#consolidation of democracy

[internationaldayofdemocracy]

An opportunity to review the state of democracy in the world.

The International Day of Democracy which is celebrated o September 15th provides an opportunity to review the state of democracy in the world. Democracy is as much a process as a goal, and only with the full participation of and support by the international community, national governing bodies, civil society and individuals, can the ideal of democracy be made into a reality to be enjoyed by everyone, everywhere. The values of freedom, respect for human rights and the principle of holding periodic and genuine elections by universal suffrage are essential elements of democracy. In turn, democracy provides the natural environment for the protection and effective realization of human rights. At each of the key moments that have marked contemporary history, UNESCO has supported the peaceful development of societies by contributing to the construction and consolidation of democracy, and the development of democratic institutions, especially in times of transition.

[tanadrin]

The supposed efficiency and effectiveness of fascism was always propaganda: in reality, fascist regimes were deeply inefficient, hobbled by interpersonal rivalry, had institutions weakened or totally subverted by the personalist nature of leadership, and were deeply corrupt and lawless.

So it really, really bugs me how so much speculative fiction and even casual discourse since has taken WW2 era propaganda about fascism at face value, and depicted authoritarianism generally and fascism in particular as an intrinsic tradeoff between the chaos and disorder of liberty and the order of repression. Fascism is not orderly! That was always a lie. There is a reason right-wing authoritarian regimes have mid performance at best and at worst collapse due to infighting and military defeat—they suck at running states!

Democracy is the ideology of order and stability. Democracy provides for stable succession and can sustain rule of law in ways personalist rule cannot. Democracy can create avenues of accountability to reduce corruption that authoritarian (or even one-party rule) could never contemplate. “Democracy is chaos” is a lie invented by fascists to try to discredit liberal principles, and the apparent “chaos” of interwar democracies was often caused by the fascists themselves because they did not believe in liberalism.

I think of this most often in the context of video games about politics where it is assumed that authoritarian governance gives you efficiency bonuses at some cost to happiness or freedom—but I think these mechanics are backward. Fascism and authoritarianism are good for the narrow ruling clique at the top, the people they personally enrich, but they make for brittle and weak states, and they often fuck over even the narrow ethnic group or core citizenry whose will they are supposed to be channeling. Starting World War II was very bad for almost all Germans and Italians!

By contrast political scientists debate if a consolidated liberal democracy has ever deconsolidated, and the biggest challenges to democratic systems of government have tended to come when those systems are illiberal (as before the American Civil War), or being sabotaged by most participants (as Weimar Germany, where neither the left nor the right were really interested in democracy).

[bluewails]

so many cool books in the school library but they’re all 20 years old and i don’t have the attention span to read them

[robertreich]

Who’s to Blame for Out-Of-Control Corporate Power?    

One man is especially to blame for why corporate power is out of control. And I knew him! He was my professor, then my boss. His name… Robert Bork.

Robert Bork was a notorious conservative who believed the only legitimate purpose of antitrust — that is, anti-monopoly — law is to lower prices for consumers, no matter how big corporations get. His philosophy came to dominate the federal courts and conservative economics.

I met him in 1971, when I took his antitrust class at Yale Law School. He was a large, imposing man, with a red beard and a perpetual scowl. He seemed impatient and bored with me and my classmates, who included Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham, as we challenged him repeatedly on his antitrust views.

We argued with Bork that ever-expanding corporations had too much power. Not only could they undercut rivals with lower prices and suppress wages, but they were using their spoils to influence our politics with campaign contributions. Wasn’t this cause for greater antitrust enforcement?

He had a retort for everything. Undercutting rival businesses with lower prices was a good thing because consumers like lower prices. Suppressing wages didn’t matter because employees are always free to find better jobs. He argued that courts could not possibly measure political power, so why should that matter?

Even in my mid-20s, I knew this was hogwash.

But Bork’s ideology began to spread. A few years after I took his class, he wrote a book called The Antitrust Paradox summarizing his ideas. The book heavily influenced Ronald Reagan and later helped form a basic tenet of Reaganomics — the bogus theory that says government should get out of the way and allow corporations to do as they please, including growing as big and powerful as they want.

Despite our law school sparring, Bork later gave me a job in the Department of Justice when he was solicitor general for Gerald Ford. Even though we didn’t agree on much, I enjoyed his wry sense of humor. I respected his intellect. Hell, I even came to like him.

Once President Reagan appointed Bork as an appeals court judge, his rulings further dismantled antitrust. And while his later Supreme Court nomination failed, his influence over the courts continued to grow.  

Bork’s legacy is the enormous corporate power we see today, whether it’s Ticketmaster and Live Nation consolidating control over live performances, Kroger and Albertsons dominating the grocery market, or Amazon, Google, and Meta taking over the tech world.

It’s not just these high-profile companies either: in most industries, a handful of companies now control more of their markets than they did twenty years ago.

This corporate concentration costs the typical American household an estimated extra $5,000 per year. Companies have been able to jack up prices without losing customers to competitors because there is often no meaningful competition.

And huge corporations also have the power to suppress wages because workers have fewer employers from whom to get better jobs.

And how can we forget the massive flow of money these corporate giants are funneling into politics, rigging our democracy in their favor?

But the tide is beginning to turn under the Biden Administration. The Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission are fighting the monopolization of America in court, and proposing new merger guidelines to protect consumers, workers, and society.

It’s the implementation of the view that I and my law school classmates argued for back in the 1970s — one that sees corporate concentration as a problem that outweighs any theoretical benefits Bork claimed might exist.

Robert Bork would likely regard the Biden administration’s antitrust efforts with the same disdain he had for my arguments in his class all those years ago. But instead of a few outspoken law students, Bork’s philosophy is now being challenged by the full force of the federal government.

