Step back and take it in: the US is entering full authoritarian mode | Jonathan Freedland
www.theguardian.com
Trump’s dictator-like behaviour is so brazen, so blatant, that paradoxically, we discount it. But now it’s time to call it what it is, says Guardian columnist Jonathan Freedland

The trouble is, people still don’t talk about it the way they talk about Hungary, not inside the US and not outside it. That’s partly the It Can’t Happen Here mindset, partly a reluctance to accept a reality that would require, of foreign governments especially, a rethink of almost everything. If the US is on its way to autocracy, in a condition scholars might call “unconsolidated authoritarianism”, then that changes Britain’s entire strategic position, its place in the world, which for 80 years has been predicated on the notion of a west led by a stable, democratic US. The same goes for the EU. Far easier to carry on, either pretending that the transformation of the US is not, in fact, as severe as it is, or that normal service will resume shortly. But the world’s leaders, like US citizens, cannot ignore the evidence indefinitely. To adapt the title of that long-ago novel, it can happen here – and it is.

  • Jason2357@lemmy.caEnglish
    2·
    6 days ago

    This is a false equivalence, and doesn’t provide any insight into the situation, not unlike both-sides”ism”. No country is an ideal democracy, but there has been a fundamental change in the American state that needs to be acknowledged.

    Nixon snuck around trying to do some of these things, and was done when caught. That’s because America used to at least aspire to democratic republicanism and rule of law under a constitution. Openly giving up on that is a very big deal.

    • Doomsider@lemmy.worldEnglish
      11·
      6 days ago

      Oh sweet child. Tell me about the Cold War when the US toppled over seventy democracies and installed fascist dictators.

      Did you miss operation Iraqi Freedom when we invaded a country for 9/11 that had nothing to do with 9/11 and killed around 150,000 people.

      Did you study the Mexico war. After the US defeated Mexico they needed to decide what to do with the territory. There was a plan to turn Mexico into several US states. There was a lovely debate that was settled with we can’t let our blood be poisoned.

      Did you forget about the Native Americans? You know the people that actually lived in the US originally. It is estimated we had over a four million or perhaps even higher. Well, we betrayed them by breaking every treaty and murdered them, took their land, and forced them into reservation where we starved them to death.

      Have you ever studied the revolutionary war to discover our founding fathers were a bunch of fascist fucks before fascism even existed. Did you know they used terrorism on their own people. They lied, murdered, raped, bombed, and tortured people to turn civilians against the crown.

      Do you remember how popular Nazism was in the US in 1930s. This is where the America First saying came from. You see the Nazi looked up to the US. They admired our genocide of the Native Americans and modeled their final solution after it.

      Wealthy people in the US helped fund the Nazi party and later on US corporations helped the Nazi as well. When the Nazi lobbied the world to take in their Jewish population these same people lobbied the world not to take them in thus ensuring their eventual demise.

      This is just the tip of the Iceberg. Let’s just say you have been mislead by a lifetime of propaganda.