#illiberal

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Gábor Scheiring for Politico Magazine:

Many believed that after his first term as president, Donald Trump would end up in the dustbin of history. Now Trump is back, and the United States is about to be ruled for the second time by a right-wing populist. Trump’s goal this time is to remake the American government to enhance his power. He isn’t the first modern right-wing populist to attempt this — he is following a playbook pioneered by Hungary’s Viktor Orbán. I lived through Orbán’s power grab as a member of Hungary’s parliament and have been researching populism since. I’ve learned a few things along the way that might help Trump’s opponents understand how he won and how they can fight back. First off, it’s important to understand that America isn’t the first country to face this kind of threat to its democracy, and it also isn’t something external. Autocratic populism is not a virus the U.S. caught from the exotic East, from Russia or Hungary. Modern-day autocracies come to power through elections, leading to electoral autocracies. These regimes are built from within the democratic system.

This is what Orbán did so successfully, which is why he has inspired other autocrats. America’s radical conservatives have been paying attention. Steve Bannon has called Orbán “Trump before Trump.” Vice President-elect JD Vance has cited Orbán as an inspiration, who “we could learn from in the United States.” Orbán’s power grab program runs on two components that you can think of as hardware and software. The populist hardware consists of hijacked institutions. The software is made up of populist discourses and narratives that are used to create and enlist the consent of the ruled. Dismantling the hardware of the Orbán-Trump project requires first defeating its software, so let’s start there.

The Software

Liberals often struggle against these populist narratives because the polar opposite of populism is elitism, which carries much less appeal. Here are some of the narratives that work to create the software of autocracy.

— The Folksy Outsider. Pushing against the boundaries of written and unwritten norms is a standard performative element in the populist toolbox, establishing the populist leader as a folksy outsider disrespected by liberal elites. We can expect Trump to continue using outsider mannerisms, from ordering burgers in the White House to posing as a McDonalds employee, as a symbolic nod to devalued working-class lifestyles.

— Anti-Elitism. We can also expect the culture war to escalate. Orbán passed legislation cracking down on universities in an effort to reduce the influence of liberal ideas. Vance has also declared universities “the enemy” and advised that “the closest that conservatives have ever gotten to successfully dealing with left-wing domination of universities is Viktor Orbán’s approach in Hungary.”

— Anti-Immigrant. It is also clear that Trump will continue his anti-immigrant tirades and attempt to deport millions of illegal immigrants. While in Eastern Europe, radical right populist leaders showed up before Europe’s migrant crisis, hostility toward immigration is nevertheless a favorite far-right topic. Populists create intricate narratives about the self-inflicted decline of the West, weakened by a “liberal virus” and losing out in the global competition of civilizations. These narratives are particularly potent because they also activate racial stereotypes and fears concerning historical minorities, not just new immigrants.

— Economic Nationalism. From climate-change policies to free trade agreements, liberal and centrist economic policies have also become frequent punching bags. Trump’s love affair with tariffs and his trade war with China mirrors Orbán’s fight against economic globalization. While the practical impact of Orbán’s economic nationalism is limited in Hungary, it is crucial for maintaining support among working-class Hungarians, who are otherwise relative losers of Orbán’s policies.

Economic nationalism is a vital component of the populist software but is often neglected by opponents of the far right, so let’s take a deeper look at how it works.

Before Eastern Europe became a laboratory for illiberalism in the 2010s, Western economists used it as a laboratory for neoliberalism in the 1990s. This shock therapy experiment alienated masses of lower-middle- and working-class citizens from the parties of the center-left, who often championed these policies. Similar tectonic shifts have undermined the Democrats’ support among working-class Americans. Economic nationalist narratives used by right-wing populists glorify “makers” over “takers,” resonating with working-class voters who value hard work. This narrative also serves to cement an alliance between plutocrats, billionaires and workers, which might seem paradoxical, but it isn’t: They are all portrayed as hard-working value creators as opposed to “lazy bureaucrats” and “benefit scroungers.” At their core, some of these narratives are centered on racist or nativist ideas, but they are cushioned in several outer layers that are primarily economic — and it’s the economic messages that many who hear them react to.

