Autocracy: Rules for Survival

berg80

Diamond Member
Oct 28, 2017
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“Thank you, my friends. Thank you. Thank you. We have lost. We have lost, and this is the last day of my political career, so I will say what must be said. We are standing at the edge of the abyss. Our political system, our society, our country itself are in greater danger than at any time in the last century and a half. The president-elect has made his intentions clear, and it would be immoral to pretend otherwise. We must band together right now to defend the laws, the institutions, and the ideals on which our country is based.”

That, or something like that, is what Hillary Clinton should have said on Wednesday. Instead, she said, resignedly,

We must accept this result and then look to the future. Donald Trump is going to be our president. We owe him an open mind and the chance to lead. Our constitutional democracy enshrines the peaceful transfer of power. We don’t just respect that. We cherish it. It also enshrines the rule of law; the principle [that] we are all equal in rights and dignity; freedom of worship and expression. We respect and cherish these values, too, and we must defend them.

Similar refrains were heard from various members of the liberal commentariat, with Tom Friedman vowing, “I am not going to try to make my president fail,” to Nick Kristof calling on “the approximately 52 percent majority of voters who supported someone other than Donald Trump” to “give president Trump a chance.” Even the politicians who have in the past appealed to the less-establishment part of the Democratic electorate sounded the conciliatory note. Senator Elizabeth Warren promised to “put aside our differences.” Senator Bernie Sanders was only slightly more cautious, vowing to try to find the good in Trump: “To the degree that Mr. Trump is serious about pursuing policies that improve the lives of working families in this country, I and other progressives are prepared to work with him.”

However well-intentioned, this talk assumes that Trump is prepared to find common ground with his many opponents, respect the institutions of government, and repudiate almost everything he has stood for during the campaign. In short, it is treating him as a “normal” politician. There has until now been little evidence that he can be one.
Autocracy: Rules for Survival
.....................................................................................................................................
The author goes on to list 6 rules to keep in mind during this rise of an autocrat. Progressives should read them. They'll come in handy. Cuz, the cavalry isn't coming any time soon. Your fellow Americans who have joined the Trump cult are becoming more devoted. Enamored with every institutional norm that gets washed away. The more we point it out to them the more they hate us.
 
“Thank you, my friends. Thank you. Thank you. We have lost. We have lost, and this is the last day of my political career, so I will say what must be said. We are standing at the edge of the abyss. Our political system, our society, our country itself are in greater danger than at any time in the last century and a half. The president-elect has made his intentions clear, and it would be immoral to pretend otherwise. We must band together right now to defend the laws, the institutions, and the ideals on which our country is based.”

That, or something like that, is what Hillary Clinton should have said on Wednesday. Instead, she said, resignedly,

We must accept this result and then look to the future. Donald Trump is going to be our president. We owe him an open mind and the chance to lead. Our constitutional democracy enshrines the peaceful transfer of power. We don’t just respect that. We cherish it. It also enshrines the rule of law; the principle [that] we are all equal in rights and dignity; freedom of worship and expression. We respect and cherish these values, too, and we must defend them.

Similar refrains were heard from various members of the liberal commentariat, with Tom Friedman vowing, “I am not going to try to make my president fail,” to Nick Kristof calling on “the approximately 52 percent majority of voters who supported someone other than Donald Trump” to “give president Trump a chance.” Even the politicians who have in the past appealed to the less-establishment part of the Democratic electorate sounded the conciliatory note. Senator Elizabeth Warren promised to “put aside our differences.” Senator Bernie Sanders was only slightly more cautious, vowing to try to find the good in Trump: “To the degree that Mr. Trump is serious about pursuing policies that improve the lives of working families in this country, I and other progressives are prepared to work with him.”

