Thank you so much for saying this. All I could think this morning was that even if things go fully Biden’s way regarding the Senate, four years is not nearly enough time to make a dent in repairing damages to the public’s trust at all levels, or to start healing the outright brainwashing that many have subjected themselves to, or to cool the urge for violent uprising that many have training their psyches—as well as arming—themselves for for decades now. The work of people like Stacey Abrams provides the only realistic path out of this mess that I can see, but it’s going to take a long time and it’s going to take far more of us.
We are also going to have to take a hard stance on Facebook & Twitter and their role as misinformation accelerators throughout the last decade. Self-regulation has failed. Unfortunately even if there were a united House & Senate these giants have huge lobby funds and will likely remain unchecked long enough to repeat this damaging cycle. I hope I’m wrong here, but I’ve seen little to give me hope that these “agile” companies will meaningfully curb or undo the damage they continue to wreak.
It might well be possible to destroy the "super-spreading" capacity of big networks like Facebook and Twitter -- either by breaking them apart via antitrust or by forbidding them from pushing unsolicited recommendations. Ideally, this should revert the internet to the more localized and human-scaled www of the early 2000s. (Though it's far from clear this will actually work as opposed to merely adding layers to indirection.)
Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure that whoever is in charge will want to wield a bigger hammer and either force networks to censor some content they'd rather keep up or force them to keep up some content they'd rather censor. In either case, conversations will move to darker places (just as /pol/ has now become the clearinghouse for alleged voting irregularities) and foreign countries (Switzerland if we're lucky, Russia more likely -- just look where all the filesharing has gone). In terms of actually fighting misinformation and propaganda, this will be a major self-inflicted injury (go try to debunk fake news on /pol/). To some extent this has already started -- web forums and blogs are coming back; but either party putting its thumbs on the scale will rapidly accelerate this move and create a level of mistrust that will make cross-faction fact-checking impossible. But try explaining this to legacy media...
Part of my whole schtick is talking to people about real-life experiences and in-person conversation and the gritty work of community and how experiencing something firsthand is often the only way that you can affect a person's perception of reality. But the erosion has gone so deep I'm not sure if even all of that can move it. I do think eventually humankind and our ability to process information will adapt to these technologies and their effects, but in the short term you run into too many weird stories of people being confronted with a physical, real-life reality that they don't like, and persuading themselves that it's something else.
Rethinking my own comment there, I think this is part of human neurological wiring. Propaganda's capacity for dehumanizing an "other" has been disturbingly effective for centuries. Forever? And digital technology just has the ability to weaponize it on a massive scale and for all sorts of subjects and issues.
I have to say my hopes aren’t high. It feels like we’re resetting to an R vs. D dynamic with the same old people in charge of a system that was *very much not working.* How will that stoke grievance for the next 4 years, or even 2?
God, yes. It’s a big factor—not just them, though they’re the biggest spreaders and amplifiers, but you can trace it back to the rise of Rush Limbaugh and Fox and how people can silo their perception of reality.
Thanks Zeynep! Everything you said needs to be repeated a million times over.
Except the part about being a somewhat downer of a piece.
This is a clarion call to do the hard work, and an inspiration that it can be done. As some guy named Barack said "Few obstacles can withstand the power of millions of voices calling for change."
The challenge is how to harness those voices more often than every two, four or six years. And how to help those voices be informed ones.
Totally agree, and would add that we have to avoid the "don't look back, look forward" approach that Obama took towards W and Iraq.
There needs to be a thorough investigation of the corruption and subversion of institutions that occurred over the last four years. This would serve not only to shame and perhaps punish the behavior, but also to demonstrate their can be serious consequences, not just a warm handshake with almost everyone involved receiving a get out of jail free card.
It will be that much easier for the “next Trump” because the Republicans who voted against him, also voted to retain his enablers in both houses of Congress. Liberals like me wanted a repudiation of what the Republican Party stands for, a Blue Tsunami. Instead we got people voting against a particular human while endorsing the policies we hate.
Long time follower of Zeynep and impressed with all the excellent writing, esp this year on the pandemic. After the NYT piece (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/23/business/media/how-zeynep-tufekci-keeps-getting-the-big-things-right.html) I doubled up and am now rereading Twitter and Tear Gas, but also reading Thinking in Systems. That last book b/c the only directly actionable advice in that article seemed to me to be about systems thinking.
