What people don’t acknowledge is that America has been a democracy for a very short period of time. Before the 1970s the US regime would be classified as competitive authoritarianism. There’s a large segment of society that hates democracy, hates equal rights, and wants to return to authoritarianism - ThreadSky

marcushjohnson.bsky.social • 6 days ago

What people don’t acknowledge is that America has been a democracy for a very short period of time. Before the 1970s the US regime would be classified as competitive authoritarianism. There’s a large segment of society that hates democracy, hates equal rights, and wants to return to authoritarianism

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haplo1978.bsky.social•5 days ago

Large portions of the population did not effectively have the right to vote until 1965.

janmalvern.bsky.social•5 days ago

I came of age in the 70s and I see what you are saying. I became a social worker and then a teacher and saw so much change. Then, the right wing fought back, and here we are.

grady3131.bsky.social•5 days ago

Explain “competitive authoritarianism.”

marcushjohnson.bsky.social•5 days ago

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/how-trump-brought-competitive-authoritarianism-to-america.html

grady3131.bsky.social•5 days ago

And how does this apply from the 1970’s forward? I think we are full on fascist at the moment, but I’m not seeing it in prior administrations from 1970 forward.

chicagorob14.bsky.social•5 days ago

Are we?

The Voting Rights Act broke down barriers, but the parties (both Dems & Republicans) replaced them.

The Supreme Court has attacked democracy (Citizen's United and ruling sections 4 & 5 of the Voting Rights Act unconstitutional).

"Competitive authoritarianism" is a fair description.

bogpetre.bsky.social•5 days ago

This is deceptive. For comparison consider Turkey and Hungry, which epitomize competitive authoritarianism today. Both have lower indices of liberal democracy in 2025 than pre 1970 US.

https://v-dem.net/data_analysis/CountryGraph/

marcushjohnson.bsky.social•5 days ago

How does this contradict what I said?

bogpetre.bsky.social•4 days ago

That said, I am nevertheless concerned about the erosion of democratic norms, and suspect that the latest metrics, whatever they may be, lag considerably behind the reality we now live in.

bogpetre.bsky.social•4 days ago

Strictly speaking it doesn’t. You imply that the threshold for competitive authoritarianism is quite low though, and that is inconsistent with what most people familiar with the phrase (eg the readership of foreign affairs) are likely to understand by it. That is what I take issue with.

marcushjohnson.bsky.social•4 days ago

The readership of foreign affairs and foreign policy would disagree with my premise on its face, they would argue that the US has always been a full democracy.

bogpetre.bsky.social•4 days ago

lol. Touché.

feistypants.bsky.social•5 days ago

I often argue that what is happening now is exactly what the founding fathers desired. A bunch of rich white men running the country and stepping on the necks of anyone who is not a white rich man, regardless of ethnicity. We are all cogs in their greed machine for power and riches.

blerdbeats.bsky.social•5 days ago

Yep

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