The public is waking up to the outsized power corporations wield over our economy and democracy. It’s about time.

[komsomolka]

The Ukrainian state is US/Western controlled and, in its alliance and arming, is effectively NATO-like. Washington, according to coup-happy Victoria Nuland in 2014, pumped some $5 billion into Ukraine since the Western-intelligence induced “Orange” revolution in 2004; an additional $15-$18 billion in arms, loans, and grants (from the US and EU) were poured into Ukraine since the 2013-2014 CIA-backed, far-right enforced regime change of the democratically elected Ukrainian government and until before the war began.

With on-the-ground CIA direction, power in Ukraine was consolidated among a small sociopolitical base of venal Russophobes, political pluralism representing genuinely alternative visions to the essentially nationalist, ultranationalist, pro-NATO parties disbanded. The Ukraine army, neo-fascist death squads, and small, Nazi-throwback extreme right-wing parties, celebrated by the new leaders and incorporated into the Ukrainian state, went on a repression spree, a terror campaign, to crush protests and dissent against those who were unhappy with what transpired and to erase all things Russian, including an eight-year shelling and sniping war on civilians designed to create terror and ethnic cleansing in eastern Donbass. This was not a democracy but a monopoly on power to consolidate a vociferously, fanatically anti-Russian state.

Ukraine is (or now, was) merely a platform for a Western proxy war against Russia, a forward operations base, a front line state, its “foreign policy” directed by the American proconsul, its institutions “advised” by American/Western intelligence functionaries and embassy officials, whose job since 2014 was to ensure continuing aggravation and antagonism in Donbass to elicit, in fact, a Russian response justifying long-prepared sanctions, escalation and pretext for “confronting” Russia. [...]

The Russian offensive, therefore, occurred for a much more ominous reason than the Ukrainian state terrorism visited upon eastern Donbass: the US/West’s wordless wish is no less than demoralizing, weakening, bankrupting, and territorially fragmenting the Russian Federation, controlling its markets and resources, indebting its people and rendering them dependent on US-dominated financial institutions, and bringing Russia under American dependency.

A pivotal principle of American hegemony is to obstruct and destroy friendly, normal ties, much less integration, between Russia and Europe, Germany being the fulcrum.

More simply, the strategic US/CIA goal is to ensnare Russia in a protracted war, deplete it, damage it, regime-change it, install a supine leader—all as a prelude to the big fantasy: bringing down China.

The multifaceted war on Russia has been ongoing since at least the late 1990s, but really, it never stopped with the Soviet state’s disappearance. This veiled hostility and aggression certainly existed when Boris Yeltsin was in power (a good vassal according to Washington, this silly and funny man that made Bill Clinton laugh) but took off around 2005, after Washington understood that Vladimir Putin was putting Russia on an independent course, reversing the conditions overseen under the preceding, deplorable Yeltsin era, including steep economic, social, military, and developmental decline and the immiseration of the vast majority of the population, looting oligarchs, and economic “liberalization” designed in Washington. [...]

Russia has literally allowed itself to be cornered since 2014, though it needed time to achieve a conventional and nuclear deterrent. It’s not hard to see reality: Russia is given no quarter, no voice, its real concerns and grievances dismissed, its leader demonized, its marginalization doggedly pursued at every level of international and bilateral social and cultural interactions. No appeal to reason, to international law, to security, to evidence will do for the West, no amount of patient legal argument, explanation of Russian concerns, appeals, professional warnings, consummate diplomacy and transparency of Russian interests made an impression. Instead, the Western response was and is always to double down. [...]

Finance capitalism, the system of speculative bubbles, derivatives, debt, declining standards of living, and hyperinflation, is ruining Western economies, states and societies, destroying the middle classes. The US cannot tolerate Eurasian integration and China’s Belt and Road Initiative, determined to stop any alternative development model to hyper-capitalism enriching the few, cannibalizing the many; that reduces the US to one of a handful of important multipolar players.

Washington’s grave mismanagement of international relations, its self-defeating policies, has actually weakened genuine American interests and national security and the well-being and safety of the American people, a phenomenon that cannot be naively attributed to Democrats or Republicans, this or that president. Instead, the war-state is deeply embedded in the American political economy, in factions such as the “intelligence community,” the military-industrial complex, influential establishment neo-cons, and liberal interventionists, all living in a world of yesterday.

We are rushing headlong into extremely dangerous times in which facts are a threat to the state narrative and any dissent or differing opinion is treachery. Fascism does not come from below, always from the top.

[alainamama17]

The Shadows of History: Parallels and Warnings in American Democracy

As a historian, I am acutely aware that while history does not repeat itself, it often presents echoes that serve as warnings for the future. The United States today stands at a crossroads, with certain elements reminiscent of 1930s Nazi Germany and the ambitious plans of Project 2025, raising concerns about the direction in which the country is heading.

The 1930s in Germany were marked by the rise of authoritarianism, a period where democratic institutions were systematically dismantled in favor of a totalitarian regime. The parallels drawn between that era and the current political climate in the United States are not to suggest an identical repetition of events, but rather to highlight concerning trends that, if left unchecked, could undermine the very foundations of American democracy.

**Project 2025 and the Unitary Executive Theory**

Project 2025, a conservative initiative developed by the Heritage Foundation, aims to reshape the U.S. federal government to support the agenda of the Republican Party, should they win the 2024 presidential election. Critics have characterized it as an authoritarian plan that could transform the United States into an autocracy. The project envisions widespread changes across the government, particularly in economic and social policies, and the role of federal agencies.

