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electric_blue68

(14,604 posts)
Mon Jan 10, 2022, 06:15 AM Jan 2022

Political Science Expert Barbara F Walter said in The New Yorker Radio Hour podcast...

“The United States, until January 6th, 2021, was considered the world’s longest standing democracy,” the political scientist Barbara F. Walter says. “It was downgraded to an anocracy after.” http://nyer.cm/OrwYZ9O


(She said Switzerland is now considered the longest running democracy)

I'd never even heard of this word till I heard this podcast earlier on Sunday. It's the in between between Democracy, and Autocracy.

It comes from a CIA (yeah, not always on our "good guys" list) group

"serves on a CIA advisory panel called the Political Instability Task Force that monitors countries around the world and predicts which of them are most at risk of deteriorating into violence.".
Dana Milbank


By law this group can't access the USA.
She's serves on it, and took their predictive analysis models and applied it herself, and seems to agree with them.

She also mentioned in a tweet someone who mentioned Jason Stanley whom Nevilledog highlighted in
his OP post-
America is now in fascism's legal phase - an article in The Guardian

Her current/new book is "How Civil Wars Start"
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Hortensis

(58,785 posts)
2. This for a FAILED attempt to stop certification of the democratic election
Mon Jan 10, 2022, 06:56 AM
Jan 2022

of our sitting president ? Free and fair election by a large majority also.

Demonstrably wrong.

gab13by13

(20,864 posts)
5. It is not about what happened on 1 day,
Mon Jan 10, 2022, 07:38 AM
Jan 2022

the insurrection is ongoing and growing, unless you are a member of the wait and see crowd and then everything is just fine. The problem simply lies with people like me and others who are crying fire because there is a fire and not only aren't the fire trucks coming, no one is calling in the fire, no one is pulling the fire alarm.

Why don't people here listen to people like Marc Elias who has 37 law suits filed against the anti-democratic voter bills being passed throughout our country? Marc Elias says he cannot put out the fire by himself, he needs help and he said there is still time left, very little time.

Not recognizing that our democracy is on fire is demonstrably wrong.

Hortensis

(58,785 posts)
6. I understand. But it's still wrong. I certainly won't even suggest
Mon Jan 10, 2022, 07:44 AM
Jan 2022

it's "premature." Understandable that people around the planet are very nervous and good that they're sounding alarms, but it won't be correct until and if it becomes correct.

gab13by13

(20,864 posts)
8. Are you saying we can't pull the fire alarm
Mon Jan 10, 2022, 08:03 AM
Jan 2022

until the fire spreads a bit more, until the house is fully engrossed in flames? If the GQP wins back the House it will have the keys to the fire trucks.

jaxexpat

(6,703 posts)
12. Fire trucks as well as "patriot" enforcement agencies of all stripes.
Mon Jan 10, 2022, 09:22 AM
Jan 2022

Should we lose the mid terms in November of THIS YEAR there are a few items to consider.

Various ministries of propaganda and re-education, organizations with odd acronymic names that essentially spell the end of free thought are our future. If you are of a minority group you'd be well advised to emigrate ASAP. The rest of us will duck and cover the best we can.

These "conservatives" don't understand the can of hell worms they're opening and they won't until it comes for them.

 

Alexander Of Assyria

(7,839 posts)
10. Yes sir. Easily recognized all,over the world as fascism in the march in America...but in
Mon Jan 10, 2022, 08:59 AM
Jan 2022

the American mass media one would hardly know it before the first year anniversary.

Think the anniversary of Sedition Day and the intelligent and calculated way Biden reminded mass media there WAS an attempted coup, and here is the not Kraken level EVIDENCE, as hag word is defined by criminal law, not social media law.

DOJ is following the demon money, the Sedition Day Committee is following the demon conduct trail.

In indictments they will merge.

 

zaj

(3,433 posts)
9. That's what you took from this discussion?
Mon Jan 10, 2022, 08:04 AM
Jan 2022

Summer people must want l be looking for something to complain about.

gab13by13

(20,864 posts)
7. Money is being funneled into this country,
Mon Jan 10, 2022, 07:47 AM
Jan 2022

by foreign governments; Russia, China, SA, UAE and more, all designed to destroy our democracy.

On top of that we have the Federalist Society, ALEC, American oligarchs working to destroy our democracy.

We have a Supreme Court that is partisan, that is bought and paid for, this SC will vote to end our democracy.

Some believe all that we need to do is wait. If we just wait everything will turn out just fine. Kind of like all we have to do is pray to God, Allah, or whoever and then just have faith that she will hear our cries.

Day 26 since Merrick Garland received the criminal referral for Mark Meadows.

Skittles

(152,964 posts)
16. excellent assessment
Mon Jan 10, 2022, 06:09 PM
Jan 2022

I would include Fox News too

it is depressing what is happening

did you see Gorsuch, maskless for hours, while sitting next to an immune-compromised person - just disgusting behavior, no sense of decency

Lonestarblue

(9,880 posts)
11. Did anyone watch CNN's special by Fareed Zakaria last night on the threat to democracy?
Mon Jan 10, 2022, 09:15 AM
Jan 2022

It was interesting, with comparisons to Hitler and his rise in Nazi Germany, but the line that has stuck with me was Fareed saying that Trump is no Hitler. I agree that Trump isn’t smart enough to be another Hitler, but he and the people behind him are smart enough to take down our democracy. Trump is merely the front man, and his buffoonery fools too many people into believing that he is no real threat. The threat comes from the people who started planning to overthrow the election a year before it even happened if Trump lost. The Gaurdian article by Sidney Blumenthal lays out the scenario, along with some of the secretive Republican dark money groups that are working to install Trump as an authoritarian puppet they can manipulate simply through his greed.

These are people who believe that white billionaires should control all levers of government for their benefit alone. They will not act as Hitler did to exterminate the Jews, though many white supremacists believe that all black people should be expelled from the country, but once in control they will act to take away civil rights, a free press, and true religious freedom as in being free from religion. That is our future unless we—and the Democrats in Congress—stand up NOW and say enough with Republicans trying to take power illegally. The 2022 election is not just another midterm—it’s our only opportunity to stop the destruction.

Another part of Fareed’s program last night focused on a Republican demagogue FDR faced when he was first elected (I’ve forgotten the man’s name, but he was a minister who was popular with many people and threatened that FDR was destroying the country). FDR was able to essentially sell the New Deal by using radio to reach people and explain the programs and how they benefitted regular people. Biden needs to use today’s media to do the same.

electric_blue68

(14,604 posts)
13. Ooo, Oooo know! ....I feel like a kid in class...
Mon Jan 10, 2022, 10:39 AM
Jan 2022

Flashcard from Quiznet

Every Sunday, Father Charles Coughlin, a Roman Catholic priest from a suburb of Detroit, broadcast radio sermons that combined economic, political, and religious ideas. -Initially a supporter of the New Deal, Coughlin soon turned against Roosevelt.


I heard about him a fair amount when I was waaaay younger. Sometimes in conjunction talking about McCarthy and HUAC.
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