Pierce laments American decadence: "When they decline, democracies get the dictators they deserve."

[kpete]

The Great American Surrender
Donald Trump might win. And even if he doesn't, he's paved the way for the next tyrant.


Americans are bored with their democracy and they don't have the democratic energy to do anything about it, so they'll settle for an entertaining quasi-strongman. When they decline, democracies get the dictators they deserve. A country mired in apathy and lassitude gets a dictator who can't even put in the hard work of becoming very good at it.

*snip*

With every new poll that is released, I comfort myself with the
knowledge that Donald Trump is not willing to put in the hours to be a
competent authoritarian, which is cold comfort, I know, but you take what you can get.

That cannot be said of the next guy to try it, and there will be a
next time, because the basic tectonic plates beneath our democracy have shifted so as to make the next guy inevitable. The mechanics of tyranny are not a magician's prestige, the third part of a trick in which the lady is reassembled or the rabbit brought back to the hat. The mechanics of tyranny are primal in all of us, and vestigial in very few. They are reflexes, like breathing or flinching. We engage them without thinking. In fact, that's the very best way to do it.

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a48604/donald-trump-tyranny/

[randome]

1. History is rarely a roadmap to the future.

In this case, we are once again in uncharted waters. It's the Information Age and that means we are becoming different creatures from past democracies and empires.

We've heard for more than a century that America is on the verge of a collapse and yet here we are. The world is more united than at any other time in history. Vast amounts of information are freely available. And the GOP and other tyrants STILL can't make headway. We need to be vigilant, of course, but I don't see the "decadence".
[hr][font color="blue"][center]“If you're not committed to anything, you're just taking up space.”
Gregory Peck, Mirage (1965)[/center][/font][hr]

[Warpy]

2. Yes, except we're following the classic pattern of empire

where all the investment and effort is on the periphery while the original area is largely ignored and allowed to decay. When we start getting annoyingly restless, we'll get that dictator under the guise of restoring law and order.

[randome]

3. Good point. But the GOP's days are numbered. I truly believe that.

I don't think in the current environment, a dictator is possible. We're too numerous, too spread out, our laws are too distributed (states' rights). And too informed (the Information Age).

I have been saying for sometime that we're ripe for a demagogue. But after watching the GOP and other would-be fascists flailing and failing, I think that's the extent of it. No dictator, just whiny demagogues like Trump.

I'm no student of history or expert in, really, anything, but that's how I see it right now.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]"There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in."
Leonard Cohen, Anthem (1992)[/center][/font][hr]

[lunatica]

4. Russia and China a very large countries and the people were subjugated

but on one level I gree with you, I think that our size and being spread out and each state having it's own government would make invasion of us impossible. The enemy might get a few states but not most of them. We also outnumber most countries except China and India. maybe Russia. So there are more of us than there are of them in most other countries.