This initiative bears a resemblance to the early strategies employed by the Nazi Party, which sought to consolidate power and align all aspects of government with their ideology. The unitary executive theory, which asserts absolute presidential control over the executive branch, is a central tenet of Project 2025. This theory echoes the power consolidation that occurred under Hitler's regime, where legal authority was centralized to bypass democratic processes.

**The Erosion of Democratic Norms**

In both historical and contemporary contexts, the erosion of democratic norms is a precursor to the loss of liberty. The United States has witnessed a polarization of politics, where partisan interests often override the common good. The Supreme Court, once a non-partisan arbiter of the Constitution, has been accused of partisanship, with decisions increasingly influenced by political ideologies rather than constitutional law. This shift mirrors the way the judiciary in Nazi Germany became a tool for enforcing the will of the regime, rather than a protector of the constitution.

**The Role of Propaganda and Media**

Propaganda played a crucial role in Nazi Germany, shaping public opinion and suppressing dissent. Today, the media landscape in the United States is deeply divided, with outlets often serving as echo chambers that reinforce ideological beliefs. This division hampers the ability of citizens to engage in informed discourse and make decisions based on factual information, a cornerstone of a functioning democracy.

**Civil Liberties and Minority Rights**

The targeting of minority groups was a hallmark of Nazi policy, justified by a narrative of nationalism and racial purity. In the United States, there has been a rise in xenophobia and policies that discriminate against certain groups. The protection of civil liberties and minority rights is essential to prevent the kind of societal divisions that can lead to the marginalization of entire communities.

**Conclusion**

The parallels between the United States today, Project 2025, and 1930s Nazi Germany serve as a stark reminder of the fragility of democracy. It is imperative that as Americans, we remain vigilant against the forces that seek to undermine democratic institutions and principles. The lessons of history implore us to safeguard the values of liberty, equality, and justice, lest we allow the shadows of the past to shape our future.

As a historian and educator, I believe it is our responsibility to draw upon these parallels not to incite fear, but to inspire action. We must engage in civic education, promote critical thinking, and encourage participation in the democratic process. Only through collective effort can we ensure that the American experiment continues to be a beacon of hope and freedom for the world.

[fremedon]

U.S. Americans! A thing you can do TODAY, November 17, to protect democracy!

The US Office of Personnel Management has issued a rule to neuter Schedule F, Trump’s executive order that would allow him to convert career officials into political appointees, meaning he can force them to choose between being fired and serving an authoritarian agenda. This is a very big deal. Authoritarians consolidate power by removing the independence of the bureaucracy

Today is the LAST DAY for public comment! They really do read these comments, and they do have an effect on federal rule-making. You can comment online HERE. You don't need to be an expert. You can include any information you want to, but all you need to say is that you support the proposed rule and oppose Schedule F.

There's a lot more information at this substack post from a public policy scholar at Georgetown, including the complete draft of his comment if you want to crib any language.

If you're in the U.S., please do this yet today! It takes five minutes.

[tomorrowusa]

While perhaps it's too early to call it a "masterstroke", Joe Biden stepping aside for Kamala Harris will probably turn out much better than any Democrat would have predicted a month ago.

Kamala Harris will likely be the next president of the United States – and that’s overall good news if you care about democracy, justice and equality. Joe Biden’s decision on Sunday to bow out of the presidential race clears the path for the country to elect its first woman and first woman of color as president.

For people who need a historical reminder...

[M]ost people in this country typically choose the Democratic nominee for president over the Republican nominee time and time again. With the sole exception of 2004, in every presidential election since 1992, the Democratic nominee has won the popular vote (Biden bested Donald Trump by 7m votes in 2020).

Now for more recent events.

If, in fact, support for Democrats among people of color is the principal problem, then putting Harris at the top of the ticket is a master stroke. The enthusiasm for electing the first woman of color as president will likely be a thunderclap across the country that consolidates the support of voters of color, and, equally important, motivates them to turn out in large numbers at the polls, much as they did for Barack Obama in 2008. The challenge the party will face in November is holding the support of Democratic-leaning and other “gettable” whites, especially given the electorate’s tortured history in embracing supremely qualified female candidates such as Hillary Clinton and Stacey Abrams. (The primary difference between Abrams, who lost in Georgia, and Senator Raphael Warnock, who won, is gender.) Sexism, misogyny and sexist attitudes about who should be the leader of the free world are real and Democrats will have to work hard to address that challenge. One critical step to solidifying the Democratic base is for all political leaders to quickly and forcefully endorse and embrace Harris’s candidacy. Mathematically, it is likely – and certainly possible, if massive investments are made in getting out the vote of people of color and young people as soon as possible – that the gains for Democrats will offset any losses among whites worried about a woman (and one of color, no less) occupying the Oval Office and becoming our nation’s commander in chief.

We shouldn't forget that the VP's mom was born in India. A number of people in the growing South Asian community in the US who may not be especially interested in politics will be tempted to pause their disinterest and vote for Kamala. India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh have all had female prime ministers – so there's not exactly a taboo about women in power.

One way to measure enthusiasm for Kamala is to look at how much money is being raised by ActBlue. Not all the money ActBlue raises goes to the national ticket. I donated to a US Senate campaign in June via ActBlue. BUT the timing of recent donations leaves little doubt what the cause of the recent spike is.

For context, first some recent weekly totals (source)...

Week of June 30 through July 6 — $65,220,920

Week of July 7 through July 13 — $48,669,913

Week of July 14 through July 20 — $61,349,601

As of Noon today (CDT): Week of July 21 through July 27th — $150,042,360 and the third day of the week is just a little over half over. In the previous hour alone, roughly $2.44 million was raised.