That’s why labeling Trump and Orbán and their supporters as moral degenerates, or even Nazis, is tactically dysfunctional. Some of their voters are hardcore racists, but many aren’t. In fact, one of the often-neglected powers of successful radical right populists is their capacity to bring together a broad group of disillusioned voters. Conservatives and nationalists with cultural grievances respond to the anti-migrant and anti-identity political messages. Economic nationalist messages resonate with those harboring economic frustrations over increased social insecurities and stagnating living standards. Symbolic class politics allows populist leaders to glue together those components of the populist narrative. When economic grievances and cultural resentments combine, they create a potent force, generating consent for the autocrat to do what it takes to change the hardware.

The Hardware

Once the narratives have taken hold, the autocratic leader can change the hardware that runs the country. Most of these steps are incremental and might even be defensible on their own. But together, they build a formidable institutional power base that can keep the leader and his party in power permanently. Here are some of those steps.

— Strengthen Executive Power. After serving one term as prime minister, Orbán lost office in 2002. He resolved that next time, he is going to be much more aggressive in strengthening his hold on power. Trump and his team have prepared for their second term in a similar way. Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation behind the infamous Project 2025, portrayed Hungary as “the model for conservative statecraft.” Project 2025 echoes Orbán’s playbook, pushing to dismantle liberal influence in the “administrative state” and strengthen executive power. As Trump’s initial nominees also show, we can expect systematic efforts to sweep out officials deemed disloyal to the president. Trump also plans to centralize control over institutions, ranging from the Federal Reserve Board to the Federal Communications Commission.

— Discipline the judiciary. Efforts at reining in the Justice Department and exerting more influence over the judiciary will be crucial. With Republicans already controlling the Supreme Court, any new appointments during Trump’s term would cement a conservative majority for decades. Trump was also open about his plan to fire attorneys who refuse to follow his orders. Vance even mentioned the option of simply disobeying judicial authorities.

— Change Election Processes. Manipulating electoral rules and district boundaries to benefit the ruling party is a strategy that Orbán imported from the U.S. The state of Georgia is a case in point, where Republicans have increased their power to change electoral results they deem fraudulent. In Congress, Republicans have proposed far-reaching legislation that could allow Republicans to twist the electoral process to their advantage in future election cycles.

— Control the media. Orbán consolidated media control through centralized propaganda, market pressure and loyal billionaires. In the U.S., in addition to the already powerful empire of Rupert Murdoch, several recent examples show the power of friendly tycoons over the media. Elon Musk is a good case study; he used Twitter-turned-X to bolster right-wing populists and now stands to gain much from his relationship with Trump. This mirrors Orbán’s strategy to forge a strong alliance with the country’s billionaires for mutual protection and support. Trump also plans to move fast on a business-friendly agenda of tax cuts, deregulation and expanded energy production.

— Secure Control over Party. A final critical step is securing full control over the party. Just as Orbán replaced mainstream leaders with loyal outsiders, Trump co-opted much of the Tea Party in his takeover of the Republican Party. Trump’s team has positioned key allies as candidates and RNC leaders, placing his daughter-in-law as co-chair and pushing out numerous establishment staffers. And his current moves to name uber-loyalists to administration jobs regardless of their qualifications is also an effort to make Republicans in Congress bend to his will.

The Antidote

First, let’s take a breath because there’s a silver lining. Trump’s presidency will be painful for many, but democratic erosion is unlikely to reach Hungarian levels soon. That’s because the U.S. has a more robust political system, and Democrats and pro-democracy activists have a window to act before lasting institutional damage occurs. That’s the good news. The bad news is that there’s no consensus among democracy advocates on the best way to fight illiberal, right-wing populism. However, the story of Europe’s populists offers insights into what works and what doesn’t. There are three main points of resistance.

