It’s not our first turn with authoritarianism (Jim Crow; internment) but also this took about 8 years, with an assist from Biden in his refusal to impose consequences on an attempted coup because he didn’t want to face political backlash - ThreadSky

gothamgirlblue.com • 7 days ago

It’s not our first turn with authoritarianism (Jim Crow; internment) but also this took about 8 years, with an assist from Biden in his refusal to impose consequences on an attempted coup because he didn’t want to face political backlash

Reposted from Lee Morgenbesser

The speed by which America collapsed into authoritarian rule is the most shocking thing. Faster than other contemporary cases. Faster than the alleged “dictator’s playbook” suggests. So fast we *shouldn’t* call it “competitive authoritarianism.” It may be worse than that.

Comments

flglchicago.bsky.social•7 days ago

Such a short view of history. We've been collapsing into authoritarianism since 1968, and the event that enabled our situation today was the pardon of Richard Nixon in 1974.

gothamgirlblue.com•7 days ago

There’s a difference between active collapse and backsliding. Obama makes a different choice with the Bush Administration and we’re in a different situation. Republicans don’t block everything from Obama and we’re in a different position. The GOP nominates Cruz instead of Trump…

flglchicago.bsky.social•7 days ago

Okay, we're in agreement then.

zeblarson.bsky.social•7 days ago

Yeah, and the slow erosion of voting rights + gerrymandering whole states has to be part of that equation. We definitely hit the gas with Trump, but there was already a lot of momentum towards this.

enberlight.bsky.social•7 days ago

What's going on right now wasn't conceived or implemented overnight.

The framework has been in place, and reinforced, for a long time.

You could almost say there was something... Systemic. Institutional, even.

I feel like I've heard about it, but then they banned talking about it...

gothamgirlblue.com•7 days ago

And let’s not forget that Biden also responded to 2020 protests by increasing funding for police, not aggressively supporting the expansion of pandemic era social services, and criminalizing dissent after Oct. 7. He wasn’t just a victim of his hesitation, but an active contributor to fascism

peppermintjack.bsky.social•7 days ago

for anyone who might have forgotten, one of biden's top priorities was to hire 100,000 new cops and give tens of billions of dollars of no-strings-attached funding to the same people who spent that election year brutalizing protesters

ennuimageddon.bsky.social•7 days ago

2020 was the perfect storm of circumstances that allowed for and created the largest upswelling of protests in U.S. history, with police pulling off their masks in response and cracking down with even more violence.

Biden's response,
Nah, we good.

jdb820.bsky.social•7 days ago

Biden was a relic from another time and not the right person for the moment.

azizahmed12.bsky.social•7 days ago

Hello my friend, I am sorry to bother you. I swear that I am in dire need of your help. Can you please help me? 🙏🙏❤️

jenniedelicious.bsky.social•7 days ago

And this is something that I'll never forgive Biden for - being a god damn coward and doing nothing except ushering in fascism.

ok-sure.bsky.social•7 days ago

“Welcome home”

brooklynmarie.bsky.social•7 days ago

THANK YOU, I'm so enraged that so many people forgot this

gothamgirlblue.com•7 days ago

It’s almost as if someone who fondly remembers his personal friendships with segregationists is not someone who understands liberal democracy or how to maintain it when it comes under assault!

rowyourbot.bsky.social•7 days ago

SO many people will say this was good…it was the right thing. They might even say ‘oh, the problem was being too harsh.’ That will drive me so bananas I will never bring this up. But I do think about it a lot, so I’m glad you said so.

rmbodenheimer.bsky.social•7 days ago

yeah I don't see how people think this is just happening now

rahaeli.bsky.social•7 days ago

Also, Bush. We don't talk enough about Bush and Obama's refusal to roll back the post-9/11 apparatus

texaskrusty.bsky.social•7 days ago

Or prosecute anyone in the financial sector

skelekate.bsky.social•7 days ago

There is so much of this shit that happened during the Dubya years too that a shocking amount of people have forgotten.

gothamgirlblue.com•7 days ago

Still thinking about the “free speech zones” at the 2004 RNC where they created Purple Heart bandaids to mock an injured war hero 🥴

But where did the reality-detached descent into fascism start??? 🫠

striderhlc.bsky.social•7 days ago

The targeted firings of every US attorney investigating a Republican in 2005 feels like a pretty serious bad omen that Dems decided to just whistle past the graveyard on.

rowyourbot.bsky.social•7 days ago

Why do they DO that? Why so much faith and trust in Republicans? Why did they not see it coming after Bush? I admit, they lull me into thinking it wouldn’t happen but this was after being shocked they didn’t deal with stuff…they seem so confident. You later realize—their confidence is the problem!

