Recent events have me worried that the country may be headed towards genuine dictatorship. Incrementally, of course, which means it will not be a blatant seizure of power, but a gradual surrender of power by people who think that giving up their freedom constitutes their compassionate and altruistic moral duty, even an act of patriotism. (The process has been gradual for some time, but I worry that the final stages may be upon us.)
Please, anyone, tell me I’m worried over nothing.
UPDATE: Thank you, Sarah Hoyt at Instapundit for the link and a warm welcome to all!
As some people seem to be misreading this post, I think it is fair to point out that while I am anti-Hillary (and think anyone would be a better president), I’m not talking about the merits of the two candidates so much as admitting to a creepy feeling that this awful election spectacle indicates the country is so unstable right now (and so far into decline) that literally anything could happen.
MORE: Related thoughts here.
Comments
27 responses to “I hope I’m just being crazy”
Whoever wins this horrible election, you’re not being crazy. You’re being pessimistic, though. The key to avoiding this, is to turn the culture around, and I’m not the only one fighting in those trenches. Nor the best.
The POWERS are losing one of their biggest tools.
Funny enough a hard Conservative site encourages my anti-Drug War posts.
Like this one:
https://www.hotgas.net/2016/06/really-drug-problem/
I think the people are fighting back.
Trump is a symptom of that. And if he intends to leave us with less liberty I think he will get the same treatment he has given Hillary.
The OFs who would sacrifice liberty for security are dying off. Young Republicans lean libertarian.
I’m hopeful.
You’re NOT worrying over nothing. We’ve been forced far along the road to dictatorship. Just today I came across two stories of leftists trying to suppress free speech. But people are fighting back.
The situation is serious, but not hopeless.
Progressives have been progressively working towards a genuine Dictatorship for more than a century.
Having a totalitarian state is a pre-requisite for implementing their agenda.
You can’t centrally plan the economy and redistribute wealth to create complete equality of income without first abolishing the Constitution and empowering a Dictator.
I’m not familiar with your blog but so many writers use the term dictator and Trump in the same sentence that I assume you think along those lines. Trump’s happy warrior call for all of us to act in our own self interest reassures me he won’t go down that road. He routinely jokes “should we wait for the ones who showed up late to get in?” and his crowds yell back happily “No”! He congratulates the ones close to the stage for having “good real estate.”
If you are worrying about Trump in this regard, on what basis? Have you seen him do what I’ve described and take him for a con man or liar?
Way too many of the people concern-trolling about Trump and the “alt-right” are the kind of people Ace addresses here: http://ace.mu.nu/archives/366214.php#366214
You are not wrong , just late to the realization. We actually stepped on that road in 2008 with the election of Barak Obama. He usurps authority that he does not have. He has done that several times. There was failure to stop him from cowardice on Republicans part. They refused to shut down the government to force a budget they agreed upon.
In fact Harry Reid refused to even have budget for 4 years. Cruz tried to stop Obama but did not get enough support.
The GOP could have impeached but the political reality is that they could not remove him because the Democrats do not care about limits just that their ideas get implemented.
So we actually have evolved into voting for our Emperor with terms . Democrats like all totalitarians are trying to game , cheat and rig the voting so only their people win.
Trump is the last attempt to get back to the Republic . There may not be another peaceful ability to right the direction.
The probability of civil war has been getting higher all the time. Even the Democrats know that.
Frankly, you are a starry eyed optimist. 8 years of corruption of the ideal of a nonpartisan bureaucracy has led to a dictatorship of judges and bureaucrats. Where is the rule of law at the IRS? There have been no indictments and conservative groups continue to be stopped by IRS delays. FBI? If they knock on your door is it because you said something bad about BHO or HRH Hillary I?
When I was a kid, there was a president who said he wasn’t a crook and later resigned. Now, we know they are criminals and there is no risk of anyone’s resignation. In protest of corruption or in shame.
I think that’s far down the slide into banana republic status.
Welcome to the party, pal!
We are living 1984.
The Progressive Search and Social tools have stolen your souls and the Elites are providing themselves the “legal and moral” authority to punish all who disagree with the view of the State.
It’s happening in colleges, it’s probably happening where you work. Disagree and be fired.
You’re not wrong, but the United States isn’t so easy to control. Think of what’s happening right now as a disease. America has a very strong immune system that fights back against dictatorship. It may take a while, and the disease can flare up before the immune system responds. We’ve had periods of near dictatorship such as the Wilson Administration, and the country then responded with periods of freedom.
The would-be authoritarians can only succeed when they operate in the shadows. Once people are aware of what’s going on they tend to start resisting, often only in small ways. I’m not a fan of either, but the support of people for Sanders and Trump is a sign of this, of resentment towards the “designated victors” in our political system. Resistance to laws like gun registration (which is being ignored in the states that implemented it), ignoring drug laws, refusal to join Obamacare, refusal to comply with political correctness and contempt for SJWs, there are signs that America’s immune system is responding.
This is a mess, don’t get me wrong. But Americans resent authoritarianism, and tend to push back when it gets intrusive. For every sheep-like person just going along there’s someone who will laugh in the faces of the power structure. We’re not doomed, though bad times are still ahead.
We have been approaching this cliff for generations. If Clinton wins, it will be a giant leap in that direction, and one of the final leaps necessary before we get there.
Trump is more likely to be a step away from the abyss. Liberals will rediscover their distrust for government and the struggle between Trump and the administrative state is likely to pay benefits for years to come.
Pffft. America has been over for a long time.
When you wake up Wednesday to President Elect Evita Clinton, remember you’ve been a chump the last couple weeks thinking Donald had a chance. He never had a chance. Hillary was always going to win. She is part of a machine that has cheating Justice Dept, cheating FBI, cheating IRS, cheating Obama, cheating ABCBSNBCNN, cheating Paul Ryan, cheating G. Bush, cheating Google, cheating Facebook.
