Beware rank democracy
A top Republican senator has said that “democracy isn’t the objective” of America’s political system, sparking widespread outrage at a time when his party has been accused by Democrats of plotting voter suppression and questioning a peaceful transition of power in November’s election.
He did say that.
Of course, how liberty, peace, and prospefity are defined will be up to the undemocratically selected Rulers, so the 90% of us on the bottom might not fare all that well.
His democracy tweet immediately prompted alarm, including from a number of former government officials.
Frank Figliuzzi, former FBI assistant director, tweeted: “‘Democracy isn’t the objective’. Our suspicions are confirmed.”
Walter Shaub, former director of the US office of government ethics, said: “People of my grandfather’s generation knew what to do about fascists. Now a member of Congress is urging us to join them. I wonder what made you hate America so much.”
Oh that’s easy. America is a mongrel country. That’s why Hitler hated it too. It lacks that all-important virtue, purity.
This is some ominous shit right here.
Prospefity! Covfefe for everyone!
These people seem to have forgotten the stuff they aren’t supposed to say out loud.
“Maybe you do not care much about the future of the Republican Party. You should. Conservatives will always be with us. If conservatives become convinced that they can not win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. The will reject democracy.”
― David Frum, Trumpocracy: The Corruption of the American Republic
The question IMHO is ‘what is it that ‘conservatives’ seek to conserve? Obviously, the existing set of social, economic and political arrangements, which they find generally agreeable. But what they do not openly campaign for is a restoration of the arrangements enjoyed by conservatives of yore. Otherwise, they would be out there urging on the reintroduction of absolute monarchy, chattel slavery, feudalism, votes for nobody (never mind votes for women), public floggings, public hangings, and all the rest of it: historically abolished by mass movements under radical or progressive leadership, but all of which the conservatives of yore fought to preserve.
So if you want to find out what the conservatives of tomorrow will be fighting to conserve, look no further than at what the progressives and radicals of today are out there campaigning for.
Power, mainly.
Finally! An honest republican! Thank you. Now if everyone will just look at him and think them.
I’m not sure if conservativism made this inevitable, but I think it the foreseeable outcome of fusing a political party with conservative religion.
Christianity is fundamentally undemocratic. Years ago in the debate chat rooms I would ask Christians if there was voting in Heaven, to decide plans or distribute resources or deal with whatever social interactions there might be. They thought this amusing. “No — God takes care of all that. He is Perfect, so His Will is supreme.”
“But what if some souls disagree? People aren’t all the same, they won’t all want the same thing in the same way. Shouldn’t it be set up so God’s authority can be overruled?” Upon which, they’d go nuts. The whole point of our existence on earth is to learn to give up our self-will and become subservient, you see. All the people who might object to the ‘liberty, peace, and prosperity’ guaranteed by God have been weeded out.
You entangle this mindset with a political bent towards authority over autonomy and democracy is going to start looking like a problem that needs fixing.
Add that in with the mingling of celebrity culture with a political party, and you get…Donald J. Trump.
It just makes me so irritated when I hear Christians claim that democracy happened because of Christianity. Really? So the Greeks and Romans were operating based on Christianity before there were any Christians? And an autocratic mindset can really lead to democracy? Sorry, not buying it.
Re Sastra @ 6,
tl;dr: no dissent allowed.
“Beware rank democracy”… er… unless we’re losing!