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From: ltlee1@hotmail.com (ltlee1)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.china
Subject: The End of US Democracy Was All Too Predictable by Jason Stanley
Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2024 19:58:02 +0000
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"For 2,300 years, at least since Plato’s Republic, philosophers have
known how demagogues and aspiring tyrants win democratic elections. The
process is straightforward, and we have now just watched it play out.

In a democracy, anyone is free to run for office, including people who
are thoroughly unsuitable to lead or preside over the institutions of
government. One telltale sign of unsuitability is a willingness to lie
with abandon, specifically by representing oneself as a defender against
the people’s perceived enemies, both external and internal. ...

Philosophers have also always known that this kind of politics is not
necessarily destined to succeed. ...

In my own work, I have tried to describe, in minute detail, why and how
people who feel slighted (materially or socially) come to accept
pathologies – racism, homophobia, misogyny, ethnic nationalism, and
religious bigotry – which, under conditions of greater equality, they
would reject.

And it is precisely those material conditions for a healthy, stable
democracy that the United States lacks today. If anything, America has
come to be singularly defined by its massive wealth inequality, a
phenomenon that cannot but undermine social cohesion and breed
resentment. With 2,300 years of democratic political philosophy
suggesting that democracy is not sustainable under such conditions, no
one should be surprised by the outcome of the 2024 election.

But why, one might ask, has this not already happened in the US? The
main reason is that there had been an unspoken agreement among
politicians not to engage in such an extraordinarily divisive and
violent form of politics.
...
Democratic political philosophy, then, has been correct in its analysis
of the Trump phenomenon. Tragically, it also offers a clear prediction
of what will come next. According to Plato, the kind of person who
campaigns this way will rule as a tyrant. "

https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/trump-election-inequality-meant-that-us-democracy-was-doomed-by-jason-stanley-2024-11