For this reason, elected authoritarians who wish to consolidate control typically win not by flashy displays of might, but by convincing a critical mass of people that they’re just a normal politician — no threat to democracy at all.
That means the survival of democracy depends, to an extent not fully appreciated, on perceptions and narratives. In three recent countries where a democracy survived an incumbent government bent on destroying it — Brazil, South Korea, and Poland — the belief among elites, the public, and the opposition that democracy was at stake played a critical role in motivating pushback.
I really don’t get how people cannot get having paramilitary randomly grabbing, shooting, killing folks. Heck break car windows. cars are sacrosanct in this country. I mean seriously folks. This is not how a normal free society behaves. It drives me nuts how no one seems to get the bill of rights. We learned this in school. The declaration of independence and the greivences which are mirrored in the bill of rights to prevent the things the founding fathers fought to stop.
They don’t care because the goons aren’t grabbing their family members and smashing their cars.
There’s a huge number of people who don’t give a shit about anything beyond the ends of their own noses.
Seems worse than that. I mean I could not care about anything but me and mine and still not want others to suffer or at the very least recognize that this could eventually get to me. I mean there has to be some kind of cruelty or stupidy or mix of both to actually want and support this.
Decades of propaganda have convinced people that the Bill of Rights doesn’t apply to ‘criminals’ and ‘illegals’.
yeah you get the bs like they meant citizens when they wrote this and its like. Wrong! They specifically used terms throughout the constitution and you can tell it is deliberate and we know from their writings they realized how many rights were effectively nullified if it does not apply to all.
Although at the same time, enshrined in there is the idea that some are worth about 60% as much as others.
Not to defend the racist fascists, mind.
Yes along with a mechanism for change to get rid of things like that.