Literally in the first quote in the book: "if a revolution destroys a government, but the systematic patterns of thought that produced that government are left intact, then those patterns will repeat themselved". Which is apparently from Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance.
I like this mail list, but would also love more advice to develop the analytics that goes into getting to these analyses as well.
As an immigrant originally from France, this election hits really close to home, where we've had 2-3 elections in the past 20 years where people had to vote for "the other candidate" to avoid a fascist (a proud and self-proclaimed one, even!) on the throne.
It's not because we have a majority of them (way too many to my taste, but still far from being a majority), it's because they play politics better than the left and its base, and are very good at steering right on a daily basis.
"Vote for the President and go back to your slumber" is essentially how it's been going on for... what, 40, 50 years now? And inevitably, the right-wing/extreme right-wing win local elections and EU seats one by one, every day, changing local landscape, policies, mentalities.
I really hope that America will not follow in this pattern and make use of these 4 years to the max. If we look at the profile of Biden and Harris, they are mature and tenacious politicians and they very well know the challenge they are inheriting. Here's to hope that will be enough to start making some drastic changes in the opposite direction.
Given a likely obstructionist Senate, continued gerrymandering with Republican-controlled statehouses, I wonder how much expansion of voting rights can accomplish, at least nationally. Plus, as a piece in WaPo by Gerson aptly noted: "Policy and performance are irrelevant when there is only one political question: Is he on our side in the great cultural conflict?" How long will people continue to vote on the basis of cultural conflict instead of anything to do with government's actual functioning, so that Republicans can keep winning on this message even if they do nothing about (or make worse...) the many problems our nation and the world face? If this continues, I'm not sure I see a lot of hope at the Federal level... Maybe the focus should shift to evidence-/fact-/reason-based government at the state or local level? Could we end up with "reality-embracing" states and "nostalgia-embracing" states, with quality of/access to health care (incl. abortion), education, infrastructure, economic and social justice, and so on vastly different between them? Also, could stronger state/local government serve as a bulwark against a future authoritarian leader (wasn't that one of the original ideas behind Federalism?)?
I definitely see the argument for better government at the local level, but in the end, we are all affected. As for voting rights, grassroots work, coalitions wherever possible, referenda (like raising the minimum wage, it is a popular concept), and whatever else one can do. Without voting rights, it's hard to begin to get out of this.
I keep thinking the way to "begin to get out of this" is by getting out of this. I'm in California, the worlds fifth largest economy. I lean toward secession. We seem to be doing most things right and are working towards making the others better. The undemocratic in Washington keep trying to drag us down (climate change, human rights, regulating guns...) and are happy taking our taxes... Are taxes high in California? Yes, because it takes money to build a society, see Obama "you didn't build that." I could go on and on, but I'd like to separate as much as I'm sure most of the people complaining about California liberals would like to be rid of us.
This is a very important point. Conservatives have been working and organizing at the state level for *decades,* with the help of deep-pocketed interests like the Koch Brothers and ALEC. I honestly think that one reason progressives keep losing nationally is that they put all their energies into national fights. They've lost state legislatures and governorships and Public Service Commission seats (most progressives I talk with don't even know what PSCs are, and they're *really* important when you're talking things like oil pipelines) but most importantly they've lost connection and trust within their own communities. (I should say "we" and "our" since I'm certainly progressive and live within a conservative area.) I'm not advocating for abandoning the presidency and Congress but we will lose completely in the long run if we don't put similar kinds of energies and community organizing in at the state and local levels.
YES! Federal legislation often follows state legislation, and state legislators are much more responsive to constituent voice. Also, both conservative and progressive politicians believe their constituents are much more conservative than they actually are. Half of conservative legislators believe their district is more conservative than the most conservative district in the country.
Now, if only we could ensure that citizens were well-informed, highly engaged, and legislators were accountable to their constituents' collective voice...
I agree. State legislators and governors tend to be a lot more responsive, and less pre-occupied with the future of their party/faction (though they do not disregard it).
