eliothiggins.bsky.social
Founder and creative director of Bellingcat and director of Bellingcat Productions BV. Author of We Are Bellingcat. Democracy isn't dead, it just smells funny.
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I'm reading a lot about the post-WW1 period when public trust in institutions collapsed and was rebuilt through serious reform and democratic empowerment. The outcome of our failure to do so has been taught to us already. We need to look to the past to understand how to move forwards.
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It requires multiple interventions focused on democratic empowerment and addressing issues faced by ordinary people. Education is a key pillars, but it's one of many. We have to restore the public's trust in democratic ideals, through action, not rhetoric.
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guys i also mean literal shit. J6'ers literally shit in Democrats' offices.
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Really invest in local journalism and connect it to local communities, like this project is trying to do
www.publicinterestnews.org.uk/post/co-crea...
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www.cbs.com/shows/video/...
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I bookmarked this article when I first saw it and I long for this to become a reality here in the US.
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No problem, I'm going to continue this work and get those ideas out in various formats for different types of audiences, I just wanted to start with a solid theoretical base.
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FYI... These are some of the books homophobic MAGA street preacher turned Huntington Beach City Councilman Chad Williams sought to ban as "porn"
3/3
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Chad Williams, a local homophobic MAGA street preacher turned HB Council Member, brought in thousands of dollars from outside HB trying to defeat the measures with allegations of "Porn"
It seems that was a bridge too far
Voters rejected his bullshit
2/3
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As @bjmquinn.bsky.social @aearhart.bsky.social @adamrothman.bsky.social and others have suggested, the Burns rendition served to radicalize people who were on the fence about anti-slavery activism, and one can only hope that the same is true today of our own perilous situation. History matters đď¸
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These records from @archives.boston.gov are the receipts delivered from military companies to the city for their expenses in enforcing Burns' rendition. Like the ICE raids and the impending military parade, this was a scandalous waste of money too. The $13k claimed = $499,305.22 today's money! đď¸
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It's developed from the idea of disordered information developed by Claire Wardle & Hossein Derakhshan, so it's referencing a specific line of academic thought, and it's an attempt to avoid falling into the disinformation/misinformation trap that obscures meaning when discussing these issues.
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But real institutional change is hard to reverse. Thatâs why the far-rightâs gains are more durable: theyâve actually captured institutions, not just embarrassed them on Twitter.
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MAGA operates inside a disordered discourse, explained in detail in the below presentation. A key trait? Dissent isnât tolerated. Internal criticism is treated as betrayal. Thatâs central to understanding how MAGA undermines the VDA pillars.
bsky.app/profile/elio...
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Thanks for the feedback, I'll add Dahl and Lindblom to the reading list. I'm trying to develop this into a book, there's so many branches and rabbit holes it's a challenge to hold together a coherent narrative through the entire structure, but Lippmann-Dewey seems like a good anchoring point.
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One of my arguments is critical thinking skills need to be embedded across the school curriculum so young people are equipped with the skills they need to navigate online spaces. Sort of the idea that verification was externalised, now it needs to be internalised.
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In the neo-liberal system we become the best consumers we can be, our role as a citizen is to work and consume, and we're sold the lie of meritocracy that if we work hard we'll succeed, but the system is designed around the needs of the elites, not the public.
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Democracy was rebuilt after WW1 then hollowed out towards the end of the 20th Century. I frame it through Berlin's ideas of negative freedom vs positive freedom, we're given as much negative freedom as we can handle, but at the same time our positive freedom has been stripped away.
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I have a concept I call the Arc of Democracy, that we either move towards the three VDA ideals, or we regress away from them towards authoritarianism, and the current system regresses by default.
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My argument is it used to function rather than it used to be OK, now it doesn't even function, and rather than trying to return to the old, flawed, system, we need to rebuilt a new system from the ground up.
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They take advantage of disordered discourse, but there's multiple agents involved, which different drivers motivating their creation and spread of disordered information. I detail it in my presentation.
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It's entirely predictable, people need to read some Hannah Arendt.
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This is how democracy dies, not through one coup, but through systematic erosion of its foundations. The VDA model shows how MAGA doesnât just exploit crisis. It manufactures it, then calls itself the cure.
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What does governance look like when truth is tribal, deliberation is dead, and accountability is optional? Thatâs not democracy. Itâs managed chaos, until it becomes enforced order.
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This is the vision of Steve Bannon, Curtis Yarvin, and others: destroy the system, then reconstruct it. But hereâs the question, how do you stabilise power in a nation thatâs lost all trust in institutions?
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That collapse doesnât lead to renewal. It leads to authoritarianism. The more broken the system becomes, the more justification MAGA has to seize control, and rebuild it in their image.
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When all three pillars, Verification, Deliberation, Accountability, are attacked simultaneously, trust in the system collapses. Outside MAGA, people lose faith. Inside MAGA, theyâre told to destroy what remains.
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Accountability - Accountability is stripped away. Norms and laws are not just broken, theyâre flaunted. Itâs a demonstration: the rules donât apply to us. Power, not principle, becomes the organising logic.