Autocracy and Poverty - by Timothy Snyder
By: Timothy Snyder
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
When I am on media, television hosts ask how democracy is relevant to people who are voting on kitchen-table issues. That's easy.
When Trump destroys our democracy, he will also destroy our economy.
Autocracy will bring poverty.
Think about the politicians Trump idolizes, Vladimir Putin in Russia and Viktor Orban in Hungary. The first undid a democracy through fake emergencies, the second through persistent constitutional abuse. It is not hard to see why Trump likes them.
Now consider the Russian and Hungarian economies. Russia sits on hugely valuable natural resources, and yet is a poor country. The profits from its oil and gas are in the hands of a few oligarchs. Hungary sits in the middle of the European Union, the most successful trade project of all time. And yet Hungarians are poorer than their neighbors, in part because the Orban regime corruptly channels EU resources to friendly oligarchs.
The lesson is clear. Democracy is a method of checking corrupt rulers. When there is no functioning democracy, corruption is unchecked.
And democracy is an element of a more fundamental guarantor of prosperity, the rule of law. In Hungary and Russia, the rule of law has been bent and broken, to the benefit of the few, and to the detriment of the many.
Ending the rule of law is the Trump-Vance platform.
Trump is running as a candidate who has attempted a coup against constitutional rule. Vance has already said, multiple times, that law does not govern who leads the country, and that he would have supported Trump's coup attempt.
The rule of law begins from the principle that we are all equally subject to to it. Trump promises to weaponize the law to immunize himself and his supporters and to pursue his political opponents. Those who worked with him in the White House believe him.
Laws are executed by trained civil servants. Trump and Vance back a plan to fire the forty thousand federal employees who now execute the law and replace them with forty thousand loyalist hacks. That is Project 2025.
It doesn't take much imagination to see where this leads. Here are five quick examples.
1. The very rich will not be taxed, but you will be taxed more. The hardest thing the IRS does is to tax the wealthy. In an atmosphere of lawlessness and favoritism, this will become impossible. Insofar as the federal government runs at all, it will be by taxing the middle class.
2. The banks can collapse. As we saw in 2008, our financial system is held together by a very thin tissue of regulation. Unless laws are enforced, as they won't be under a Trump-Vance administration, the overadventurous will very likely draw us all into another financial disaster. The bailout will be paid for by the average taxpayer because the rich won't be taxed (see number 1).
3. Americans will be at risk of losing their benefits. Social Security and all the rest depend upon a functioning federal bureaucracy, which is exactly what Project 2025 guarantees that we will not have. Americans take for granted federal institutions, from VA Hospitals to the insurance of bank accounts (see number 2).
4. The stock market can crash. It depends upon the laws that prevent insider trading and other abuses. If these laws are applied selectively, and if the people who used to enforce them have been fired, then corrupt investors will win while others lose out. After a time, the stock market loses its prestige, investors go elsewhere, and everyone loses. (And those who were treating their investments as cushioning to their retirement benefits are now poor: see number 3).
5. Businesses will get stuck. Doing business depends upon all sorts of interactions with the federal government. When the federal government loses its civil servants, much of this will stop happening. Or, worse, companies with personal connections will be able to continue functioning without following any rules, while others will grind to a halt. This means millions of people losing their jobs. (And it is now hard for businesses to raise money: see number 4).
This list could go on. The collapse of the economy is not a bug of autocracy, but a feature.
There is an autocratic logic to economic failure. When nothing works, when law does not matter, when elections are irrelevant, the only way Americans will be able to get anything done is by appealing to those who have power. We will have to give bribes to the corrupt and hope for favors from the top.
Once we behave like this, we get used to the idea that only the leader can fix things, which is of course what Trump likes to say. And so the circle closes and the new regime is installed.
The new autocracy is confirmed by our new poverty. That is, in any event, the Trump-Vance plan.
They are talented politicians, and they have an alternative to democracy and prosperity, which is autocracy and poverty. Whether they bring America this new regime is up to us.
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The Trump/Vance plan for America's future.
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Timothy Snyder is the Levin Professor History at Yale University and the author of several books on fascism and totalitarianism, including On Tyranny, The Road to Unfreedom and On Freedom, and he is the recipient of a number of signficant literary awards. He is one of the leading scholars and thinkers about fascism and totalitarian movements.
While these things could happen, to happen would depend on the whole system working towards that end. All of Congress, the courts, law enforcement and probably military would have to overwhelmingly support Trump in any lawless endeavors. Even saying that, what's to stop the rest of us from civil unrest?