skelekate.bsky.social•7 days ago

They’re all buddies at the same garden party and have a financial portfolio to protect.

striderhlc.bsky.social•7 days ago

Frankly I think it makes life a lot easier for a lot of people up and down the D power structure if they tell themselves that Trump is an anomaly who was swept into his position by a wave of Russian interference and oligarch money, and not the natural outcome of the last 40+ years of GOP politics.

gothamgirlblue.com•7 days ago

Remember when attempting to find “voter fraud” was considered political pressure and made a huge scandal? Whew, those were the days. 🙃

azizahmed12.bsky.social•7 days ago

Hello my friend, I am sorry to bother you. I swear that I am in dire need of your help. Can you please help me? 🙏🙏❤️

striderhlc.bsky.social•7 days ago

Also W’s underlings applying political tests when hiring for career positions in government got swept under the rug and forgotten but in retrospect seems like it was a pretty big deal.

skelekate.bsky.social•7 days ago

Soooo much of this shit going on is like “ah yes we’re going 2006 again. Marvelous 😑”

dashwallkick.bsky.social•7 days ago

Democrats seem pretty openly hostile to Trump himself but not anything the GOP as an apparatus does, and the fact that no one went on a Trump purge across the fed, let alone the judiciary, was a colossal missed opportunity. That's gotta come with whoever wins in 2028.

gothamgirlblue.com•7 days ago

I gave up my Twitter and only have my archive, but boy do I wish I could search it now to show how many times over the last 8 years I’ve said that we have to destroy the GOP to survive

alternativehistorian.com•7 days ago

I'm not being glib but I think it started when the first colonists arrived I think it solidified with a constitution rooted in herrenvolk democracy to the exclusion of all else

gothamgirlblue.com•7 days ago

Disagree, otherwise we’re denying the radicalism of the Constitution for its era and we’re shitting on the Reconstruction amendments, which makes the sacrifice and fight for them worthless. Same with the Progressive Era, the New Deal, and the CRM.

alternativehistorian.com•7 days ago

I think we can call the constitution a radical document and also recognize that it defined ppl narrowly I can honor the struggle to expand that definition while also recognizing that it has not born the fruit we want

gothamgirlblue.com•7 days ago

Yet.

striderhlc.bsky.social•7 days ago

Hard to escape the feeling that we’ve reached the “… and then fast” part of democratic societies collapsing into authoritarianism

organiccultivator.bsky.social•7 days ago

Yeah all Joe Biden’s fault

phaseblowly.bsky.social•7 days ago

Tbh, the GOP, with large assists from lots of liberals have been priming this pump for 40+ years. It has happened so fast because we’ve been ready for it.

bsbafflesbrains.bsky.social•7 days ago

A percentage of the problems we face today should be attributed to Obama's "Let's look forward not back" speech letting GWB and his Iraq War cabal and the Banksters off the hook. Some who served in Iraq and some who lost loved ones or helped the wounded or lost their home might give a bigger %.

gothamgirlblue.com•7 days ago

I mean, everybody in the political establishment has culpability, going all the way back to Ford pardoning Nixon (this I think is the true origin story for this current incarnation of US tyranny)

jeff-notheotherone.bsky.social•7 days ago

Beat me to it - some Watergaters did time but the larger message sent by the bigger fish getting away was: “next time don’t get caught but meantime rig all the courts you can just in case”

coltranethedog.bsky.social•7 days ago

Especially since Roger Ailes and Roger Stone - who created our terrible media environment - were Nixon's political advisors. The 50 year project is paying off (for them) now.

The torch was carried on by W's operatives, including Justice Kavanaugh.

bigalincal.bsky.social•7 days ago

I'm reading about Huey Long, who after being elected governor of Louisiana in 1928, staged an authoritarian takeover of Louisiana, capturing the legislature, courts, media. Although he was assassinated in 1935, his regime continued under successors for 5 more years.

kieranhannon.bsky.social•7 days ago

Garland screwed us

kgbenefits.bsky.social•7 days ago

History will remember Biden as a failed president. Putting in a milquetoast AG as some kind of tongue in cheek "dunk" on McConnell was unbelievably stupid.

He was going to face the exact same amount of political backlash anyway. Why do our institutions bow to the right when it doesn't matter?

amandamblake.bsky.social•7 days ago

It was creeping along for decades, until it wasn't.

abrodsky.bsky.social•7 days ago

Let’s give Republicans their due also standing idly by and ignoring their supposed ideology while all of this goes down.

hunterfelt.bsky.social•7 days ago

Exactly. The groundwork has been laid for like a decade now, we've all been pointing it out this entire time. It was designed to start running at full capacity the second the GOP got an election.

gracelesslady76.bsky.social•7 days ago

All that "keeping the peace" just to lose the next presidential election anyway lolololsosososos

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