We are all Californians now. Our children will be Detroiters.
I think you are correct that a neo-coup has been attempted and is in its final stages.
I also agree with the assessment that what we are seeing with the leaks, etc., is the loyalists (to the Constitution) in the Deep State who are conducing their own anti-coup operations. They see what is going on, see how it is being done by the people doing it, and are determined to stop it before it gets there.
Russia isn’t releasing things to Wikileaks. Factions within the CIA and NSA are.
Is it really dictatorship? Perhaps by the most strict definition. But when you give the burglar the keys to your house and don’t object to him removing your belongings, it’s difficult to make the case that you have been robbed.
The house is all but empty, and the burglar has already pawned off anything of value.
It’s hard to know how far along we are to the cliff: 5 years? 15? 50? But it’s coming inexorably. There’s no one to blame but ourselves, as RW so cogently puts it. I would only add that We the People are burglaring ourselves. We are a wicked, traitorous, and lazy Sovereign of this nation, Who can’t be bothered to read, understand, and enforce our own Foundational Law. For decades We have hired legislators and executives, and encouraged the appointment of judges, for the express (if usually unstated) purpose of trampling on the Constitution. The result: a Fed gov’t that is 95% grossly unConstitutional. From SocSec to EPA, from OSHA to Medicare, from the Dept of Ed to Roe v Wade, and many many others, We have encouraged and tolerated lawbreaking at the highest level. And No One Cares. The tyrants in our nation are not the politicians: they are our neighbors, our family, our countrymen. They are everyone who thinks that the Christian baker SHOULD be put out of business for refusing to bake a cake for a homosexual ‘wedding’. They are everyone who thinks that legal abortion SHOULD be forced on every state. They are everyone who thinks that the taxpayers SHOULD pay for someone else’s healthcare, or education, or housing.
Our only faint hope: that the statists will (unnecessarily; they’re getting everything else they want otherwise) go for a bridge too far, and try for an actual gun grab. Then: Civil War 2.0, and at least a chance that what emerges from the wreckage will be Constitutional.
But I fear that This Does Not End Well…
People want a dictator. Why do you think Americans, supposed the who live in the land of the free, actually insist that politicians control retirement (social security), medicine (medicare, medicaid, ACA, FDA, etc), education, EDUCATION FOR FUCK’S SAKE!!!?
It’s because liberty brings with it all that terrible personal responsibility. So much simpler to have a strong political leader take care of everybody.
That said, there’s a rather large contingent of Americans who live their lives from a position of fuck you, many of whom are heavily armed, veteran, and still with a lot of friends in police forces and the military. You have to deal with them if you’re an actual dictator.
Yes the heavily armed are here, and I’m glad, and although I may not be heavily armed, I’m armed as well. But what are our arms doing for us? If the tyrants among us continue to get their way, we’ll be sitting in the cold and dark, every business closed or chased overseas, every church shuttered since the Gospel will be declared ‘hate speech’, clinging to our AR-15’s saying ‘at least I have my guns!’ The 2nd A is supposed to protect all the rest. Lately? Not so much…
If Hillary is elected, legally or otherwise, there will be a dictatorship and 4th Generation Civil War within 6 months. Think Yugoslavia.
If Trump is elected, there is a small chance that there will not be a Civil War [although the Left will quite possibly start one] and that we may attempt to restore a rule of law for a period of time.
Trump is not a guarantee. He is a forlorn hope.
“Be Thou then Truly resolved; Duty is as Heavy as a mountain, and Death is as Light as a feather.”
Dictatorship or oligarchy or monarcy or revolution, take your pick.
Democracy depends on an informed and active electorate willing to work together despite their differences.
Once the people delegate their authority to those who provide security, jobs or bred, the Republic is finished.
Trumpism, as opposed to The Donald himself, is an attempt to bypass the oligarchs and the political families that have been running the country into the ground.
That’s a reason to vote for Trump. No matter what he may want to do, everyone will resist and any “pen and phone” dictatorial tendencies will be quickly neutralized.
There actually a chance – albeit a small one – that Congress might rediscover that they have a role in governing.
What happens after the next major financial or terrorist crisis? The state has been planning for something by training our military in urban warfare, funding military drone technology through Google, and dare I say it without sounding like a total conspiracy nut, fanning out deep cover domestic intelligence operatives. DHS isn’t stockpiling millions and millions of rounds without a reason.
Dictatorship needs an excuse.
SDN, it’s not “concern trolling” the alt-right is filled with white supremacist, misogynistic scum. I have seen that for myself with my own two eyes.
The TWANLOC Subotai Bahadur claims there be civil war within 6 months, what is true is there will not be. Trump! is not a forlorn hope, he is the abandonment of hope–he represents a hope only of a different fraction of people getting a bigger slice of the same corrupt pie.
I have seen you Subotai write lies which you know to be lies concerning Trump!’s failure in CO in the primaries. You disgust me in your lowering yourself to support such lying, thieving scum as Trump!, and in your abandonment of the principles of the constitution.
Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t after you.
Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean you’re paranoid enough.
There IS cause for optimism, despite the dire recent history and doom-and-gloom forecasts. The future is not a grassroots rebellion leading to civil war, but rather a new evolution in combating tyranny. There is neither advantage nor efficacy in fighting a tyranny using the practices of the past. Technology has given us a brave new world, and therein lies the means to bring down even the most tenacious tyranny. Creative thinking has always been our strongest asset. WWII was largely won by the innovation of the first sergeant. And if there is still one thing that the dwindling middle class is still good at, it is innovation borne of desperation.