As the article points out, this is usually only possible "through fake emergencies" and "through persistent constitutional abuse". Trump and his boot licking sycophants will use anything, even the most recent hurricane, as a "fake emergency" that they have to 'rescue America' from. Using that and many other fake emergencies, accusations of socialism, the supposed 'woke' agenda, the fantasy 'gay' agenda or "CRT" as an excuse they will reason that the only way to rescue America will be through the suspension of certain constitutional restrictions.
We saw it happen after 9/11 and I believe that was a turning point in America that we still haven't fully recovered from, we just got used to less privacy and less democracy. We put up with the security theatre of TSA preboarding checks even though it's been shown to be full of security holes, but it makes people "feel" safer while providing very little actual security. Americans got comfortable with torture and indefinite detention as long as it was being done to give them a sense of security and as long as it wasn't them being tortured or indefinitely detailed.
You never throw a frog into a pot of boiling water; it will jump right out. You put it in cool water and slowly increase the heat over time and it won't even notice anything's wrong until it's cooked.
what's to stop the rest of us from civil unrest?
The unwritten chapter of Project 2025 probably describes construction of the world’s largest prison. It has very large ovens for some reason.
I'm looking forward to seeing some of those maga tik tok videos.
I read something somewhere where they either wanted to make sure there were enough followers in local law enforcement and another were it was proposed to use NG troops from red states as LEOs in blue states. Both ideas are half baked.
That still requires a shit ton of people to make work. Violence to friends, family and neighbors will be met with hostility.
This anti-woke shit also doesn't fly with the majority of people. They know it's bullshit and when they find themselves looking at the short end of that stick they again will push back.
They got comfortable with this when it was half a world a way in a war zone. Not next door. If someone's young college daughter get's sent to a re-education camp there might be an issue?
They would have to pull the triggers to seize control within the first year. No way that's enough time to slow cook 300+ American frogs.
I'm not saying they can't do damage, only that they can't kill the American Democracy without a fight before laying out more ground work than they people for. Their agenda is massively unpopular and would be more so if they tried. I almost want them to try so people do wake up to the possibility of the real threats out there we are speaking of.
I'm counting on it 11/6, when trump loses.
I think most of the real troublemakers overplayed their hand last time.
no death penalty in my state and 3+ gets me a private room and meal delivery, if I get caught ...
Maybe that explains why America has the highest incarceration rate in the world.
That means we must have a strong Congress who are not willing to by pass the constitution. That's the only way we can maintain our democracy....oh we have to do something about the super heavy conservative SCOTUS
You realize the "super heavy conservative SCOTUS" has been returning power to Congress at the expense of the Executive and that has resulted in the Democrats threatening the most "autocratic" thing possible, packing the Court with party hacks who will allow the President to rule at the expense of Congress.
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The core of autocracy is, of course, the use of power to censor opposition.
[✘] If nothing else, there is nothing like the power of censorship to expose exactly who are the autocrats.
[✘] The [✘] people who are scared of facts and argument can't help but reveal themselves, as their need for control appears to be a compulsion.
Every single day, without exception, we are subject to a waterfall of lies by right wing politicians, Trump toadies, far right weirdos, and Trump himself. Where is this censorship? If there is any it is incredibly ineffectual.
Like branding everything you disagree with as fake news and lies as alternate facts?
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Isn't a law against hate speech that aims to or causes harm to another or others something that should be an exception to The First Amendment?
meh, I try to focus on the positive. if trump wins and goes full on tinhorn dictator, it'll be winter in most of the country and the rotting maga militia won't start stinking until mid march. /s
It is kind of hard to make war in winter...but it can be done. Ask any of the survivors of the Battle of the Bulge. If there's any left
my uncle pete was there, but he cashed in 20+ years ago. his stories were very impressive to an 8 year old me back in the early 60's. I didn't find out until his funeral that I was the only person he ever told his war stories to.
Essentially, under an autocracy there is no such thing as corruption. Bribes, extortion, funneling money from those in need to powerful oligarchs is standard operating procedure because an autocracy exists to benefit the Oligarchs, not the people. There are only two ways to survive in an autocracy, either give in and bow before the Oligarch and hope you can prove yourself useful to them, or resist, rise up and overthrow the autocracy and replace it with a true democracy. Of course, the latter doesn't guarantee survival and in fact puts one in extreme danger where you might find your underwear full of radioactive poison.