Seems like purple state ballot initiatives are going to be a big voting rights priority given the state of things federally, no? For example:
-- enfranchisement initiatives like Florida's Amendment 4, but with more careful writing to forestall the shenanigans that the FL GOP used to moot its effect
-- National Popular Vote initiatives like the one that just passed in Colorado
Didn't Oregon pass something a while back that automatically registered you to vote when you got a driving license?
We lived in Australia for a couple years. I'll never get over knowing that it's required for people to vote there and it's not a big deal. You just do it or get fined.
I do think that Democrats need to capture the middle in order to survive. With the size of the deficit, the Democratic executive should strive to be fiscally conservative, while quietly restoring regulatory safeguards that encourage competition. The Democrats need to be able to trade (log rolling) things that Mitch McConnell wants that are short term for the long term regulatory safeguards. Similarly, stimulus money should be spent on things which have a good economic multiplier Also, faith in the voting system needs to be gradually restored. Restoring grade school civics classes might contribute a lot with that, especially in the long term..
I agree with enough of this that it feels frivolous to contradict, but I'll still do: The examples of strongmen you mention in your Atlantic piece (Modi, Bolsonaro, Orbán, Putin, Kaczyński, Erdoğan) have had decades of political experience (mostly in parties; in Putin's case, in the KGB) before rising to the top. Trump is an outlier in this list, which may be part of the reason why he (fingers crossed) isn't sticking to the chair. Tucker Carlson or Joe Rogan would be outliers as well (not to mention, at least in the case of Rogan, an open-mindnedness highly uncharacteristic of the bunch). They remind me more of Zelensky or Schwarzenegger than of Orbán or Kaczyński. Has a media personality ever stuck to a throne for long?
(It's never frivolous to object to any part of what I write, by the way, in my opinion! I really enjoy the conversation and deeper thinking it encourages). So I think I'd agree that I don't know who it might be. Celebrity is a definite help (but has governing issues); someone from the institutional side may not have the charisma/political chops; legislators tend to have weaknesses. But the world is big, and once a path opens up, lots of people may try, and it takes one... With the right combination.
One of my long-term concerns is that Trump has effectively lowered the bar for entry into high political office. If an unlikable reality TV star with no political experience and a surprising lack of poltical skill can win the presidency (and almost win reelection), well then, why can't we find another candidate like that, just a bit more likable? Maybe I'm too cynical, but I have to worry that there are at least a few strategists, in both parties, looking around for candidates with good name recognition and good charisma, who say the right things, and never mind the actual skills needed to execute whatever office they're running for.
Look into Greg Gianforte, just elected governor of Montana, and his history in politics. Maybe not a potential autocrat, but rich, ambitious, and deeply religiously conservative with enough wits to keep his less appealing opinions and beliefs out of the public eye (with the exception of that time he body-slammed a reporter). And an actual successful businessman.
Does anyone reading this know of any organizations similar to Stacey Abrams' Fair Fight that are operating in Florida? Living in Central Florida, I'm trying to figure out where my time would be best spent volunteering and contributing. Like Zeynep says, this is not some hiccup that's over now...
I also think we got lucky on Jan 6. The election was not close (it would have been much closer, or Trump would have won without the disastrous pandemic); the election was competently run (not a given - caucuses in Iowa and primaries in Georgia and Wisconsin were a mess); and Trump is a disorganized incompetent. Jan 6 was nowhere near a worst-case scenario. It was a warning.
Gosh yes. When Trump was heading toward the Republican nomination in 2016 - sweeping up 100% of the delegates in state after state with 25-30% of the vote - my main fear was not that he would win the presidency. It was that he would come close, and then some other, nastier person would say “If Trump, who is a disorganized incompetent, can gain so much support, America is ready for a real authoritarian.” I still worry about that.
Another book that I learned a lot from is "How Democracies Die" by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt. These writers had Donald Trump very much in mind. They state that "Trump, even before his inauguration, tested positive on all four measures on our litmus test for autocrats. The first sign is a weak commitment to the democratic rules of the game [such as respecting the result of elections]...The second sign is denial of the legitimacy of one’s opponents ['Lock her up!']...The third criterion is toleration or encouragement of violence ['There are good people on both sides' and Proud Boys, 'stand back and stand by']...The final warning sign is a readiness to curtail the civil liberties of rivals and critics [such as declaring the press 'the enemy of the people' and threatening to withdraw broadcast licenses from offending media companies]."