These are small donations, not like the $45 million per month promised by multi-billionaire Elon Putz to Trump. So grassroots Dems are stoked and are out for a win.

ActBlue is fairly no-nonsense, it's not exactly Amazon in layout. So people are not drawn there by flashy graphics.

Kamala Harris — Donate via ActBlue

[reality-detective]

Joe Biden Announces ‘New World Order Is Here’, There Is No US Election

Joe Biden couldn’t have made it clearer in a disturbing speech that was completely suppressed by the mainstream media this week – the US election for the President of the United States is rigged. The establishment have selected their President and by hook or crook he will be “re-elected.”

The Democrats are not interested in democracy. They are interested in communism and that means power consolidation at the most central of all levels.

They have shamelessly rigged the primary election against insurgent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., they have rigged the mainstream media, and by weaponizing the justice system, they have rigged the presidential election against the most popular candidate by far, President Trump.

And now Biden has come out and admitted the master plan in a disturbing speech completely covered up and censored by mainstream media. 🤔

[eugenedebs1920]

One of the beautiful things about how our representative democratic constitutional republic works is the varying opinions. The array of views and theories, the proposals and approaches, from the patchwork of ideology America has attracted, gives us the opportunity to select the peak ideas of so many backgrounds and cultures. Many of the founders, Washington in particular, were against the formation of political parties. Because of such contrasting views this was unavoidable.

There used to be a dozen or more political parties in the U.S. Wigs, federalist, socialists, labor and others brought their perspectives and that of their constituency to Congress. This enabled a more zoomed in viewpoint of the issues across the nation.

Our Population in this country, and the planet as a whole, has BOOMED! With it, so have perspectives, concerns and opinions. It becomes harder and harder to address everyone’s needs when the diversity and size of those you’re representing is so vast. This becomes even more burdensome when there’s red and blue to choose from. The puppet on the left or the puppet on the right.

I’ll have to do more research into why exactly but some time between the beginning on the twentieth century and 1940’s the cluster of political parties that had existed before pretty much consolidated in the two that dominate now. Sure, there are other parties out there, but not with much influence, or power as there was before the Second World War.

From a business perspective this makes sense, you buy out your rival for less competition so you can set market value to your liking. But this is not a business, some will argue the federal government is the largest business on earth. It goes beyond the financial side to the personal level. These are policies and practices that have real world implications. That affect real people lives in droves.

This “big tent” approach sounds wonderful in theory, but when you start looking at the details it becomes much more complicated. The extremes of both sides tend to be the loudest voices while representing the smallest fraction of the party.

It has proven to be detrimental to the functioning or our democracy! With just the two sides, when one side is unhealthy, unhappy and unwilling to compromise the system bogs. This last House term being an excellent example. These MAGA obstructionist sinking the ship. Making an ass out of themselves and the entire Republican Party. A party that used to be a proud, noble group, resorted to lacking leadership for months, failed vote counts and the title as the least productive Congress in this century. The “big tent” approach for the Republican Party has the loudest voices being heard while the mature, responsible, more centered Republicans are lumped in with them.

The same can be true of the left to an extent. Dems will kick those with unacceptable behavior words or conduct to the curb though, which is a huge difference. Yet there are extremes on the left that don’t necessarily reflect the views of most Democrats.

This, winner take all grasp for power has lessened the effectiveness and stature of the political spheres in this country. So it’s down to the puppet on the left or the puppet in the right. A brown paper bag with a name on it.

So we have the two parties with the two extremes. One party despite its downfalls wants to govern. Wants to see progress. Wants to enact change.

The other is fighting culture wars, denying science, and tiptoeing a line on bigotry that is stepped over habitually. Their method as the “party of no” which they labeled themselves during the Obama years does NOTHING for the citizens of this country. The obstructionist approach of saying no because the other side proposed it is not helpful, if you’d call it governing at all! The “war on woke” and this owning the libs thing is some childish, useless sh*t! Cutting off your nose to spite your face. Can we have representatives who actually work together and find compromise to accomplish SOMETHING!!!?

Anyway… There’s only one healthy party in America right now. And it sure ain’t the Republican MAGA Party…

[mesetacadre]

Hello! I'm currently debating with a good friend of mine, a democratic socialist, on a few topics. Namely the function of a vanguard party, centralized state power in socialist nations, and the use of violence in a revolution. They're a very open minded person, and are engaging with me in good faith, but in my opinion, their ideas rest on a few idealist assumptions about liberal democracy, and misinformed views about "authoritarianism" in the Soviet Union and "Violent Revolution" rhetoric (used the French Revolution as an example :/). To clarify, we are both in the Imperial Core. I'm a Marxist-Leninist who is critical of the USSR in some respects but admire the progress they achieved as the first major Socialist project, and believe it was a more democratic and fair state than any bourgeois republic.

I'm already working on my response, I'm not looking for you to formulate by arguments for me, but I find your analyses of specifically historical socialist movements to be very compelling, and I'm wondering if you had any insights you'd be willing to share on the topic(s)? In particular, the idea that vanguard parties are uniquely susceptible to opportunism or autocratic consolidations of power, and the Bolsheviks' dismantling of the worker's councils and opposition to the Mensheviks. These subjects in particular I'm a bit less familiar with.

Thank you!

Hi, the Mensheviks (of which Trotsky was a part of until late summer of 1917!) emerged as a defined faction within the RSDLP in the 1903 Second Congress, with the divide only widening after the 1905 failed revolution and the outbreak of WW1. Mensheviks were closer to what demsocs are today than any kind of revolutionary marxist. They consistently showed no interest in the armed overthrow of tsarism and capitalism, something which became crystal clear after the February revolution of 1917, after which they joined the provisional government of the Cadets (liberal monarchists) joined with the Narodniks, abandoning any of the more "radical" demands they still had in the process, such as the seizure of land by the peasants. Of course the Bolsheviks opposed them, they were opportunists who only held revolutionary words in their mouths until they managed to grab some scraps of power in a capitalist and imperialist government.