What the sniveling piece of shit wannabe Oligarchs like Trump do is to amplify any negatives about the benefits that citizens receive, demonize it, point out any problems as unfixable so they can destroy it and replace it with their plan which is one that demands fealty to get any benefits. That's why the right-wing attacks Social Security even though it's so popular. They scream about it claiming it's going to fail and run out of money instead of actually presenting a plan to fix it because they don't want to fix it, they want to destroy it. They are ideologically opposed to it.
Same thing with the affordable care act, on a fundamental level they oppose it (especially because it's still often bears the Presidents name who signed it into law). It's why they have NO plan to replace it, they don't want to replace it, they want to go back to the purely capitalist system where the wealthy get all the care, and the poor have to suffer and die if they were unlucky enough to lose a job or have a pre-existing condition. They don't ever want to have the burden of paying out of their pockets for the poor and less fortunate who are often not the same color, don't worship the same God, speak the same language or love the same way. They only have compassion for white conservative Christians and everyone else should come crawling on their bleeding knees for a handout.
Exactly, which is why right-wing conservatives often threaten government shutdowns if they don't get their way, because for them breaking the system that doesn't have them in complete control takes them further to realizing their dream of a white conservative Christian nation where they are the most important people in the nation and get to make all the rules and anyone who doesn't agree is shut down and destroyed. These types often justify their avarice for power by cloaking it in religious zealotry, claiming it's not they who want them to be in charge and to make all the decisions for the citizens in their country, it's their God that wants it so they must comply, and for rightwing conservative Christians they believe their religious faith supersedes the constitution and what they see as "man's law".
They are criminals, literally, but their weak-minded sycophants who are being led around by the nose and only hear the 'sweet nothings' whispered in their ears by right-wing media, the empty promises of what America would be like if only they gave everything over to these oligarchs, don't even realize how they are being led to the slaughter and likely won't even notice till after their metaphorical heads have already been detached from their bodies and they have zero ability to fight back or even complain. They will have but one choice which is to capitulate. And the rest of us will be shaking our heads saying "We told you so" but it will be too late and America, land of the free and home of the brave, will cease to exist if they get away with it.
Hopefully, more of them like Liz Cheney and the hundreds of other Republicans who worked with Trump in the last few years and know what a danger he is to our Republic will wake up before we meet such an end. I believe the truth about Trump and his corruption will be exposed and will lead to his eventual undoing.
“the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” - MLK
If they kill off all the poor people, who's going to make their beds, clean their toilets, take care of their children, and serve them in restaurants?
Well, according to some conservatives here on NT they apparently follow a policy of "don't ask, don't tell" when it comes to whether their own housekeepers are undocumented immigrants or not. That way they can rage and scream about what criminals these undocumented immigrants are and how they are destroying America and how democrats who provide protections for them are pure evil, while at the same time getting their own house cleaned on a budget.
Ah yes, I recall an instance along those lines
Yeah...I remember that conversation. Still, they are the poor people who won't have access to health care if they sick. Is the mentality of "there's more where that one came from"?
....yet they talk to them about politics
The also think they have more supporters than they really have. Once people are facing the changes and lack of services a government shutdown entails they get pissy and want them back. The people who are trying to effect this negative change are a very small majority.
Very true. Trump has NEVER been supported by the majority of Americans, but to battle that undeniable truth he and his braindead followers claim the elections must be rigged and there must be millions of non-citizens voting because they can't wrap their tiny weak minds around the fact that the VAST majority of Americans, by several million, have been voting against their dear Leader in every election, even the one he won. Most Americans can't stand that miserable sack of shit, yet his boot lickers frame it like all Americans love him and only a small minority along with millions of non-citizens oppose him. They have convinced themselves that they're the only "real Americans" who matter and anyone else who doesn't support dirty Donald must not be "real Americans".
Truth.
As I said over here: 2.1.1
How is it possible to be an autocrat without rules, regulations, and institutional power to force compliance? Autocracy is about obtaining power and control over society. How is that possible when society is allowed to govern itself?
Autocrats promise to use unlimited and unchecked authority, power, and control to reshape society according to their conceptualization. Autocrats attempt to influence people to agree with their vision of the future and to give the autocrat the unlimited power to turn that vision into reality. Is voting for an idealized conceptualization of social structure and function enforced by someone with unlimited power and control really an expression of democracy?
Does electing an autocrat end the discussion? Is there any further need for democracy since someone was democratically elected and given the unlimited power to reshape society? A democratically elected autocrat only requires conformity. And conformity is achieved by using power and control to silence questions, challenges, and different points of view.
So, who is seeking unlimited and unchecked power to use institutional authority to reshape society? Who is promising to impose rules and prosecute those who do not conform?
