US could be under rightwing dictator by 2030, Canadian professor warns

[wjfox]

US could be under rightwing dictator by 2030, Canadian professor warns

Mon 3 Jan 2022 06.00 GMT

The US could be under a rightwing dictatorship by 2030, a Canadian political science professor has warned, urging his country to protect itself against the “collapse of American democracy”.

“We mustn’t dismiss these possibilities just because they seem ludicrous or too horrible to imagine,” Thomas Homer-Dixon, founding director of the Cascade Institute at Royal Roads University in British Columbia, wrote in the Globe and Mail.

“In 2014, the suggestion that Donald Trump would become president would also have struck nearly everyone as absurd. But today we live in a world where the absurd regularly becomes real and the horrible commonplace.”

Homer-Dixon’s message was blunt: “By 2025, American democracy could collapse, causing extreme domestic political instability, including widespread civil violence. By 2030, if not sooner, the country could be governed by a rightwing dictatorship.”

[...]

Worse, he said, Trump “may be just a warm-up act”.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... ump-canada

[funkervogt]

Homer-Dixon’s message was blunt: “By 2025, American democracy could collapse, causing extreme domestic political instability, including widespread civil violence. By 2030, if not sooner, the country could be governed by a rightwing dictatorship.”

He has something in common with a famous American right-winger.

Suicide of a Superpower: Will America Survive to 2025?

[jamestiago]

A bit meaningless, left-wing and right-wing dictators have been, are and will be in power at different and/or concurrent periods of time, until we die.

[BaobabScion]

A bit meaningless, left-wing and right-wing dictators have been, are and will be in power at different and/or concurrent periods of time, until we die.

I'm sure this sounded cooler in your head.

[jamestiago]

A bit meaningless, left-wing and right-wing dictators have been, are and will be in power at different and/or concurrent periods of time, until we die.

I'm sure this sounded cooler in your head.

Not really, there are always headlines fearmongering about the end of democracy or the rise of a rightwing dictator by these more left leaning outlets. Coulds and woulds and such.

[caltrek]

It is not "fearmongering" to be concerned about the future of democracy in the United States or anywhere else.

The biggest danger to democracy comes from apathy. This is why a recent poll on the matter is particularly discouraging.

Older Americans were far more concerned about the fate of democracy than younger respondents, and also more likely to support the work of the Jan. 6 commission.

Source: https://www.axios.com/jan-6-poll-axios- ... 2c5a9.html

Do younger people not realize, or perhaps not care, that the alternative to democracy is a right-wing dictatorship, or perhaps even fascism?

Perhaps they simply do not understand the nature and history of fascism as it expressed itself in the World War II era. Indeed, how it expresses itself today and in the more recent past throughout the globe in countries where democracy does not exist.

I am tired of these "the left is just fearmongering" attitudes.

Smoking is hazardous to your health = fearmongering?

Global warming is a threat to our well-being = fearmongering?

Covid is a threat to the public health = fearmongering?

Wake up.

[BaobabScion]

A bit meaningless, left-wing and right-wing dictators have been, are and will be in power at different and/or concurrent periods of time, until we die.

I'm sure this sounded cooler in your head.

Not really, there are always headlines fearmongering about the end of democracy or the rise of a rightwing dictator by these more left leaning outlets. Coulds and woulds and such.

No. Instead, fearmongering seems to be more prevalent on right-wing outlets like Fox and OANN, to the point that I wonder if it's a part of their company motto. Every segment of theirs is focused on either the "eVil CoMmunists", perceived "wokeness" in university, the threat of transgenders hunting their kids, or AOC. All Tucker and Hannity do is talk about "Coulds and woulds and such".

Also, this sentence doesn't take from the vapidness and faux-edgyness of your original statement. Please do tell us about the left-wing and right-wing dictators that have been in power in the United States. What were their names?

[jamestiago]

It is not "fearmongering" to be concerned about the future of democracy in the United States or anywhere else.

The biggest danger to democracy comes from apathy. This is why a recent poll on the matter is particularly discouraging.

Older Americans were far more concerned about the fate of democracy than younger respondents, and also more likely to support the work of the Jan. 6 commission.

Source: https://www.axios.com/jan-6-poll-axios- ... 2c5a9.html

Do younger people not realize, or perhaps not care, that the alternative to democracy is a right-wing dictatorship, or perhaps even fascism?

Perhaps they simply do not understand the nature and history of fascism as it expressed itself in the World War II era. Indeed, how it expresses itself today and in the more recent past throughout the globe in countries where democracy does not exist.

I am tired of these "the left is just fearmongering" attitudes.

Smoking is hazardous to your health = fearmongering?

Global warming is a threat to our well-being = fearmongering?

Covid is a threat to the public health = fearmongering?

Wake up.

I think the problem is when problems collide with political definitions. Everyone can agree smoking is bad for your health, or that covid exists, but can everyone agree with where to draw the line in the measures that are taken against covid? The main points I see raised are about individual freedoms, such as the decision to take or not the vaccine, and whether one should be barred from society for not taking it. In this case, I agree that dictatorships are bad, but you say the alternative to democracy is right-wing dictatorship. Why not left-wing dictatorship? This is where part ways.

[caltrek]

I agree that dictatorships are bad, but you say the alternative to democracy is right-wing dictatorship. Why not left-wing dictatorship? This is where part ways.

Well, this thread is about the United States, which is the country that I live in. Sure, in theory a left-wing dictatorship is also possible. In actual fact, certainly as I perceive it, there is no real threat or immediate danger of a left-wing dictatorship taking power in the U.S. The left is more or less completely devoted to extending democracy to all segments of adult society, as well as protecting the recently gained voting rights of many in minority communities. In contrast, the right is promoting a Big Lie to undermine democracy. Hence, the clear and present danger from the right.

[Cyber_Rebel]

Pretty sure America would need an actual left wing to begin with in order to formulate a so called "left wing dictator." Obama passing some half assed version of UHC and being called Stalin by Faux News is not what I'd consider that to be. Covid policies also can't be placed under the typical spectrum, as Australia has had some of the strictest measures of any country under Morrison, same for Ontario's Doug Ford, and even the Austrian gov is "conservative." (By their standards not the U.S.) Contrast this with places nominally considered to be "left wing" like Sweden and their loose handling of the pandemic.

America is a country that considers anything left of Ayn Rand to be socialist/communist and even hilariously has infighting between its own far-right calling each other "commies." The idea of a left-wing dictator emerging is just astronomically less likely than a right-wing one. The people themselves aren't even left-of-center, and no amount of "polling data" makes up for the fact that the American populace don't ever vote that way. Sorry, but Bernie Sanders is actually pretty damn boring (centrist) the moment you take him out of America.

That national identity of America may as well be anti-collectivist, except when identity politics are concerned. And no, something divorced from actual economics is not in the actual left-wing of materialist thought. Said potential dictator also needs military backing I'm assuming and won't have it from "progressives" who regularly call for lessening those funds, so this is yet another thing in the favor of the very right-wing establishment in Washington.