About vanguardism. The class consciousness that emerges spontaneously among workers from their everyday exploitation is of a different definition and character than the class consciousness one acquires through praxis and theoretical work (by praxis meaning practical work for revolutionary politics, not a broader sense of activism). I've talked about this difference a lot on this blog, so I'll keep those brief strokes and not go into more detail. This is the main fact from which vanguardism emerges. The instinct that guides the greater part of the working mass is imperfect, it can be easily misguided or turn away from revolutionary politics on its own. So there should be an organization, such as a party, that is able to politically lead, like a vanguard, one step ahead, not two ahead or one behind, of the working class' mass. This is not a case of elitism or dirigisme, not by any measure:

Vanguard parties do not lead by decree, they never have. They consist of the most politically-educated (i.e. the workers whose non-spontaneous consciousness is most developed) members of the working class. These members exist in the core of the working class, they are supposed to become known coworkers and neighbors, people who can talk with the mass of workers, teach how to avoid the unavoidable mistakes that come with spontaneous consciousness or a developing non-spontaneous consciousness. It is from these interactions that the party members learn, pass on to the party itself, which is then able to combine all that information into decisions, concrete tactics, and to perfect its own activity. The members of a vanguard do not know more than the average worker about the general state of the working class as a whole, they both are individuals just the same. But what they do know are the frameworks most suited to analyze the bits of experience they receive, and an effective vanguard party is able to collectively analyze the state of the working class as a whole. Again, not because they know more than anybody else, but because the party members have set up an organization that can extract information from all walks of life. An effective vanguard party that is properly weaved with the working class is almost akin to a statistics institute collecting data to unify it and reach conclusions about the state of society.

That is how vanguardism works. It is wholly democratic because in the context of holding power, it is the most able to carry this out, and the entire working class actually participates in decision making. If your friend considers bourgeois democracies a good standard, where the participation of everyone is reduced to a single vote however many years, why would they consider a process through which the conditions of the working class are actively taken into account every single time a decision is taken? The CC of the Communist Party of Cuba knew more about the average sugar cane harvester in Matanzas of the 60s than Kennedy ever did about his neighbors in DC. The CC of the CPSU knew more about the average fisherman in Kamchatka than the European Commission knows about the people who clean their building. And I know these are not exaggerations because there is a clear and intentional bottom-up flow of information in a vanguard, leninist party, and there isn't in, say, the nordic social-democracies, which I think is pretty safe to assume your friend has a soft spot for. And what consolidation of power? The consolidation of power into the hands of the proletariat? The Communist Party is the unified party of the working class, much like the various parties that, in liberal democracies represents the interests of the capitalist class in the state administration. Through the democracy enabled by vanguardism, it is the entire working class that holds power. Not as the addition of all individual workers, but as a class. This is necessary in the transition to communism, it would be idealist, counterproductive and effectively counter-revolutionary to call for the total decentralization of power after a revolution, that would strip the proletariat of any hope at defending itself.

Now that I feel that is cleared up, the soviets/workers' councils. They were very relevant in the period of tsarism because they were the most advanced forms of mass workers' organizations, where the emerging russian proletariat would most effectively learn from its experience and gain trust in its own strength. The slogan "All Power to the Soviets!" was also adopted once the tsarist, semi-feudal state transformed into the seeds of a fully capitalist state, as the sudden destabilization of the Russian state following the February revolution left room for dual power to exist, simultaneously in the provisional government and the soviets. The context of that slogan was that of a working class that had only just begun to accelerate in its political consciousness, not as an absolute reclamation of workers' self-organization. Conditions changed rapidly and, with the joining of the provisional government by the mensheviks that I mentioned earlier, the many Soviets that the mensheviks had a hegemony in also turned into arms of the capitalist, imperialist government. Just as quickly as the Soviets had turned into the forefront of revolutionary development, they had also become mostly reactionary, and the slogan was dropped. Mass organizations in general, which the Soviets were, can become a tool for the advancement of the activity of the Communist Party. They are useful places where communists can more easily access already receptive workers. But the goal is not to get more workers organized in ideologically-deluded mass organizations under a capitalist state, it's to advance their consciousness by any means necessary. As soon as the conditions became such that the Soviets no longer represented that golden opportunity, it made no sense to continue to claim all power for the Soviets. Conditions changed, so strategies changed.

After the October revolution, Soviets still existed. They were not dissolved, rather the existing structure was incorporated into the new proletarian state, as its instance that's closest to the proletariat. Hence, the Soviet Union. They used the structure of the Soviets because soon the civil war of intervention began, and they could not afford to create another completely new structure. But still, it's not that the Soviets themselves should be independent and somehow make up a different source of authority than the Communist Party, an already completely democratic organ and more capable than any loose confederation of councils. They were, before the revolution, one of the main ways the bolsheviks reached the Russian proletariat. After the revolution, the formal organ at the factory or city level that made that democratic connection between the workers and the party.