As we've seen in places like Russia, the fiction of democracy is still needed to control the people. Theor elections are FAR from free and fair, Putin would never allow an actual free and fair election, but he keeps up the image of a democracy just like he puts up the image of himself being an undefeated Hockey player or how Trump pretends to be a golf champion. The games and elections are rigged and used to inflate their ego's.
Donald Trump. Putin. Orban.
Donald Trump. Putin. Orban.
“Yesterday reporters asked me if I thought President Putin was smart, I said, ‘Of course, he’s smart,’ to which I was greeted with ‘Oh, that’s such a terrible thing to say.’ I like to tell them, ‘Yes, he’s smart.’” - Donald J Trump
Donald Trump just can’t stop praising Vladimir Putin | CNN Politics
" There's a great man, a great leader in Europe - Viktor Orban. He's the prime minister of Hungary." "He's a very great leader, very strong man. Some people don't like him 'cause he's too strong." - Donald J Trump
Why Trump is lavishing praise on Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban : NPR
When your candidate heaps praise on authoritarian leaders for being "strong" he's telling you that's what he wants to be.
Doesn't Putin use a political party to rig elections? Autocrats depend upon institutions to exert power and control over society. An autocrat loses power by shrinking the size and authority of institutions. Why would Trump promise to cut regulations and shrink the size of government if he wanted to be an autocrat?
Maybe trying to convince the American people that Vladimir Putin is stupid blindsided everyone into thinking Russia wouldn't invade Ukraine. Why is Joe Biden (and now Kamala Harris) trying to convince the voting public that they are smarter than Putin? Biden and Harris are so smart that questioning or challenging their use of Presidential power must be censored and considered a crime.
At least Trump acknowledges Putin and Orban have some smarts. Trump doesn't seem to be taking for granted that Putin and Orban are so stupid that they aren't a threat. And Trump doesn't seem threatened that Putin and Orban could be considered as smart as he is.
Because he's lying to you. He only wants to cut and dismantle the institutions that could prevent him from achieving his goals or obstruct his attempt to consolidate power. And sadly, he has a gullible base who are easily lied to and wouldn't hold him to account even if he were to shoot someone on 5th Ave in front of hundreds of witnesses. They would simply make excuses as they always do to appeal to and appease their master because they are such weak willed poorly educated gullible rubes, they have been convinced they can only win if/when their Dear Leader wins which is of course what just about every authoritarian has convinced their supporters of.
I'm not saying that Putin is stupid, not even Hitler would have accomplished so many of his despicable goals had he been stupid. You can be highly intelligent and still be a vile corrupt evil contemptible human, Putin and Trump are prime examples of this. You also don't have to be a genius to have what some call "street smarts" which is as much credit for intelligence I would give Trump. He's smart like Al Capone was smart. " Al Capone quit school after the sixth grade and associated with a notorious street gang, becoming accepted as a member." While Trump didn't drop out of school, "Mary Trump wrote that Donald Trump paid a proxy to take the SAT for him to help him get into Penn, concerned that his low GPA would hinder his chances of getting accepted".
" At least half a dozen professors at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School have called on the University of Pennsylvania to investigate an allegation that Donald Trump paid another person to take the SAT exam on his behalf and was therefore fraudulently admitted to Wharton."
Poets&Quants | Wharton Profs Demand Probe Of Claim That Trump Cheated On The SAT (poetsandquants.com)
Calling dirty Donald, Orban or Putin 'smart' is like saying Jeffrey Dahmer was 'smart' to keep the severed heads in his freezer, I mean they didn't decay as fast that way, so 'smart' right? If you're praising someone for how well they carried out their evil agenda, such as the invasion of Ukraine which has killed hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians all for Putin's ego and selfish self-serving criminal agenda, then you're a vile disgusting evil piece of shit just like the criminal you're praising. Being 'smart' doesn't mean a person can't also be outrageously evil. Trump praises outrageously evil people and clearly wants to be just like them. I believe his boot lickers support his evil agenda, his agenda of getting rid of his supporters perceived enemies, those who don't look like them, pray like them, speak like them or conform to their white Christian nationalist agenda. And while they think they're so fucking smart and pat themselves on the back for supporting a vile piece of shit like Trump, they will eventually get what they deserve. Justice will eventually prevail.
As quoted above, “ the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice .” - MLK
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People Trump has said he want's to have prosecuted if elected:
Those are the ones who "could prevent him from achieving his goals or obstruct his attempt to consolidate power" which is why they're on his enemies list.
These are all people who have said bad things about him or stepped in his way to power.