— The courts. If there are any brazen attacks on constitutional principles, the justice system should be the first line of defense. However, illiberal regimes often operate within legal boundaries, making them harder to challenge. Courts in Europe have so far had little power against Orbán. Litigation or legal restrictions on populists also tend to backfire, boosting their image as outsiders fighting against an unjust, technocratic system, as Trump has already demonstrated in his efforts to discredit the legal cases against him. What this means is that the fight against right-wing populism is primarily political.

— The media. Fighting for media pluralism and independence is vital. Investigative journalism helps, but it tends to preach to the converted. There need to be news channels and media outlets for getting messages across to non-metropolitan areas dominated by far-right news sources. Liberal-minded billionaires should not sit idly by as they did in Hungary, watching the right take over the media. The New Right is also significantly more embedded in social media than liberals are. Those of us who favor democracy cannot let Elon Musks and Andrew Tates control the public discourse. Progressive influencers: Time to log in and post away — there’s a narrative battle to win.

— States and cities. Democrats cannot win without a powerful social base embedded throughout the country. Fighting for every seat and institution in states and cities is one of the most important things opponents of autocracy need to do. Even in hard illiberal regimes like Turkey or Hungary, free cities are channels for interaction with citizens, provide organizational resources and can be used to present alternative visions of governance.

Countering populist power structures requires first defeating populist narratives — a battle the anti-populist center is losing. The demise of Hungary’s once-strong left-liberal elites, now completely overpowered by the right, should serve as a stark warning, which leads us to the most important battleground: the Democratic Party. To win the fight against autocracy, above all, the Democratic Party must reconnect with the working class to preserve liberal institutions. There are simply not enough educated moderate suburbanites for an electoral majority.

[...] Hungary’s key lesson is you don’t protect democracy by talking about democracy — you protect democracy by protecting people. Only a democracy that works for the people is sustainable.

Gábor Scheiring wrote in Politico Magazine this weekend his experience of Hungary’s descent into the authoritarian abyss that the USA seems to want to follow under a 2nd term of Donald Trump and how to combat such authoritarianism.

[reynard61]

The sofa sodomizer and his TechBro money suppliers don't just want to sodomize sofas...

[anziewouldliketodriveatank]

John Darnielle gets me reading the bible at 19:30 on a Saturday like noone else

[straynoahide]

another sign of democratic malaise in western/adjacent societies. ukraine, israel, now south korea. the liberal democratic world is under threat from within and without. we have to believe in and defend our values more than ever.

[gulyas069]

the spectre of "populism" in European politics has been turned into the argument that a policy being popular is inherently bad, and the less the people you govern like being governed by you, the more "democratic" you are

[sarahowritesostucky]

A response to "Milking" : Isn't she sweet?

🥰A lovely series of comments I received from a kindhearted and intellectually mature fan.

[tanadrin]

still annoyed by the tiktok i saw once of someone smugly declaring the Federation was “an empire” and that this point was so obvious it brooked no debate

like

you have to apply for membership! it’s a post-scarcity utopia that has transcended the need for money! this meets no definition of an empire, except that it has some of the aesthetic trappings of liberal democracy, and edgy online types like to refer to liberal democracies as “empires” when trying to discuss the more general phenomenon of imperialism.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Michael Deacon

Published: Apr 3, 2024

For young people today, finding a partner of the opposite sex must be dreadfully hard. But this isn’t because of the pressure to look like an Instagram gym buff, or the horrors of dating apps, or the fact that no one under the age of 30 seems to drink alcohol any more.

It’s because these days, young men and women have got absolutely nothing in common.

Seriously. All of a sudden, they appear to have developed completely different values. It’s unprecedented. In the past, the two sexes tended to hold roughly similar views on politics. But research compiled over the past five years shows that in Britain – and indeed other Western countries – young women have become more progressive, while young men have become more conservative. And the resulting ideological gap is now staggeringly vast. 

Alice Evans, an academic at King’s College London, is writing a book on this phenomenon, entitled The Great Gender Divergence. She says it’s been caused by a variety of factors, including “social media bubbles” and “economic resentment”. Whatever the reasons for it, though, I think there is a vital point we’re in danger of missing. Which is that only one of the two sexes is strictly responsible.