[tanadrin]

like on the one hand, games and stories about politics will always reflect contemporary concerns and our society has been concerned with authoritarianism for decades, so games about politics including authoritarian politics makes sense. and you want your game to be balanced, right? but I think even a remotely accurate vision of history demonstrates that, if you are playing as the disembodied spirit of the State or even just as a ruler who does not get to personally enjoy the gold plated toilet in your fourth vacation mansion, authoritarianism sucks. it’s never a system of government you would opt for for strategic reasons. you have to make it unrealistically competitive to make it a “balanced” option, and I think in doing so people unconsciously regurgitate a ton of WW2 era fascist propaganda that never got debunked in the popular imagination.

historical personalist regimes (“monarchies”) regularly had succession wars and crises of legitimacy that only died down once the monarchy was no longer actually the source of political power. genuine modern monarchies generally survive only by being resource rich countries that heavily subsidize the citizenry through resource wealth (Kuwait, Saudi Arabia). Other authoritarian regimes either end with the death/deposition of their founder (Spain, Italy, Germany, Cromwell’s England even), get locked in endless cycles of coups (a problem for a lot of postcolonial states), or have to reform to a broader/more bureaucratic power base (China, Cuba, Vietnam, USSR).

The only workaround for this is maybe to have a strong military that is a state within a state and has a deep interest in propping up the regime, which is a tale as old as time; but even states that use this military junta model of governance tend not to be super long lived.

The best challenge to liberal democracy out there is whatever China has going on, and even then it is showing worrying signs of strain—the debt bubble and the increasing consolidation of power under Xi don’t bode well for the long term continuation of the system.

[opencommunion]

"While the North American colonists identified with the chosen people who sailed across the Atlantic to conquer the promised land, to be wrested from its unauthorized inhabitants and cleansed of their presence, the Latin American revolutionaries, in the wake of their argument with Spain, tended to denounce the genocidal practices of the conquistadores, Spanish in particular and European in general. Here too the road had been indicated by the black slaves of San Domingo who, after having broken with Napoleonic France and defeated its attempts to re-conquer it and reintroduce slavery, had assumed the Indian name of Haiti. ... Thanks to the politico-social homogeneity (strengthened by the availability of land and westward expansion) of its dominant class, and thanks also to the confinement of much of the ‘dangerous classes’ in slavery, the North American republic soon succeeded in achieving a stable structure. It took the form of a ‘master race democracy’ and a racial state, based on the rule of law within the white community and among the chosen people. The situation in Latin America was very different: between liberal beginnings and radical outcomes, the revolution had mobilized a front stamped with profound social and ethnic contradictions. Thus two contrasting ideas of liberty confronted one another: one calls to mind the English gentleman determined to dispose freely of his servants; the other ultimately refers to the struggle that had put an end to black slavery in San Domingo-Haiti.

Around 1830 the American continent presented a rather telling picture. While it had disappeared in a considerable part of Latin America, slavery remained in force in the European colonies, including British and Dutch ones, and above all in the United States. We can say that from the slave revolution onwards there developed a pent up confrontation, a kind of cold war, between San Domingo and the United States. On one side, we have a country that saw ex-slaves in power, authors of a revolution that was possibly unique in world history; on the other, a country almost always led in the early decades of its existence by slave owning presidents. ... Once the new revolutionary power had consolidated itself, it was a constant concern of the United States, where not a few ex-colonists took refuge, to overthrow or at least isolate it through a cordon sanitaire. It would be dangerous, observed Jefferson in 1799, to enter into commercial relations with San Domingo. That would result in ‘black crews’ disembarking in the United States, and these emancipated slaves could represent ‘combustion’ for the slaveholding South. On the basis of such concerns, South Carolina banned the entry into its territory of any ‘man of colour’ from San Domingo or any of the other French islands, which might in some way have been infected by the new, dangerous ideas of liberty and racial equality. Regardless of commercial exchanges, stressed influential political figures in the North American republic, by its very example the island risked challenging the institution of slavery far beyond its borders. ... Only after the end of the Civil War did the United States agree to open diplomatic relations with Haiti. But it was a move bereft of any warmth, and in fact functional for a project of ethnic cleansing. The idea, also entertained by Lincoln, of depositing on the island of black power the ex-slaves, who were to be deported from the republic that continued to be inspired by the principle of white supremacy and purity, had not yet been abandoned.

Hence a distinguished historian of slavery has appropriately warned against the tendency ‘to confuse liberal principles with antislavery commitment.’ ... Lincoln himself initially conducted the Civil War as a crusade against rebellion and separatism, not for the abolition of slavery, which could continue to survive in states loyal to central government. It was only later, with the recruitment of blacks into the Union army and hence with the direct intervention of slaves and ex-slaves in the conflict, that the civil war between whites was transformed into a revolution, conducted partly from above and partly from below, making the abolition of slavery inevitable." Domenico Losurdo, Liberalism: A Counter-History, trans. Gregory Elliot (2011)

[robertreich]

How Trump is Following Hitler's Playbook

You’ve heard Trump’s promise:

TRUMP: I’m going to be a dictator for one day.

History shows there are no “one-day” dictatorships. When democracies fall, they typically fall completely.

In a previous video, I laid out the defining traits of fascism and how MAGA Republicans embody them. But how could Trump — or someone like him — actually turn America into a fascist state? Here’s how in five steps.

Step 1: Use threats of violence to gain power

Hitler and Mussolini relied on their vigilante militias to intimidate voters and local officials. We watched Trump try to do the same in 2020.

TRUMP: Proud Boys, stand back and stand by.

Republican election officials testified to the threats they faced when they refused Trump’s demands to falsify the election results.

RAFFENSPERGER: My email, my cell phone was doxxed.

RUSTY BOWERS: They have had video panel trucks with videos of me proclaiming me to be a pedophile.

GABRIEL STERLING: A 20-something tech in Gwinnett County today has death threats and a noose put out saying he should be hung for treason.

If the next election is close, threats to voters and election officials could be enough to sabotage it.

Step 2: Consolidate power

After taking office, a would-be fascist must turn every arm of government into a tool of the party. One of Hitler’s first steps was to take over the civil service, purging it of non-Nazis.