Writing about extremist demagogues in general, Levitsky and Ziblatt say the following:
"An essential test for democracies is not whether such figures emerge but whether political leaders, and especially political parties, work to prevent them from gaining power in the first place—by keeping them off mainstream party tickets, refusing to endorse or align with them, and when necessary, making common cause with rivals in support of democratic candidates. Isolating popular extremists requires political courage. But when fear, opportunism, or miscalculation leads established parties to bring extremists into the mainstream, democracy is imperiled."
The Republican Party clearly failed to prevent Trump's getting the nomination, and the support of cowardly party leaders helped him to be elected president. Most of them are still backing him, even as he refuses to concede that Biden won the November 3 election, fires national security officials who he regards as disloyal, and refuses to cooperate with Biden's transition team.
Levitsky and Ziblatt continue,
"Once a would-be authoritarian makes it to power, democracies face a second critical test: Will the autocratic leader subvert democratic institutions or be constrained by them? Institutions alone are not enough to rein in elected autocrats. Constitutions must be defended—by political parties and organized citizens, but also by democratic norms. Without robust norms, constitutional checks and balances do not serve as the bulwarks of democracy we imagine them to be. Institutions become political weapons, wielded forcefully by those who control them against those who do not. This is how elected autocrats subvert democracy—packing and 'weaponizing' the courts and other neutral agencies, buying off the media and the private sector (or bullying them into silence), and rewriting the rules of politics to tilt the playing field against opponents. The tragic paradox of the electoral route to authoritarianism is that democracy’s assassins use the very institutions of democracy—gradually, subtly, and even legally—to kill it."
This is what Zeynep warned us about in her Atlantic article. Whether Thomas Jefferson said it or not, the price of liberty is eternal vigilance.
Thank you so much for saying this. All I could think this morning was that even if things go fully Biden’s way regarding the Senate, four years is not nearly enough time to make a dent in repairing damages to the public’s trust at all levels, or to start healing the outright brainwashing that many have subjected themselves to, or to cool the urge for violent uprising that many have training their psyches—as well as arming—themselves for for decades now. The work of people like Stacey Abrams provides the only realistic path out of this mess that I can see, but it’s going to take a long time and it’s going to take far more of us.
We are also going to have to take a hard stance on Facebook & Twitter and their role as misinformation accelerators throughout the last decade. Self-regulation has failed. Unfortunately even if there were a united House & Senate these giants have huge lobby funds and will likely remain unchecked long enough to repeat this damaging cycle. I hope I’m wrong here, but I’ve seen little to give me hope that these “agile” companies will meaningfully curb or undo the damage they continue to wreak.
Also, what are the odds this legislative set-up will lead to anything effective and healthy? A lot to worry about.
This.
It might well be possible to destroy the "super-spreading" capacity of big networks like Facebook and Twitter -- either by breaking them apart via antitrust or by forbidding them from pushing unsolicited recommendations. Ideally, this should revert the internet to the more localized and human-scaled www of the early 2000s. (Though it's far from clear this will actually work as opposed to merely adding layers to indirection.)
Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure that whoever is in charge will want to wield a bigger hammer and either force networks to censor some content they'd rather keep up or force them to keep up some content they'd rather censor. In either case, conversations will move to darker places (just as /pol/ has now become the clearinghouse for alleged voting irregularities) and foreign countries (Switzerland if we're lucky, Russia more likely -- just look where all the filesharing has gone). In terms of actually fighting misinformation and propaganda, this will be a major self-inflicted injury (go try to debunk fake news on /pol/). To some extent this has already started -- web forums and blogs are coming back; but either party putting its thumbs on the scale will rapidly accelerate this move and create a level of mistrust that will make cross-faction fact-checking impossible. But try explaining this to legacy media...
Part of my whole schtick is talking to people about real-life experiences and in-person conversation and the gritty work of community and how experiencing something firsthand is often the only way that you can affect a person's perception of reality. But the erosion has gone so deep I'm not sure if even all of that can move it. I do think eventually humankind and our ability to process information will adapt to these technologies and their effects, but in the short term you run into too many weird stories of people being confronted with a physical, real-life reality that they don't like, and persuading themselves that it's something else.
