Authoritarian Coups Are Gradual Then Sudden

66 points by Kluggy 5 months ago | 33 comments
  • CarRamrod 5 months ago
    >Infiltrating police departments and the enlisted ranks of the military

    >Taking over school boards and local boards of elections

    Just to play devil's advocate, is it possible that the far right has been under the impression that the far left has been doing the same thing?

    • talldayo 5 months ago
      If they do believe that, I'd have to wonder why. Having people that don't look like you or disagree with you on school boards and in military service doesn't mean you've been "infiltrated" by an adversary. Liberals certainly don't act that way towards conservative service members or even private schools.
      • CarRamrod 5 months ago
        What constitutes infiltration?
        • talldayo 5 months ago
          Conspiracy to infiltrate, arranged by an adversarial power. Gay people are not "infiltrating" the military on behalf of anyone. School boards are not being "infiltrated" by Democrats that pay the same taxes for public education that Republicans do.

          These are basic tenants of political representation and personal liberty. They are, in principle, the most American things imaginable.

      • archagon 5 months ago
        No, they claim that the far left has been doing it as an excuse to do the same. It's lesson one from the authoritarian textbook: always accuse the enemy of your own misdeeds. Very similar to https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARVO.
        • relaxing 5 months ago
          Yes of course they’ve been told this. But that is delusional since there has been no left-wing coup in the United States government.
        • cocacola1 5 months ago
          This is a bit too prescient. Unnerving, really.
        • vincnetas 5 months ago
          Note that this article is from 2021
          • jaybrendansmith 5 months ago
            All my Republican friends tell me this kind of talk is 'shrill' and would never happen. I certainly hope they're correct, but that story about Pinochet is terrifying.
            • archagon 5 months ago
              I wonder if they’re secretly hoping it comes true.
            • 5 months ago
              • HPMOR 5 months ago
                The republic is dead. Long live The Democratic People’s Republic of the United States.
                • popcalc 5 months ago
                  Right wing authoritarian states typically use the "Republic of" prefix. DPR is traditionally a Communist signifier.
                  • HPMOR 5 months ago
                    I do actually appreciate the pedantic comment. However you make an implicit and false dichotomy between communist and authoritarian states. These two are much more similar, in some cases identical, than to a liberal democracy.
                • qwertox 5 months ago
                  We currently have this problem in Germany. The right-wing party AfD is claiming to be constitutional and democratic, yet they have constantly shown through small actions that they are 1. extremists, 2. unconstitutional and 3. not democratic.

                  The most clear example happened last year, when they tried to take power of the parliament of the state Thuringia. They attempted to remove voting rights to parliament members during a transition in order to strengthen their position.

                  While this was clearly unconstitutional, they pretended it wasn't, until the Federal Constitutional Court ruled that they were in the wrong. Only then they were like "Of course we accept this ruling", just to pretend to be democratic.

                  Their current path is to attempt to gain power in the Federal Constitutional Court, in order also influence future rulings so that the they can succeed next time.

                  This now brings the problem, that while there are many who want to rule the AfD to be unconstitutional, that is, to forbid the party to exist, it is a risky move to bring this case to court, because if it fails just barely to succeed, it would strengthen that party.

                  So they are always walking on the edge of legality and democracy in order to stretch the bounds, to get away with shortly doing illegal things like saying banned slogans to show the right-wing extremists that they can rely on this party to work for their interests or saying things like "Real men are right-wing, then they will be capable of getting girlfriends" [0]

                  In the case of the US, I think they now crossed this line. Let's hope that democracy is strong enough, but I still believe it is. In both countries.

                  [0] https://www-br-de.translate.goog/nachrichten/netzwelt/wie-di...

                  • vincnetas 5 months ago
                    there is banned slogan from hitler germany "Alles für Deutschland" (all for germany, similar to america first)

                    So they came with a bit adjustes slogan "Alice für Deutschland" (Alice Weidel Afd candidate)

                    • jimkoen 5 months ago
                      How are they attempting to gain power in the constitutional court?
                      • qwertox 5 months ago
                        By voting for their people to become judges, just like it has been done in the US.

                        This is why the current democratic parties voted recently to change how this voting is weighted [0], in order to make it more resilient.

                        > Central guidelines on the structure and working methods of the court are now anchored in the Basic Law, meaning that they can only be changed with a two-thirds majority.

                        > In order to prevent a blocking minority and blockages in the election of judges in the event of a possible change in the majority situation in the future, the SPD, the Union, the Greens and the FDP have agreed on a replacement election mechanism. If there is no two-thirds majority, the right to vote can be transferred from the Bundestag to the Bundesrat and vice versa.

                        [0] https://www-deutschlandfunk-de.translate.goog/bundesverfassu...

                      • dzhiurgis 5 months ago
                        Why don’t opposing parties promise to solving illegal immigration? Sounds like a slam dunk win.
                        • 5 months ago
                        • ChrisNorstrom 5 months ago
                          [flagged]
                          • polotics 5 months ago
                            No, it's just the direct consequence of worldwide resources depletion, in particular the EROEI of all scale-relevant energy sources. Add to this the first round of climate-change induced demographic movement (cough Syria) and there you go. I blame it on lack of education, and wishful thinking.
                            • sumuyuda 5 months ago
                              This reason is the same as everywhere in the west. Capitalism has created a massive wealth inequality where the normal person have less and less, with increasing costs they can’t afford.

                              Right wing parties come in and blame the immigrants as the reason for the decline. They offer simple answers rather than the hard truth that the system is inherently unfair and unjust.

                              The real solution is to move to a post capitalism economic system but no politicians from the mainstream parties are pushing for this as companies have to much influence and power in society.

                            • 5 months ago
                          • throwawaymaroon 5 months ago
                            [dead]
                            • ChrisNorstrom 5 months ago
                              [flagged]
                              • unsnap_biceps 5 months ago
                                > Says the democrat who did nothing when Gavin Newsom made it illegal to check for ID at California polls. All these other countries check ID for voting, you democrats don't want it, why is that? https://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/california-gover... Here you go, I know

                                I'm a little confused as to your point here.

                                The article you link says that to register to vote, you have to prove your identity and validity to vote via a driver’s license number, a California identification number, or the last four digits of their social security number.

                                To vote, you need to verify your voter registration information.

                                What exactly does requiring you to verify your registration in addition to the information previously validated to register? Is the belief that illegal voters are able to fraudulently register but wouldn't use the same fraudulent information the day of the vote?

                                • ChrisNorstrom 5 months ago
                                  [flagged]
                                  • unsnap_biceps 5 months ago
                                    Phantom voters would require an ID to be created before they can register to vote, so an ID check wouldn't help.

                                    With thousands registered at one address. From your article, the proposed law didn't limit valid voters based upon their id address. So I don't see how it would help.

                                    Dead voters are removed from the registration database and wouldn't be counted, unless they passed away out of country.

                                    Moved out of state would be a possibility, but the person that moved would have to have not received a new id or license in their new state, which may happen but seems largely unlikely.

                                    Do you have any data showing how large these potential issues are?

                                    Checking id correctly at time of vote slows down the process and causes less people to vote. If there's a meaningful amount of fraud, it should be investigated and fixed, but we should strive towards allowing as many of our fellow citizens to vote as we can. I'm just unsure that there's a level of fraud from your examples that would balance out the reduction in people voting. But if you have data to back it up, I'm happy to read it and possibly change my opinion.