In October of 2020, Trump issued his own executive order that would have enabled him to fire tens of thousands of civil servants and replace them with MAGA loyalists. He never got to act on it, but he’s now promising to apply it to the entire civil service.

That’s become the centerpiece of something called Project 2025, a presidential agenda assembled by MAGA Republicans, that would, as the AP put it, “dismantle the US government and replace it with Trump’s vision.”

Step 3: Establish a police state

Hitler used the imaginary threat of “the poison of foreign races” to justify taking control of the military and police, placing both under his top general, and granting law-enforcement powers to his civilian militias.

Now Trump is using the same language to claim he needs similar powers to deal with immigrants.

Trump plans to deploy troops within the U.S. to conduct immigration raids and round up what he estimates to be 18 million people who would be placed in mass-detention camps while their fate is decided.

And even though crime is actually down across the nation, Trump is citing an imaginary crime wave to justify sending troops into blue cities and states against the will of governors and mayors.

Trump insiders say he plans to invoke the Insurrection Act to have the military crush civilian protests. We saw a glimpse of that in 2020, when Trump deployed the National Guard against peaceful protesters outside the White House.

And with promises to pardon January 6 criminals and stop prosecutions of right-wing domestic terrorists, Trump would empower groups like the Proud Boys to act as MAGA enforcers.

Step 4: Jail the opposition

In classic dictatorial fashion, Trump is now openly threatening to prosecute his opponents.

TRUMP: if I happen to be president and I see somebody who’s doing well and beating me very badly, I say, ‘Go down and indict them.’ They’d be out of business.

And he’s looking to remake the Justice Department into a tool for his personal vendettas.

TRUMP: As we completely overhaul the federal Department of Justice and FBI, we will also launch sweeping civil rights investigations into Marxist local district attorneys.

In the model of Hitler and Mussolini, Trump describes his opponents as subhuman.

TRUMP: …the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country…

Step 5: Undermine the free press

As Hitler well understood, a fascist needs to control the flow of information. Trump has been attacking the press for years.

And he’s threatening to punish news outlets whose coverage he dislikes.

He has helped to reduce trust in the media to such a historic low that his supporters now view him as their most trusted source of information.

Within a democracy, we may often have leaders we don’t like. But we have the power to change them — at the ballot box and through public pressure. Once fascism takes hold, those freedoms are gone and can’t easily be won back.

We must recognize the threat of fascism when it appears, and do everything in our power to stop it.

[mariacallous]

Tens of thousands of demonstrators have taken to the streets in Georgia in the South Caucasus in recent weeks to protest a controversial proposed new law that many fear, if passed, would be the death knell of a once-promising young democracy and drive the country firmly into Moscow’s orbit.

The “foreign agents” law would require organizations that receive more than 20 percent of their funding from abroad to register as “agents of foreign influence.” It is modeled on similar legislation that Russia enacted in 2012 and has used to cast independent media and civic society groups as doing the bidding of foreign governments and to crack down on dissent.

Georgia has been convulsed by bouts of street protests in recent years over the proposed law and other actions by the ruling Georgian Dream party that critics fear could consolidate its power and draw the country closer to neighboring Russia, a deeply unpopular move in the former Soviet nation where an overwhelming majority of the population supports joining the European Union, according to opinion polls.

Georgia was offered long-awaited EU candidate status by the bloc last year, which could be placed in jeopardy if the foreign agents legislation is adopted. In a statement last month, Brussels’s diplomatic service urged the country’s leaders to “adopt and implement reforms that are in line with the stated objective of joining the European Union, as supported by a large majority of Georgia’s citizens.”

On Thursday, Georgia’s ambassador to France resigned in protest over the proposed legislation, becoming the first senior official from the country to do so. “I no longer see my role and resources in this direction: the move towards Europe,” said Gotcha Javakhishvili in a post on social media.

The law was first introduced in February 2023 but was quickly withdrawn in the face of massive street protests in the capital, Tbilisi. It was then reintroduced in April of this year. Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili, who is independent of the Georgian Dream, has promised to veto the legislation if passed, but her veto would likely be overridden by the government’s parliamentary majority.

“It seems clear to me, anyway, they have made a decision to go the path of one-party rule, of shutting down basically all checks and balances on executive power, and this Russian law is the last instrument that they need to put in place,” said Ian Kelly, former U.S. ambassador to Georgia.

The protests this time around are markedly different from earlier iterations, though—but not because of the demonstrators or their demands. What makes the latest round of unrest different is the level of violence and intimidation meted out against protesters and civil society as well as the government’s apparent determination to pass the law, which is due for a final reading on May 13, despite the public outcry and condemnation from the European Union and the United States.

Security forces have used water cannons, rubber bullets, and tear gas in a bid to disperse crowds of demonstrators in the capital, Tbilisi, while protesters have reported being violently assaulted by groups of men dressed in black in what they say appear to be premeditated attacks.

In recent days, civil society activists, journalists, and their relatives have reported receiving menacing phone calls from anonymous callers threatening them in Georgian and reciting their home addresses in an apparent bid to intimidate them, said Eka Gigauri, executive director of Transparency International Georgia. Gigauri said she had received dozens of calls from unknown numbers in recent days but declined to answer them.

On Wednesday evening, four government critics, including two members of the United National Movement opposition party, were attacked by unknown assailants outside their homes and in the street. Overnight on Wednesday, posters featuring the faces of prominent civil society activists, journalists, and opposition politicians branding them as enemies of the country and foreign agents were plastered near their homes and offices across the capital.