Rethinking my own comment there, I think this is part of human neurological wiring. Propaganda's capacity for dehumanizing an "other" has been disturbingly effective for centuries. Forever? And digital technology just has the ability to weaponize it on a massive scale and for all sorts of subjects and issues.
I have to say my hopes aren’t high. It feels like we’re resetting to an R vs. D dynamic with the same old people in charge of a system that was *very much not working.* How will that stoke grievance for the next 4 years, or even 2?
God, yes. It’s a big factor—not just them, though they’re the biggest spreaders and amplifiers, but you can trace it back to the rise of Rush Limbaugh and Fox and how people can silo their perception of reality.
Thanks Zeynep! Everything you said needs to be repeated a million times over.
Except the part about being a somewhat downer of a piece.
This is a clarion call to do the hard work, and an inspiration that it can be done. As some guy named Barack said "Few obstacles can withstand the power of millions of voices calling for change."
The challenge is how to harness those voices more often than every two, four or six years. And how to help those voices be informed ones.
Stay tuned... ;-)
Thank you! It's not the kind of thing many people want to think about today, but here we are. That said, I'm not without hope!
Absolutely! Thank you for these words! The work begins now
Totally agree, and would add that we have to avoid the "don't look back, look forward" approach that Obama took towards W and Iraq.
There needs to be a thorough investigation of the corruption and subversion of institutions that occurred over the last four years. This would serve not only to shame and perhaps punish the behavior, but also to demonstrate their can be serious consequences, not just a warm handshake with almost everyone involved receiving a get out of jail free card.
It will be that much easier for the “next Trump” because the Republicans who voted against him, also voted to retain his enablers in both houses of Congress. Liberals like me wanted a repudiation of what the Republican Party stands for, a Blue Tsunami. Instead we got people voting against a particular human while endorsing the policies we hate.
Long time follower of Zeynep and impressed with all the excellent writing, esp this year on the pandemic. After the NYT piece (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/23/business/media/how-zeynep-tufekci-keeps-getting-the-big-things-right.html) I doubled up and am now rereading Twitter and Tear Gas, but also reading Thinking in Systems. That last book b/c the only directly actionable advice in that article seemed to me to be about systems thinking.
Literally in the first quote in the book: "if a revolution destroys a government, but the systematic patterns of thought that produced that government are left intact, then those patterns will repeat themselved". Which is apparently from Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance.
I like this mail list, but would also love more advice to develop the analytics that goes into getting to these analyses as well.
As an immigrant originally from France, this election hits really close to home, where we've had 2-3 elections in the past 20 years where people had to vote for "the other candidate" to avoid a fascist (a proud and self-proclaimed one, even!) on the throne.
It's not because we have a majority of them (way too many to my taste, but still far from being a majority), it's because they play politics better than the left and its base, and are very good at steering right on a daily basis.
"Vote for the President and go back to your slumber" is essentially how it's been going on for... what, 40, 50 years now? And inevitably, the right-wing/extreme right-wing win local elections and EU seats one by one, every day, changing local landscape, policies, mentalities.
I really hope that America will not follow in this pattern and make use of these 4 years to the max. If we look at the profile of Biden and Harris, they are mature and tenacious politicians and they very well know the challenge they are inheriting. Here's to hope that will be enough to start making some drastic changes in the opposite direction.
Given a likely obstructionist Senate, continued gerrymandering with Republican-controlled statehouses, I wonder how much expansion of voting rights can accomplish, at least nationally. Plus, as a piece in WaPo by Gerson aptly noted: "Policy and performance are irrelevant when there is only one political question: Is he on our side in the great cultural conflict?" How long will people continue to vote on the basis of cultural conflict instead of anything to do with government's actual functioning, so that Republicans can keep winning on this message even if they do nothing about (or make worse...) the many problems our nation and the world face? If this continues, I'm not sure I see a lot of hope at the Federal level... Maybe the focus should shift to evidence-/fact-/reason-based government at the state or local level? Could we end up with "reality-embracing" states and "nostalgia-embracing" states, with quality of/access to health care (incl. abortion), education, infrastructure, economic and social justice, and so on vastly different between them? Also, could stronger state/local government serve as a bulwark against a future authoritarian leader (wasn't that one of the original ideas behind Federalism?)?