However well-intentioned, this talk assumes that Trump is prepared to find common ground with his many opponents, respect the institutions of government, and repudiate almost everything he has stood for during the campaign. In short, it is treating him as a “normal” politician. There has until now been little evidence that he can be one.
Autocracy: Rules for Survival
.....................................................................................................................................
The author goes on to list 6 rules to keep in mind during this rise of an autocrat. Progressives should read them. They'll come in handy. Cuz, the cavalry isn't coming any time soon. Your fellow Americans who have joined the Trump cult are becoming more devoted. Enamored with every institutional norm that gets washed away. The more we point it out to them the more they hate us.
Rule #1: Believe the autocrat. He means what he says. Whenever you find yourself thinking, or hear others claiming, that he is exaggerating, that is our innate tendency to reach for a rationalization. This will happen often: humans seem to have evolved to practice denial when confronted publicly with the unacceptable. Back in the 1930s, The New York Times assured its readers that Hitler’s anti-Semitism was all posture. More recently, the same newspaper made a telling choice between two statements made by Putin’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov following a police crackdown on protesters in Moscow: “The police acted mildly—I would have liked them to act more harshly” rather than those protesters’ “liver should have been spread all over the pavement.” Perhaps the journalists could not believe their ears. But they should—both in the Russian case, and in the American one. For all the admiration Trump has expressed for Putin, the two men are very different; if anything, there is even more reason to listen to everything Trump has said. He has no political establishment into which to fold himself following the campaign, and therefore no reason to shed his campaign rhetoric. On the contrary: it is now the establishment that is rushing to accommodate him—from the president, who met with him at the White House on Thursday, to the leaders of the Republican Party, who are discarding their long-held scruples to embrace his radical positions.

He has received the support he needed to win, and the adulation he craves, precisely because of his outrageous threats. Trump rally crowds have chanted “Lock her up!” They, and he, meant every word. If Trump does not go after Hillary Clinton on his first day in office, if he instead focuses, as his acceptance speech indicated he might, on the unifying project of investing in infrastructure (which, not coincidentally, would provide an instant opportunity to reward his cronies and himself), it will be foolish to breathe a sigh of relief. Trump has made his plans clear, and he has made a compact with his voters to carry them out. These plans include not only dismantling legislation such as Obamacare but also doing away with judicial restraint—and, yes, punishing opponents.

To begin jailing his political opponents, or just one opponent, Trump will begin by trying to capture members of the judicial system. Observers and even activists functioning in the normal-election mode are fixated on the Supreme Court as the site of the highest-risk impending Trump appointment. There is little doubt that Trump will appoint someone who will cause the Court to veer to the right; there is also the risk that it might be someone who will wreak havoc with the very culture of the high court. And since Trump plans to use the judicial system to carry out his political vendettas, his pick for attorney general will be no less important. Imagine former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani or New Jersey Governor Chris Christie going after Hillary Clinton on orders from President Trump; quite aside from their approach to issues such as the Geneva Conventions, the use of police powers, criminal justice reforms, and other urgent concerns.
 
Hmmmm, it was YOUR hero, the obummer who spied on reporters, and violated the civil Rights of political groups who opposed him.

And you claim Trump is the autocrat?

Go piss up a rope you looney!
 
Take a breath chicken little the ski is not falling.
You can't imagine how much I wish it wasn't. But it is. Because to me, it doesn't matter if this is just a one time fall from the founding ideals in to flirting with autocracy. The fact that it happened at all, in this country, absolutely crushes me.
 
Take a breath chicken little the ski is not falling.
You can't imagine how much I wish it wasn't. But it is. Because to me, it doesn't matter if this is just a one time fall from the founding ideals in to flirting with autocracy. The fact that it happened at all, in this country, absolutely crushes me.
Take a break drama queen I doubt even you believe the BS you post.
 
Hmmmm, it was YOUR hero, the obummer who spied on reporters, and violated the civil Rights of political groups who opposed him.

And you claim Trump is the autocrat?

Go piss up a rope you looney!

in fairness, Obama only spied on people who shared a different political ideology
 
Take a breath chicken little the ski is not falling.
You can't imagine how much I wish it wasn't. But it is. Because to me, it doesn't matter if this is just a one time fall from the founding ideals in to flirting with autocracy. The fact that it happened at all, in this country, absolutely crushes me.
Listening to a prog stooge twaddle on about the founding ideals of this nation is physically sickening....It's you dickweeds who have been slowly overturning those ideals for over a century.

Spare us your phony-assed crocodile tears.
 
Take a breath chicken little the ski is not falling.
You can't imagine how much I wish it wasn't. But it is. Because to me, it doesn't matter if this is just a one time fall from the founding ideals in to flirting with autocracy. The fact that it happened at all, in this country, absolutely crushes me.
Listening to a prog stooge twaddle on about the founding ideals of this nation is physically sickening....It's you dickweeds who have been slowly overturning those ideals for over a century.

Spare us your phony-assed crocodile tears.
I'd ask you to defend those remarks with some factual substantiation but we both know that's never going to happen.
 
