’ve ever lived in a strongly blue major city for any length of time you’ll have seen this play out. Liberal mayor runs on big promises of reform, of progressive policy, maybe even of radical change, and a few years later there’s another incident, more unrest, whatever, and they’re first in line to have the cops put it down with force. There’s a whole interplay with right wing media and racist voters and other factors, but time and time again dem local governments choose to enact “law and order” overpolicing over solving the fundamental systemic issues causing violence, property crime, etc
When both parties are conservative parties, everybody gets to be a right winger no matter what color your jersey is.
How do you think Florida ended up the way it is? I’ve lived here on and off for the last 40-odd years. Texas happened the same way - right-winners taking inch by inch until they refuse to compromise out of spite and rig elections left and right. Now they’ve done it at the national level and I’m a few years it will be moderate-liberals that have to fix the mess they’re making.
I’ll say it again
Did you even read the article? Do you have anything to say about the example discussed in it?
When the fuck have “moderate liberals” fixed a single thing
Every single time they grab power. Every. Single. Time. Billionaires did not sprout out of some Republican’s pus filled boyle.
Every single time? Lmao.
What the fuck did Joe Biden fix? Did he fix the genocide in Gaza, did he? Did Obama fix the rampant corruption and financialization that led to the 2008 crash? What was he fixing when he had his cabinet orchestrate the maidan coup? Did Clinton fix the war on drugs with the crime bill?
Liberals don’t fix jack shit. They pretend now it’s too late to do anything, theyre powerless, at best things can stay mostly the same. And you better behave and vote for them next time because these laws they just passed can be used to facilitate a lot of fascism (it’s ok for them to have them because they’re not fascists though!)
Deeply ahistorical, terminally unserious.
