▲ | XorNot 9 days ago | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Okay but no scandal can damage a politician because you the American people are currently choosing to let that be the case. Same with the billionaires. The entire problem gets painted as "other" but it's you: you're actually promulgating it by your very choice of language here! | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
▲ | benreesman 9 days ago | parent | next [-] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
I'm not saying that the decline of Enlightenment values and the rise of crony-nepo-central-committee surveilance nightmare is "other", I'm saying it is indifferent to the stated political system, it's about the de facto political system no matter what you call it. What I care about is outcomes, what actually happens, what norms and institutional posture actually obtains in reality. And on that basis, "western liberal" society has very little business holding its nose up about "authoritarianism" as a blanket term for rival nations in 2025. No one here is talking about Sudan or Turministan, they're talking about other advanced nations with participatory politics, robust social welfare programs, limited influence for oligarchs, and highly competent governance. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
▲ | BriggyDwiggs42 8 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
You could explain any authoritarian regime this way, but how much of what we believe and do is some kind of pure, unconditioned-by-our-surroundings choice? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
▲ | cyanydeez 9 days ago | parent | prev [-] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sure, but its a boiling frog with cancer. Certain states made choices to skew far right and other states mde choices to "keep business open" and others made choices to remain ignorant. This becomes diffusion of responsibility because every cycle maybe 1% were directly embracing far white religious authoritarian. The consistency of those choices were sticky because the oligarchy spent decades ensuring. The point being, very few people actively participated and there was no progressive decadal length comspiracy. But the reverse isnt true. There was and is a decadal length conspiracy to become a far right ethnostate run by religious minority. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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