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The Necessary Ingredients For Dictatorship
How we can already see the USA’s inevitable future
When we look at the twentieth century and the rise of fascism in Europe and Communism in Russia and China (among many other examples) we see a few essential features that must coexist in order for a tiny minority of maladjusted individuals to seize and thereafter retain power. As we are now shredding the last remnants of Western civilization with atavistic glee, it’s worth reminding ourselves of those essential features so that we cannot be surprised when we find ourselves living in a dictatorship — albeit probably one that, like Ancient Rome, preserves the illusion of an earlier and less totalitarian era.
First of all there must be economic instability. When you have millions of people who can’t secure paid employment while simultaneously inflation is causing the price of even the most basic goods to soar out of reach, it’s obvious that mass disenchantment will occur. As humans are at the best of time not well suited to attempting anything approaching coherent reasoning, the vast majority of the discontented will be gulled by demagogues who promise easy answers. As simple-minded lies are already the daily currency of politics in most OECD nations — exemplified of course by the utterly dysfunctional USA — it will be simplicity itself to gull the masses by promising a quick end to their suffering by means of the usual “solutions.” These will include (i) blaming everything on foreigners, (ii) pretending that national self-sufficiency will mean “jobs for everyone,” and (iii) hinting that as those damn’ foreigners are responsible for all our woes it’s only right and proper that they are suitably punished.
The mob will lap it all up and howl for more because they always do.
Next, there must be political incapacity. This may come in several forms. One form is exemplified by the spineless imbecile Biden: those supposedly in power may make windy speeches about how the demagogue(s) threaten democracy but they will take no action, thus revealing their total impotence. Another form is by attempting to co-opt some of the demagogue’s proposals, thus validating them and convincing the mob that the demagogue is the true legitimate leader — because people always want the original, not the milquetoast copy. A…
