You seem profoundly confused about cause and effect, and even the meaning of your own prior words.

These things are all happening because enough people are turning into greedy short sighted idiots and overwhelmed/disengaged folks with no balls.

None of this is about ‘power in democratic institutions’ - they have plenty, which is why they are being turned into powering the authoritarianism. Same as in those prior examples.

‘Why doesn’t anyone do anything?!?’ they say, as they refuse to do anything, or allow anyone sane to do anything either.

Because the obvious thing - stand up and use the existing tools to do what needs to be done - requires effort and risk.

And the only ones willing to do that are the greedy or insane.

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Sevrene 2 days ago | parent [-]

It's possible we just see things different, I'm not sure why you're so keen to say I'm "profoundly confused"- entirely possible we just have different perceptions no? Lets be more charitable.

I agree things have deteriorated, I agree the state is centralising it's power and becoming more authoritarian that's true. I agree that through democracy authoritarianism can rise, and does.

What I don't agree is that this by it's nature is because people value democracy, it's the opposite. Upholding democratic institutions might include a citizen doing their part to understand the policy, it might be the ICE agent or brownshirt, it might be judges refusing subverting traditions and spirit of law simply because it's not currently being enforced (much of democratic power is procedural and traditional, not by actual force). If people don't value it, it erodes and disappears.

> None of this is about ‘power in democratic institutions’ - they have plenty, which is why they are being turned into powering the authoritarianism

I think we might just both have a superficial disagreement with each other, when I say 'democratic institutions only have the power given to them' I mean to say the power of democracy is derived from the people, therefor if the state decides for the people (authoritarianism) and the people reject this but the state retains that power, well- that is treason not democracy. This is what made Hitler a dictator, he wasn't really into democracy, even though he subverted it, and he also used it to get into power. I'm not sure we actually disagree we might just have different framing. I consider this a failing of the people, yet you consider it a failing of the system (I assume). Both are valid I think.

To me, if people decide through democracy to elect a dictator that shows a reluctance of the population to care about democracy or institutional norms. That's why this stuff happens during broader social & economic downturns. If people want to elect a person who wants to spend the entire GDP on producing paperclips, well I can't really fault them- that is democracy, the only other choice is authoritarianism isn't it?

> ‘Why doesn’t anyone do anything?!?’ they say, as they refuse to do anything, or allow anyone sane to do anything either.

Yep, I agree with this. We do need to be smarter and work together. We do have freedom, including the freedom to harm ourselves. People need to respect that and be more responsible, be more virtuous. If not, we get the government we deserve but not the one we might need.

	▲	lazide 8 hours ago \| parent [-]
		If your answer is ‘people need to be better’ while they are actively being manipulated and controlled by a bad actor in a position of authority over them (one that was manipulating them to get elected in the first place!), while said actor clearly is getting no negative consequences, my answer is ‘that clearly doesn’t seem to usually happen’ and ‘how do you expect that to occur once they are in power’? Notably, Brazil seems to have dealt with Bolsanaro - but that was because the gov’t in power actually recognized the danger and put him in jail in a timely fashion, and stopped him from continuing to do what he was doing. Something, notably, that none of the other examples I gave were able to do (despite some attempts). The only other way out, based on historical precedent, is blood. A lot of it. But hey, I’d love to be wrong! Maybe if we keep ragebaiting on social media about every fault of the opposition while refusing/unable to actually do anything about it - or even rally together for any meaningful course of action - victory will be ours! (/s)