Recently, the Financial Times published some charts illustrating how the gulf between young men and women has grown in each Western country. And in every chart, there is an unmistakable pattern. The political views of young men haven’t actually altered all that much. Their drift to the Right has been really quite gentle.

The political views of young women, however, have changed dramatically. Their move to the Left has been abrupt and profound. In truth, then, this cavernous ideological divide is almost entirely attributable to them.

Which is curious. Because, whenever the divide is discussed by politicians and commentators, they make it sound as if the problem is young men. They fret endlessly about how young men today are being “radicalised” by nasty Right-wing YouTubers such as Andrew Tate, or horrid Right-wing politicians such as Donald Trump. 

Yet they never apply this word “radicalised” to young women. Why not? I suspect it’s because these politicians and commentators tend to be progressive themselves. Therefore, they see no problem with young women becoming drastically more progressive. In their view, the more progressive someone is, the better. So the fault lies entirely with young men, for failing to emulate young women’s lurch to the Left.

Personally, though, I think this lurch Leftwards should alarm us all. The future of Western civilisation is already threatened by our collapsing birth rates. And this sudden ideological chasm between the sexes is only going to make the crisis worse. No one’s going to be forming couples at all any more, if, on every first date, the woman asks, “What do you think of Gramsci?”, and the man replies, “He’s the type of striker Man Utd are crying out for.”

It’s a chilling thought. So clearly something must be done. Politicians must spend less time obsessing over the radicalisation of young men, and start paying attention to the radicalisation of young women, instead.

As it happens, the Labour Party has announced that, when it’s in power, it will help to combat the influence that Andrew Tate has on boys. Surely it would make more sense to help combat the influence The Guardian has on girls. 

Otherwise, the only way young men are going to get a girlfriend is by frantically boning up on George Monbiot and Owen Jones. And if that’s what the future has to hold, perhaps Western civilisation isn’t worth saving, after all. 

[ Via: https://archive.md/WlLXk ]

==

Apparently, it's not "radicalization" when you're calling for the extermination of the Jews; so sexist and racist that you call everyone else "oppressors"; teaching kids about the objectively true mythology of metaphysical "gender" thetans; advocating for the compulsory elimination of all privately-owned property and its forcible redistribution; and/or chanting for the dismantling of society itself.

No, that's not radicalization. It's just the self-evident values of all right-thinking people.

🤷‍♂️🤷‍♀️

[l-in-c-future]

The future of US liberal democracy 3: the fall of freedom and the rise of illiberalism

Nierman and Sachs continued to describe the rise of illiberalism in USA in chapter 3 of their book Cancel Culture: from rage to redemption in a world gone mad.

Restrictions of freedom

Restrictions of freedom can be imposed by citizens and governments, whether they are from the left or right sides of the political spectrums: the communists; the ethnic-nationalists; the blackshirts ( squadristi); the skinhead; a theocratic government or a secular government.

In fact, these seemingly contracdictory ideologies share one common value: they are all authoritarianists or populists who believe that so long as the majority agree to revere a certain ideology, even that is individualism and the freedom to define and shape individualism, then the WHOLE of the society should obey the will of the majority.

Authoritarian populism from both sides of the political spectrum are very similar but such ideologies are contradictory to the concept of individual freedom as understood by the Founding Fathers and classical liberalism philosophisers who inspired them.

Populism is not far from authoritarianism

Thomas Hobbes, John Locke and other Founding Fathers were correct in warning that citizens would feel fear and angry in a society that had lost philosophical and moral anchorage.

They are eager to react in close authoritarian populistic behaviours in respond to different views and opinions. The situations will get worse. Regardless of whether the cancel intentions come from the left or right side of the politics, it will erode our much treasured democratic principles.

For centuries, USA had been proud of being the world's leading example in the championship of the rule of the laws, compliance with proper procedures and maintainance of liberal thoughts. Unfortunately, this world is slowly being twisted to a dystopian Orwellian world. There are a lot of similarities between 17th century and 21st century.