I definitely see the argument for better government at the local level, but in the end, we are all affected. As for voting rights, grassroots work, coalitions wherever possible, referenda (like raising the minimum wage, it is a popular concept), and whatever else one can do. Without voting rights, it's hard to begin to get out of this.
I keep thinking the way to "begin to get out of this" is by getting out of this. I'm in California, the worlds fifth largest economy. I lean toward secession. We seem to be doing most things right and are working towards making the others better. The undemocratic in Washington keep trying to drag us down (climate change, human rights, regulating guns...) and are happy taking our taxes... Are taxes high in California? Yes, because it takes money to build a society, see Obama "you didn't build that." I could go on and on, but I'd like to separate as much as I'm sure most of the people complaining about California liberals would like to be rid of us.
Like the speech.
This is a very important point. Conservatives have been working and organizing at the state level for *decades,* with the help of deep-pocketed interests like the Koch Brothers and ALEC. I honestly think that one reason progressives keep losing nationally is that they put all their energies into national fights. They've lost state legislatures and governorships and Public Service Commission seats (most progressives I talk with don't even know what PSCs are, and they're *really* important when you're talking things like oil pipelines) but most importantly they've lost connection and trust within their own communities. (I should say "we" and "our" since I'm certainly progressive and live within a conservative area.) I'm not advocating for abandoning the presidency and Congress but we will lose completely in the long run if we don't put similar kinds of energies and community organizing in at the state and local levels.
That's right. The local level is where most organizing happens.
YES! Federal legislation often follows state legislation, and state legislators are much more responsive to constituent voice. Also, both conservative and progressive politicians believe their constituents are much more conservative than they actually are. Half of conservative legislators believe their district is more conservative than the most conservative district in the country.
Now, if only we could ensure that citizens were well-informed, highly engaged, and legislators were accountable to their constituents' collective voice...
I agree. State legislators and governors tend to be a lot more responsive, and less pre-occupied with the future of their party/faction (though they do not disregard it).
Seems like purple state ballot initiatives are going to be a big voting rights priority given the state of things federally, no? For example:
-- enfranchisement initiatives like Florida's Amendment 4, but with more careful writing to forestall the shenanigans that the FL GOP used to moot its effect
-- National Popular Vote initiatives like the one that just passed in Colorado
What else?
Didn't Oregon pass something a while back that automatically registered you to vote when you got a driving license?
We lived in Australia for a couple years. I'll never get over knowing that it's required for people to vote there and it's not a big deal. You just do it or get fined.
I do think that Democrats need to capture the middle in order to survive. With the size of the deficit, the Democratic executive should strive to be fiscally conservative, while quietly restoring regulatory safeguards that encourage competition. The Democrats need to be able to trade (log rolling) things that Mitch McConnell wants that are short term for the long term regulatory safeguards. Similarly, stimulus money should be spent on things which have a good economic multiplier Also, faith in the voting system needs to be gradually restored. Restoring grade school civics classes might contribute a lot with that, especially in the long term..
I agree with enough of this that it feels frivolous to contradict, but I'll still do: The examples of strongmen you mention in your Atlantic piece (Modi, Bolsonaro, Orbán, Putin, Kaczyński, Erdoğan) have had decades of political experience (mostly in parties; in Putin's case, in the KGB) before rising to the top. Trump is an outlier in this list, which may be part of the reason why he (fingers crossed) isn't sticking to the chair. Tucker Carlson or Joe Rogan would be outliers as well (not to mention, at least in the case of Rogan, an open-mindnedness highly uncharacteristic of the bunch). They remind me more of Zelensky or Schwarzenegger than of Orbán or Kaczyński. Has a media personality ever stuck to a throne for long?
(But yes, I'd keep an eye on the senators.)
(It's never frivolous to object to any part of what I write, by the way, in my opinion! I really enjoy the conversation and deeper thinking it encourages). So I think I'd agree that I don't know who it might be. Celebrity is a definite help (but has governing issues); someone from the institutional side may not have the charisma/political chops; legislators tend to have weaknesses. But the world is big, and once a path opens up, lots of people may try, and it takes one... With the right combination.
