Having listened to Dennis Prager for over a decade, I’d long ago learned that most Leftists are incapable of listening to, let alone understanding the views of conservatives. They’re so deeply entrenched in their own echo chamber that they seem impervious to any ideas that don’t meet the officially sanctioned Leftist narrative.
Traveling through SFO the other day, I saw the book, How Democracies Die, for sale. I had a strong suspicion of what it was about but held judgement until I did some research. Here is an extract:
America failed the first test in November 2016, when we elected a president with a dubious allegiance to democratic norms.
Donald Trump’s surprise victory was made possible not only by public disaffection but also by the Republican party’s failure to keep an extremist demagogue within its own ranks from gaining the nomination.
How serious is the threat now? Many observers take comfort in our constitution, which was designed precisely to thwart and contain demagogues like Trump. Our Madisonian system of checks and balances has endured for more than two centuries. It survived the civil war, the great depression, the Cold War and Watergate. Surely, then, it will be able to survive Trump.
Here’s another article along the same line.
So, without opening the book, how did I possibly know that it would be a highly biased screed against Donald Trump? Please refer to the first paragraph above.
Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt purport to be political scientists. The second half of that profession involves science, which is all about research and inquiry. Being a scientist does not mean having predetermined Leftist views and then forcing all data to adhere to those views.
If anyone ever gets the opportunity to interview either of these men, please ask them the following questions:
- Is directing police and spy agencies to secretly monitor private conversations of your political opponents good or bad for democracy?
- If senior members of the top police agency of a country decide that they will use their power to defeat a duly elected president, is that good or bad for democracy?
- If the mainstream media mostly takes the side of one political party and constantly attacks another political party good or bad for democracy?
- If most members of the mainstream media ignore facts coming out about the corruption and alleged illegal behavior of one political party, is that good or bad for democracy?
- If a political leader, and those around her, are found to have accepted large donations from foreign entities, is that good or bad for democracy?
- If people of one particular political stripe constantly call “racism” over everything they disagree with, is that good or bad for democracy?
- If students and others are permitted to silence any speech on college campuses that they disagree with, is that good or bad for democracy?
- If two Harvard professors, in the Political Science faculty of Harvard University, write a 320 page book about how democracies die and ignore all of the questions listed above, does that indicate they are more Leftist Political Hacks than scientists?
Way to drag these bigoted, deceptive leftards into the light, Robert.
You make a similar argument to what I have been saying for years now. The only way I see to EFFECTIVELY disrupt this globalist cabal and deprogram their groupthunk minions is a long-term series of well-promoted public debates between the ‘left’ and ‘right’. I am not talking farcical election debates here, I am talking a series of formal debates with formal rules. I am talking a forum where fact and reality reign supreme, not emotion and propaganda. Any politician who refused a challenge to openly debate their ideologies would be tainted as both weak and evasive. To me, this isn’t about selling the wonders of conservatism, it is more about helping leftards hold a mirror to themselves so they can honestly come to terms with what they have become. We may be the Deplorables, but they have become the Despicables.
BTW, if you cannot stand up and effectively argue for your opponents side too, then you do not really understand your enemy. If you cannot rationalize your own POV without personally attacking your opponent, then you do not even really understand your own arguments, either.
Liberals, leftists, democrats or whatever you want call them are not interested in democracy, personal freedoms and/or liberty. Last year I was forced to endure an Earth Day party that put the whole SJW echo chamber on full display. Once I got past the embarrassment of being in the same room as these lunatics I took it as a learning experience. These moonbats will stop at nothing and do/say anything to advance their twisted agenda with only Venezuelan style socialism as their end game.
BTW… My scathing comments of the Canadian Royal family’s visit to India in the CBC comments section have all been disabled. He is pathetic they are the embodiment of freeloading pathos.
If a man is elected to be leader of his party and then is elected to the Oval Office not because of his achievements and character but because of the color of his skin….is this good for democracy?
It’s sad that they rail against “the Republican party’s failure to keep an extremist demagogue within its own ranks from gaining the nomination” even though the GOP’s process is much closer to democracy* than the Democrats broad use of super-delegates. These two are part of the darkness where democracy dies.
* Actually, representative democracy, but I’m not sure they would understand the distinction.
It’s hilarious to watch leftists invoking constitutional protections while during Obama’s term with the avalanche of executive orders and appointed “Czars” they were ranting on about the constitution being an outdated document.
The Americans are far ahead of Canada in asking the fundamental questions about how they are governed and by whom. The majority of Canadians take a intellectually weak ‘out’ by abdicating the critical process of evaluating what they are told. Progressives are given a ‘bye’ at almost every opportunity by intellectuals, media and yes most politicians.
Progressives like the Dippers and Liebels actually compete during elections to bribe voters for their votes using taxpayer dollars. If they actually gain government like the BC Dippers they immediately fund their future campaigns by paying themselves $’s per vote received.