The ways people are witch hunted (for whatever reasons) in today's society are very similar to the fundamentalistic belief held by the Puritans during the colonial period within an intolerant society.

In our era, the red "A" in the Scarlet Letter is ironed on the hunted preys' reputation and goodwill via internets, especially social media, executed as mobilised mass trials over the cyberspace.

The icons of such apexes can be seen throughout Trump's election campaigns and his past and soon to be another term of governments. Trump consistently uses derogative, denouncing and vulgar languages to diminish his opponents by molding them into some sort of despicable figures. He started a political norm to ridicule and insult his opponents and election contestants. He wiped out the remains of civil discourse. He subverted what SHOULD BE appropriate decent speeches and manners. USA suffers from the bad consequences.

A more radical imbalanced society

The two parties system in USA has been producing more and more authoritarian/populistic election contestants to fit the tastes of their loudest and most active voters in the initial elections. These people demand more ruthless and less civilised behaviours from their politicians.

A thick layer of stratosphere is created by the rapid increase in the numbers of radical politicians from both sides of politics with the aid of their respective media platforms to fit the tastes of their own electorates. The environment is flavourable to cradle more political organisations that embrace extreme and radical behaviours.

Politics from both sides see each other as enemies. Even they don't compete to death, they will exhaust every mean to hit each other badly. There are too many people from both sides of the politics believe that it is inevitable to sacrifice freedom in order to win. Both sides consider that restriction of the freedom of the other side has instrumental value to achieve what they think of as 'the best interests' for the future of their country.

BOTH sides of the politics have misintepreted what was the freedom envisioned and laid down by the Founding Fathers.

Consequence: Their ignorance of such freedom have created a radical imbalance society where people live with fear and fill with rages.

Because of this, a society that is supposed to be without fear is plagued by another kind of fear.

[thenewdemocratus]

Michael Shermer: Why I'm No Longer Woke

Source:Skeptic publisher & blogger Michael Shermer. Source:The New Democrat “Before the transmogrification of the word woke into the pejorative slur against far-left politics it represents today, I would have called myself woke—and even a social justice warrior—inasmuch as I believe in civil liberties, civil rights, women’s rights, LGBTQ rights, animal rights, and the continued expansion of the…

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Ruth Ben-Ghat at Lucid:

The benchmark of democratic political systems used to be elections, and the practice of holding elections was often used to determine whether a country could be classified as a democracy. Today, as "electoral autocracies" take hold around the world, that's no longer the case. Many illiberal leaders come to power through elections, and then manipulate the electoral system to get the results they need to stay in office. As the U.S. election approaches, it’s useful to remember that the history of autocracy is the history of war on the idea and practice of free and fair elections. For authoritarian leaders on the right and the left, allowing a population to determine through their votes who is in government and for how long is unthinkable. Why should lesser beings decide the fate of the strongman, who alone can lead the nation to greatness?

Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini derided elections as a “childish game” that had “already humiliated the nation for decades.” Il Duce replaced democratic elections with occasional plebiscites. In 1934, as he prepared to invade Ethiopia and was dealing with increased internal unrest, he staged a vote. Italians were actually weighing in on a purge of the political class: a single list he had approved of nominees for seats in Parliament, with the choices YES or NO. The real point of the exercise was to show Italians and the world that he had popular approval for his governmental measures. To that end, voting was “assisted” by Fascist "poll watchers," (squadrists in black shirts, armed with knives), and the regime’s communications about the vote can be summed up as “vote yes or else,” in the Fascist manner. This propaganda piece, on the façade of Palazzo Braschi in the center of Rome, depicted Mussolini's face as a kind of death mask, suggesting what could happen to those who voted no. The result of the plebiscite --99.85% YES, and only .15% NO--suggests that Italians got the message.

