If you don't do the post-mortem of "how did we end up here", no project, no plan makes a change.<p>* First understand every point on the curve between a healthy democratic society and autocracy is slippery, not stable.<p>* Next, understand how autocracy rises. If you want to look at the drivers toward autocracy, you will find them invariably in the same places.<p>* The US problems<p><pre><code> - Braunhemde, already before WOII, then imported more of them afterwards. No press coverage, they are real. Even the "Sieg Heil"s on CPAC did not draw media coverage.
- Cultism. Serious, deep cultism.
- As a specialization: Christian nationalism + conservatism, replay of the '30s
- https://xcancel.com/YourAnonCentral/status/1910179753430299043
- https://xcancel.com/sola_chad/status/1802398272293581272#m1
- Incredible concentrations of (inherited) wealth, deformed perspectives of the other 99% cultivated over generational spans
- No real journalism, instead, career in media house depend on commercial ownership. Narratives tailored to segment, but no deep and critical impact of analysis.
- "Let us talk about the tariffs today, they make zero economic sense"
- "I think what he meant is..."
- "Of course this is not entirely correct, but..."
- "President Trump has said.."
- "Rubio did a press conference today"
- Only drama, never the Big Picture.
- Elections? According to the press, those are just
- The latest polls!
- Repeat marketing from spin doctors at affiliated media houses
- "Debate" = Reality TV, scores are given on wit and emotional play
- Fake news is allowed as a business model.
- Rigidity => distorted beliefs. See rigidity about "free speech" via decades of pushed narratives. Now look at all the book banning, canceling of research based on keyword match.
- Rigidity about free markets. Now you pay 5 million for a dinner with The Suppreme Sovite to get your business free. Tariffs, because, you know?
- No concept of "Paradox of Tolerance". Parties that don't want to participate in a democratic society with rule of law and separation of powers CANNOT be part of the system. Period.
- Overall corruption by oligarchy. The GOP has been killed, but the Dems have the problems too, making it difficult to make any postmortem
- Exceptionalism
- Vast information deserts (there are states where information cannot reach people at all ), where nothing is served but right-wing reality distortion as commercial fast-food
- Normalization of personal retaliation against political enemies (that is why everybody is obeying in advance, people are used to be abused by power). Americans are frightened.
- No concept of common good, everyone hustling. Also: competition means *killing* the competitor. That playbook is deeply normalized, see Big Tech. Microsoft, Intel->AMD, Google etc
- Regulatory capture, rules for thee, exceptions for me
- "If you are so smart, why aren't you rich?" Deep cultural programming
- State capture, this is reaching the critical stage now.
- Normalisation of sado-populism. "I don't care, I want the other suffer".
- Class-based society
</code></pre>
This was my TED talk.