The conservatives, which really don’t have a movement, simply claim they are sensitive but more fiscally responsible than progressives. Fiscal literacy which should be the bedrock of their platforms is not even understood by many of their candidates. They are not that different than the Liebels as they pick leaders who appeal to what core? Their membership is continually infiltrated by pink conservatives who deliberately steer the Party in failing strategies.
“The second half of that profession involves science, which is all about research and inquiry. Being a scientist does not mean having predetermined Leftist views and then forcing all data to adhere to those views.” Those two sentences could also accurately describe what is going on in “climate sciences”.
Back on topic, those eight questions would very accurately describe a conditioning of sorts for setting the stage for a coup or usurpation of the political system. One group has taken control of the critical parts of the machinery of state. This is how the communists operated in Eastern Europe at the end of WWII. The so-called coalition governments had the communists holding the justice, defense, and police portfolios and they used these positions to take control of the country.
Kind of like how the Praetorian Guard operated during the declining stages of the Roman Empire.
As some of you may know, Sam Harris is as anti-Trump as they come. In his most recent podcast he interviews Niall Ferguson, who he describes as the first person to give him pause about his extreme stance against Trump.
Niall Ferguson is a financial historian and is also recently married to Ayan Hirsi-Ali. He said a few cringe-worthy things but overall it’s worth the listen.
Episode #117
https://samharris.org/podcast/
thanks, now i don’t even have peruse it.
If a man is elected to be leader of his party and then is elected to the Oval Office not because of his achievements and character but because of the color of his skin….is this good for democracy?
– And is awarded a prestigious international civic decoration BEFORE he even takes office – is this good for democracy?
Oh and – … but also by the Republican party’s failure to keep an extremist demagogue within its own ranks from gaining the nomination
Without really wanting to know, how would it be possible for the Republican Party to do that in the teeth of voters who wanted that candidate? Mind you, the Democrat Party pulled it off……
I can tell you now exactly what their answer will be: “Racist! Sexist! Homophobe! White Supremacist!”
Here’s how Democracies THRIVE …
1. Voters throughout a majority of the counties, spread throughout the entire country, VOTE for a candidate they support … for their own personal reasons, by secret ballot. Then, by way of the Electoral College (as structured by the US Constitution), their votes have proportional weight to those cast in monolithically-political population centers. Their votes are not held hostage to the tyranny of the majority.
2. One Citizen, one vote. No dead voters. No multiple ballots mailed in from a single voter. No Illegal alien voters. No failure to count military votes. No ex-felon voters. Require photo identification for every vote cast … including vote-by-mail.
3. No Super-delegates which are structured to allow the Party and not The People to elect candidates.
4. Cleaning up the governmental bureaucrat-swamp which has, on occasion, worked to undermine the President-elect, before he ever takes office.
5. Ensure a FREE and balanced JOURNALISTIC Press free from bias … if not downright collusion with one Political Party and one candidate.
6. No motor-voter; ex. California’s “honor system” voter registration by illegal alien drivers license applicants.
The 2016 Presidential election was the MOST Democratic election in my lifetime. Only the LOSERS dispute that.
How Democracies Die seems to be the title of a flawed premise. In the case of the US, a constitutional republic, democracy was intended as simply the means of giving consent of the governed. Democracy has evolved into a form of show business where the electorate, mostly devoid of knowledge in basic civics (constitutional inheritance) gets to vote in an auction of looted bounty and favours by two competing parties. One embodying an advanced welfare statist agenda and protectorate of the dominant progressive left post-modern nihilist culture, and the other, a coalition of less radical progressives along a continuum extending to including constitutional conservatives and some libertarians. The progressive (leftward) cultural creep is now such that the later is led by someone who only a couple of generations ago would have been (and was) comfortably within the former party and yet is now seen by that faction as so radical as to be illegitimate. It is the concept of America as a constitutional republic that is dying and in great part due to its democracy. Countries such as ours with less rigorous constitutions are as bad or worse.
OK let’s analyze this, one thing at a time.
Apparently, the professors are from an institution in Boston.
One can observe that even those that disagree with their politics, will have much admiration for those that went to study at the institution and those that never left it.
Here it can be noted that Bush and Trump never went to the institution. That is the first and most serious affront to those that take umbrage to be governed by them, bar none. All other things considered are very much peripheral.
It is much like little kids playing and do one-upmanship, the resentment of the self-appointed is fierce, something to behold.
The ruling class that includes the politicians, those that went to “socials sciences” school for a long time and the “journalists”.
As anybody that actually reads can tell, politicians without exception of any color and any wind are corrupt, some to a greater and some to a lesser degree, though to a degree nonetheless. They want to get elected and get on a gravy train until death do us part. The cocktail circuit is a most powerful drug.
There are of course that are exceptions, seems Churchill, Thatcher until they booted them out. Joe Clark went to his quick demise (his politics sucked, he however refused to compromise), Ralph Klein was one of those few known to survive until he decided it was time to hang it up.