Today’s autocrats may keep elections going, but they won’t hesitate to game the competition by finding ways to silence rivals. Here’s Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in 2018 when CNN asked him if he was a dictator. "Here we have a ballot box...the democracy gets its power from the people. It's what we call national will," But in advance of the 2023 Turkish presidential contest, Erdoğan sentenced popular Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu to several years in jail. That way İmamoğlu could not be the opposition candidate. The newer autocratic tactic, facilitated by disinformation, is to discredit elections before the election is held so the public will believe you when you say, in the event of defeat, that the whole contest was “rigged” against you or invalidated by fraud. If the authoritarian is able to marshal his party and allies into sustaining the falsehood in public, then the idea of an illegitimate election can gain traction. This is called institutionalized lying: when a lie that is particularly important to the leader and his survival in politics becomes party doctrine. Then anyone who wants to have status in the authoritarian party or state must perform the lie in public, or at least refuse to refute it. Propagandists know that a lie, when repeated with enough frequency, becomes familiar and eventually can be taken as truth.

[...] The outcome of this scenario In Brazil offers an example of gatekeeping as democracy protection. After President Jair Bolsonaro lost the 2022 election, he decided to try and replicate the Donald Trump playbook, claiming that the election was rigged and planning an insurrection for January. Stephen Bannon and Jason Miller were among his advisors. Lack of military participation was among the reasons for the failure of Bolsonaro’s insurrection. Brazil had a military coup in 1964, which led to a military dictatorship that only ended in 1985. Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva acted promptly to prosecute participants. In 2023, Bolsonaro was convicted of abuse of power in office and banned from running for office until 2030 for spreading lies about election fraud. In America, Trump, who incited a far bloodier insurrection, continues to maintain he won the 2020 election as he prepares to possibly contest the 2024 outcome. Trump has worked hard for almost a decade to get Americans to give up their quaint ideas about voting as a valued democratic right. He has conditioned them to see democracy as a failing system, and to view elections as an inferior and unreliable way to choose leaders.

Ruth Ben-Ghiat’s Lucid post on how elections are the enemy of the autocrat is a must-read.

[epitome-the-burnkid-viii]

[notbadforacat]

Liberation Has to be Illiberal

The idea of an ongoing transgender debate positions transgender acceptance as something that must first be squared with some grand unifying philosophy of society, as if such a philosophy exists first and all rightful human experiences are but an expression of it, as if the intent behind such a philosophy hasn't always been to exclude, oppress, and scapegoat those who fall outside it.

But the reality is that transgender is not an abstract concept to debate. We are a people. Transgender , gender variant , GRSM, whatever othering labels placed upon us come and go, we are already here and have always been here. We are not something alien and new intruding on some ahistorical societal baseline; that baseline was composed to leave us out. So we fight it.

Some may call the above view an expression of the transgender movement's illiberal means, or the tribalism (racist term btw) of identity politics. But when the apparatuses of civilization we are told to engage with are designed to exclude us, what is there to do other than find the strength in each other to push through them?

[solarbird]

…so I don’t really have anything new for you today, but if you missed them, I strongly suggest that you give these two posts over the weekend a look. I think they’re valuable, and also under-read.

“In four years you don’t have to vote again, we’ll have it fixed so good you’re not gonna have to vote.” – Donald Trump meant exactly what he said, but not in the way most people are reporting it. Did you know North Korea has three legal political parties? And that they have elections too? And all three parties have seats in the people’s assembly? I’d be like that. Or more likely, like Russia, where Putin allows pet opposition parties. They’re just not allowed to win. There would still be elections and multiple political parties in MAGA America; they’d just be ones only Republicans could win.

For Elon so hated his daughter that he moved to destroy the world – On mask-off fascism and on the reasons for it, including sheer, unmitigated, unlimited hatred of women.

If those aren’t enough, I’d really also suggest you give a look at on M&Ms and sample selection, or really, on something more, which is about how Christofascists have created fake science for decades, and how they and their rightist allies continue doing so right now. It will help you explain to others why fascist cardboard science is cardboard, not real, and might help you spot it when it’s hard to tell the difference.

Back tomorrow with new material. Enjoy the Olympics, it’s gonna be a loooooong autumn.

98 days remain.