Take a breath chicken little the ski is not falling.
You can't imagine how much I wish it wasn't. But it is. Because to me, it doesn't matter if this is just a one time fall from the founding ideals in to flirting with autocracy. The fact that it happened at all, in this country, absolutely crushes me.
Listening to a prog stooge twaddle on about the founding ideals of this nation is physically sickening....It's you dickweeds who have been slowly overturning those ideals for over a century.

Spare us your phony-assed crocodile tears.
I'd ask you to defend those remarks with some factual substantiation but we both know that's never going to happen.







Attacking the 2nd Amendment, sanctuary cities, impoverishing the middle class through regulations, and taxes to turn them back into serfs, i can go on and on, but that should give you an idea.
 
Take a breath chicken little the ski is not falling.
You can't imagine how much I wish it wasn't. But it is. Because to me, it doesn't matter if this is just a one time fall from the founding ideals in to flirting with autocracy. The fact that it happened at all, in this country, absolutely crushes me.
This was not a one-time fail but rather a long awaited shout out and pushback by the Silent Majority

the left has tried every dirty trick it knows to bring trump down

but he’s still chugging along thank God
 
Yes folks...the sky is falling.

Trump has unleashed the Department of Justice on whoever he considers to be his enemy.

And there is nothing to stop him
 
Take a breath chicken little the ski is not falling.
You can't imagine how much I wish it wasn't. But it is. Because to me, it doesn't matter if this is just a one time fall from the founding ideals in to flirting with autocracy. The fact that it happened at all, in this country, absolutely crushes me.
Listening to a prog stooge twaddle on about the founding ideals of this nation is physically sickening....It's you dickweeds who have been slowly overturning those ideals for over a century.

Spare us your phony-assed crocodile tears.
I'd ask you to defend those remarks with some factual substantiation but we both know that's never going to happen.







Attacking the 2nd Amendment, sanctuary cities, impoverishing the middle class through regulations, and taxes to turn them back into serfs, i can go on and on, but that should give you an idea.
I'm sure you can go on. The thing is, spewing bullshyte doesn't really make your case. How's about you actually try to prove anything you wrote?
 
Yes folks...the sky is falling.

Trump has unleashed the Department of Justice on whoever he considers to be his enemy.

And there is nothing to stop him
Did you think, like I did, now that it's gotten this bad some congressional Repubs would object? It's their cowardice that I find most surprising.
 
Yes folks...the sky is falling.

Trump has unleashed the Department of Justice on whoever he considers to be his enemy.

And there is nothing to stop him
Did you think, like I did, now that it's gotten this bad some congressional Repubs would object? It's their cowardice that I find most surprising.
A President has ENORMOUS powers

We're told (and Trumpers brag) that he "can" do this and "can" do that...he can fire anyone for any reason...he can pardon anyone for any reason...there are very few checks on the power of an American President

What has kept former Presidents in check are

Respect for rule of law
Protection of reputation
Impeachment
Political price paid for infractions

Trump cares about none of those.

He is untethered...and dangerous for democracy
 
Yes folks...the sky is falling.

Trump has unleashed the Department of Justice on whoever he considers to be his enemy.

And there is nothing to stop him
Did you think, like I did, now that it's gotten this bad some congressional Repubs would object? It's their cowardice that I find most surprising.
A President has ENORMOUS powers

We're told (and Trumpers brag) that he "can" do this and "can" do that...he can fire anyone for any reason...he can pardon anyone for any reason...there are very few checks on the power of an American President

What has kept former Presidents in check are

Respect for rule of law
Protection of reputation
Impeachment
Political price paid for infractions

Trump cares about none of those.

He is untethered...and dangerous for democracy
"Rule #3: Institutions will not save you. It took Putin a year to take over the Russian media and four years to dismantle its electoral system; the judiciary collapsed unnoticed. The capture of institutions in Turkey has been carried out even faster, by a man once celebrated as the democrat to lead Turkey into the EU. Poland has in less than a year undone half of a quarter century’s accomplishments in building a constitutional democracy.

Of course, the United States has much stronger institutions than Germany did in the 1930s, or Russia does today. Both Clinton and Obama in their speeches stressed the importance and strength of these institutions. The problem, however, is that many of these institutions are enshrined in political culture rather than in law, and all of them—including the ones enshrined in law—depend on the good faith of all actors to fulfill their purpose and uphold the Constitution."
 
Yes folks...the sky is falling.

Trump has unleashed the Department of Justice on whoever he considers to be his enemy.

And there is nothing to stop him

So who's been arrested by Trump's supposed stormtroopers and shunted into camps?
 

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