Socialist aristocracy does not like those that take the fork in the road. Heh.
Trump is not a professional politician, he is abrasive and does not give a damn what they think. He has a job to do. He had a plan and said what his job will be. As a guy that thinks that things need to be done, he is doing that more or less.
If somebody has a better idea, go get elected and see how that will work.
It is quite possible that by the time he is finished the swamp, led by the two shit shooters will drag him down to their ugly morass.
It is interesting to note that Ralph Klein in his time actually done what he explicitly, without any question, said he would do. Made the media angry, made the federales angry, made unions angry and more. In spite of all of that, people re-elected him over and over until he had enough. You may also note in this regard that the province was in excellent shape when he retired and went downhill from that point in time to now, governed by socialists and socialist extremists.
“Social scientists” and “political scientists” are something akin to alchemists.
They keep looking at their collective navel to see if it will change, disappear or something. There is virtually no purpose to their life. They basically learned in their school how to shoot the shit, as the popular saying goes. There is zero productive outcome, very much like what you just reading right at this very moment.
The amazing thing is that they actually make living on wasted oxygen.
The “journalists” are the very instruments of propaganda, they rule the print, radio and TeeVee. There are those that oppose them and those that are fiercely independent.
Note that Sharyl Attkisson is one of those that are completely independent so much so that the socialists will insist that she is on the conservative side. In fact it only appear to be so because the facts of life are conservative, for lack of other term. There, as some may specify, is no evidence to the contrary.
You as a consumer of the manufactured news have zero, none, nada chance to object to their omissions, distortions, lies and fakery.
Yes, you can write to the editor, he will edit you into something you did not write. You can write to the blog, you can respond to an article, none of that will get the attention. It is more of an afterthought without notice. Exception of course for those that make it their business to know.
There is much more to be said. This guy here thinks that you may have had enough already.
Simple confirmation that left and logic is incompatible. Also that the sewer status quo was warmly embraced as a comfort blanket and history lessons are to be avoided at all cost. Alexander Tytler was truly a man of vision.
http://commonsensegovernment.com/the-tytler-cycle-revisited/
Alexander Tytler was right. Whether he realizes it or not, Trump is giving the American people a chance to keep from slipping into the last stage. The Democrats, adhering to their current radical left ideology, were on the verge of taking firm control through their corruption of the various justice branches and the media and the election of Trump frustrated that. Hence the shrill backlash and the efforts of misguided political scientists referenced by Robert.
As an aside, for Canada it is too late, as we have moved into the bondage stage with no leaders in sight to take us back to the Liberty stage. All we have to look forward to is a continual increase in the subservience level. The Laurentian Elite have a firm grip on our country.
Yes, the Tytler Cycle is quite interesting … yet this particular article was written in early 2009 … at the absolute economic LOW of the housing bubble collapse. It was the optimal time to be a doomsayer. Donald Trump wasn’t even a twinkle in eyes of RED State voters. And the supporting events distributed through the cycles, cited by the Author are missing some significant watershed events and movements. Starting with The East India Company (among other British companies) seeking economic freedom and profits in America. These economic entities had a greater influence on the settlement of the new world than by those seeking spiritual freedom.
This is just ‘whataboutism, the post’ and that’s not even getting into the issue of the Nunes memo being pretty much nothing. None of this addresses the point in the quoted paragraph.
“The Americans are far ahead of Canada in asking the fundamental questions about how they are governed and by whom. ”
No they’re not. This is just a fantasy on your part. Americans are as wanting of a gigantic government to lead, direct, and comfort them as Canadians are. Canadian governance is, overall, better at the moment. Better judicial system for one thing. Less fiscal insanity for another.
Obama proved how bad that idea is.
“The Americans are far ahead of Canada in asking the fundamental questions about how they are governed and by whom. ”
That may be truer than you think – though Americans may not be “aware” that they are struggling to answer “who” is governing them.
Daniel Greenfield gave a speech in South Carolina about this very topic – and it was interesting to read. I recommend it.
https://www.printfriendly.com/print?imagesSize=full-size&source=cs&url_s=uGGC_~_PdN_~_PcS_~_PcSFHyGnAxAvFumoyBtFCBGmpBz_~_PcScabi_~_PcSab_~_PcSGuvF-pvIvy-JnE-zL-FBHGu-pnEByvAn-GrnmuGzy
A brilliant little essay. Fantastic.
Anyone know Levitsky and Ziblatt’s email addresses?
They really do deserve to be sent the questions posed.
MADCONDUCTOR
Thanks the Greenfield speech is outstanding. And you are right.
At least Americans are asking the question about governance. We in Canada haven’t even got that far though the syndrome is the same except played with Canadian politeness. In many ways it is more disguised here and low key. More difficult to pin down, though the game is the same.