One of my long-term concerns is that Trump has effectively lowered the bar for entry into high political office. If an unlikable reality TV star with no political experience and a surprising lack of poltical skill can win the presidency (and almost win reelection), well then, why can't we find another candidate like that, just a bit more likable? Maybe I'm too cynical, but I have to worry that there are at least a few strategists, in both parties, looking around for candidates with good name recognition and good charisma, who say the right things, and never mind the actual skills needed to execute whatever office they're running for.
Some of those potential people may well be much better at it. Trump was kind of a low bar.
Look into Greg Gianforte, just elected governor of Montana, and his history in politics. Maybe not a potential autocrat, but rich, ambitious, and deeply religiously conservative with enough wits to keep his less appealing opinions and beliefs out of the public eye (with the exception of that time he body-slammed a reporter). And an actual successful businessman.
Does anyone reading this know of any organizations similar to Stacey Abrams' Fair Fight that are operating in Florida? Living in Central Florida, I'm trying to figure out where my time would be best spent volunteering and contributing. Like Zeynep says, this is not some hiccup that's over now...
See https://advancementproject.org/news/florida-voting-rights-organizations-prepare-for-legal-showdown-in-statewide-elections-trial/
This is great thank you!
I also think we got lucky on Jan 6. The election was not close (it would have been much closer, or Trump would have won without the disastrous pandemic); the election was competently run (not a given - caucuses in Iowa and primaries in Georgia and Wisconsin were a mess); and Trump is a disorganized incompetent. Jan 6 was nowhere near a worst-case scenario. It was a warning.
Gosh yes. When Trump was heading toward the Republican nomination in 2016 - sweeping up 100% of the delegates in state after state with 25-30% of the vote - my main fear was not that he would win the presidency. It was that he would come close, and then some other, nastier person would say “If Trump, who is a disorganized incompetent, can gain so much support, America is ready for a real authoritarian.” I still worry about that.
Another book that I learned a lot from is "How Democracies Die" by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt. These writers had Donald Trump very much in mind. They state that "Trump, even before his inauguration, tested positive on all four measures on our litmus test for autocrats. The first sign is a weak commitment to the democratic rules of the game [such as respecting the result of elections]...The second sign is denial of the legitimacy of one’s opponents ['Lock her up!']...The third criterion is toleration or encouragement of violence ['There are good people on both sides' and Proud Boys, 'stand back and stand by']...The final warning sign is a readiness to curtail the civil liberties of rivals and critics [such as declaring the press 'the enemy of the people' and threatening to withdraw broadcast licenses from offending media companies]."
Writing about extremist demagogues in general, Levitsky and Ziblatt say the following:
"An essential test for democracies is not whether such figures emerge but whether political leaders, and especially political parties, work to prevent them from gaining power in the first place—by keeping them off mainstream party tickets, refusing to endorse or align with them, and when necessary, making common cause with rivals in support of democratic candidates. Isolating popular extremists requires political courage. But when fear, opportunism, or miscalculation leads established parties to bring extremists into the mainstream, democracy is imperiled."
The Republican Party clearly failed to prevent Trump's getting the nomination, and the support of cowardly party leaders helped him to be elected president. Most of them are still backing him, even as he refuses to concede that Biden won the November 3 election, fires national security officials who he regards as disloyal, and refuses to cooperate with Biden's transition team.
Levitsky and Ziblatt continue,
"Once a would-be authoritarian makes it to power, democracies face a second critical test: Will the autocratic leader subvert democratic institutions or be constrained by them? Institutions alone are not enough to rein in elected autocrats. Constitutions must be defended—by political parties and organized citizens, but also by democratic norms. Without robust norms, constitutional checks and balances do not serve as the bulwarks of democracy we imagine them to be. Institutions become political weapons, wielded forcefully by those who control them against those who do not. This is how elected autocrats subvert democracy—packing and 'weaponizing' the courts and other neutral agencies, buying off the media and the private sector (or bullying them into silence), and rewriting the rules of politics to tilt the playing field against opponents. The tragic paradox of the electoral route to authoritarianism is that democracy’s assassins use the very institutions of democracy—gradually, subtly, and even legally—to kill it."
This is what Zeynep warned us about in her Atlantic article. Whether Thomas Jefferson said it or not, the price of liberty is eternal vigilance.