“What happened during these two days is just an unprecedented level of targeting,” said Eto Buziashvili, a former advisor to the Georgian National Security Council based in Tbilisi.

In 2019, when police used water cannons, rubber bullets, and tear gas to disperse protesters, it sparked a national outcry and further protests calling for snap elections and the resignation of the interior minister, Giorgi Gakharia.

Now, accusations of more sinister tactics are afoot as the role of the unknown assailants dressed in black has drawn comparisons to pro-government thugs known as titushki who were allegedly paid for by the embattled government of Viktor Yanukovych to cause disruption and attack protesters during the Ukrainian revolution in 2014, Buziashvili said.

After a 2003 uprising known as the Rose Revolution, Georgia embarked on a dizzyingly ambitious reform program under the presidency of Mikheil Saakashvili, who was then a darling of Washington’s. He sought to stamp out corruption and put the country on a firmly Western trajectory, tilting it away from Moscow, which fought a short but shocking war with Georgia over the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia in 2008.

Saakashvili was imprisoned in 2021, accused of abusing power while in office. His supporters see the charges as politically motivated.

The Georgian Dream, established by the eccentric Georgian billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, came to power in 2012 promising a less confrontational approach to Moscow while paying lip service to the country’s aspirations to join NATO and the European Union.

Ivanishvili, who made his fortune in Moscow in the 1990s, served as prime minister for just over a year, stepping down in 2013, but has widely been viewed as the one still calling the shots behind the scenes as the Georgian Dream has undermined the country’s hard-won democratic gains and poured salt on the relationship with the United States.

“The person who seems to be driving all of this is Bidzina Ivanishvili,” said U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, a Democrat from New Hampshire who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, speaking about the foreign agents law.

In October, the Georgian government accused the United States Agency for International Development of trying to foment a coup in the country.

The Georgian government’s claims echo similar allegations made by Moscow over the years that have accused Washington of pulling the strings in a series of pro-democracy uprisings in the former Soviet Union known as color revolutions, including in Ukraine.

“I think it’s Russian disinformation. It’s a deliberate effort by Russia to stoke divisions in the country,” said Shaheen, who has a long-standing focus on Georgia.

On April 29, in a rare public address infused with conspiracy theories, Ivanishvili—who formally serves as the party’s honorary chairman—depicted the country as wrestling for its independence against shadowy, unnamed foreign forces, describing Georgia’s nongovernmental organizations as a “pseudo-elite nurtured by a foreign country.”

Although Ivanishvili’s personal wealth is equivalent to roughly a third of the country’s gross domestic product, he is “borrowing from the Orban and Trump playbook, highlighting how the urban elite is running counter to Georgian traditional values,” Kelly said, referring to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and former U.S. President Donald Trump.

In March, a senior member of the Georgian Dream announced a raft of constitutional amendments cracking down on LGBT rights and banning any public efforts to promote same-sex relationships, echoing Russia’s “gay propaganda” law passed in 2013.

In the April speech, Ivanishvili explicitly referenced parliamentary elections set to be held later this year as a motivation for reintroducing the foreign agents law and the anti-LGBT legislation, noting that it would force civil society to “expend the energy” ahead of the vote, saying it would leave them “weakened” and “exhausted.”

Kelly criticized the Biden administration for not taking more concrete steps to deter Georgian politicians from pursuing the legislation. “Right after April 29, they should have started the first round of imposing costs, and the really easy one is, ‘You’re not welcome to get a visa,’” he said.

State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller condemned the violence against protesters on Thursday and called for a “full independent and timely investigation,” but Kelly said that such statements don’t go far enough.

“It’s useless. It’s worse than useless,” he said. “I don’t know if they really take us seriously.”

[oneofthosecrazycatladies]

Fun fact: In 1929, Congress decided to cap the number of members of the House of Representatives. At the time (and, indeed, today) people living in urban areas tend to vote more liberal, while people living in rural areas tend to vote more conservative. So in 1929, conservative politicians were afraid that America’s increasing urbanization would tip the federal government in a more liberal direction. So the cap in the House meant that urban areas receive less representation in proportion to their populations. If this cap was never put in place, the House would have more than 1,000 members today. [x]

As we’ve just ended one election cycle and are bracing ourselves for the 2026 midterms, this is something to keep in mind. Conservatives have been playing the long game for generations, slowly chipping away at our democracy every chance they’ve gotten. And they’ve been banking on apathetic citizens that don’t hold them to account or pay attention to what they’re doing.

And now, with Trump’s win and the (likely) Republican trifecta, we are living with the results of this conservative power consolidation and liberal apathy.

If you’re unhappy with the way this election turned out. If you’re unhappy with the way our government has been going in general, then ACT. Politicians feed off our apathy. They want us to not be paying attention so that they can continue to act in their own self-interest.

Over the past week, I’ve been seeing a lot of finger pointing going on. But guess what, we’re all to blame for this. Donald Trump and his cronies are a symptom of a system that has been cracking for decades and every single one of us let it happen.

But that also means that we can fix it.

This is not a time for playing the blame game. Or simply sitting back and accepting our fate. If we don’t like our system, then let’s change it.

Just a reminder that the constitution was written by a group of middle-aged heterosexual cisgender able-bodied elite white men. And they were writing it for other middle-aged heterosexual cisgender able-bodied elite white men.

We get so stuck in this idea that the way things are today are the way they’ve always been and should always stay. Why? 300 years ago the modern United States didn’t exist. 200 years ago our economy ran on slavery. 5 years ago women had more reproductive rights. Things change all the time. Bad change happens because bad actors take action while good actors take a nap. So if we want good change, we need to wake up.

At this point it’s kind of become a cliche but I’m gonna say it anyway: be the change you want to see in the world