I completely agree with you. To my taste, Mr. Trump has many distasteful traits, but the core problem isn't Mr. Trump, it's the ongoing bipartisan shredding of the norms of limited constitutional government, leading to the progressive weakening of liberal democracy in America.
Ee gad. Really? Is this what we can expect from a newletter called "Persuasion"?
"Door #1: A Democrat occupies the Oval Office, committed to reversing the Trump Administration’s legacy. Given the expansion of executive power in recent years, the new president’s authority is largely unconstrained. The excesses of DOGE, for example, are reversed on Day One. Civil servants are reinstated. Funding for environmental protections, universities, and public broadcasting is restored. More than that, through the power of executive orders, new programs dedicated to addressing social justice issues—from housing and healthcare to universal basic income—are created with a stroke of a pen. Congress, reading the political mood, falls in line and defers to the president’s will."
Nice rose color glasses painting ignoring the actual reality (I know you Critical Theory indocrinees have that issue of rejecting reality over narratives of power). Now let's try the real vision.
Democrat occupies the Oval Office...
Committed to reversing DOGE and getting back to massive waste, fraud and abuse, more government bureaucratic bloat and little agency kings and queens that are just political pawns untouchable by the will of the voters, money flowing to Democrat NGOs, money flowing to the climate crisis industry that is just another money-making scheme for Democrats, More destruction of merit over racist and gender-discriminatory DEI programs, more defunded police and crime, fewer people working and more national debt to give handouts to people that don't work. More massive floods of illegal immigrants to increase Democrat voters rolls and provide upper class Democrats cheap labor. More homeless. More drug addiction. Basically the rest of the nation starts to look like LA and Philadelphia. Oh, and unleash the authoritarian Karens like we experienced during the pandemic in all places run by Democrats. Like in the UK, Canada and Australia, expect to be arrested, fined and jailed for saying wrong words. Expect to be debanked, and have your services disconnected for criticizing the Karen-powered government.
Yes, Frank, all my life I've seen the horrible America created by Democrats. Why not give the GOP a chance to bring back girdles, back-alley abortions, Papal Bulls on contraception, Jim Crow (I saw the Colored/White drinking fountains in the 50s - just what America is about, Frank), FBI assassinations of those loud-mouthed Blacks, and CIA armies destroying budding nationalist movements. THAT is the America I grew up with and somehow the 60s spawned a bunch of milque-toast, molly-coddling, tree-hugger hippie types who just don't like your values. We simpering types had a good run since the New Deal and got the America we wanted (Great Society, etc.) and now you have yours. jack-booted thugs and all. Viva Democracia!
Yeah, well, none of that is remotely real, but you Dems are chock-full of hysteria, hyperbole and hypocrisy.
The jackboots are from our left-headed, collectivist-loving, establishment of over-educated, under-producing upper-class PMC professional looters and their mob of blue haired, feminazi vagitarians and their low-T male laptops working in bullshit jobs or sponging off the government. In other words, the Democraps.
Emily, a (far) more profound question - with history in its vast sweep - is this:
IS DEMOCRACY WORTH PRESERVING?
The underlying premise of the Save Democracy! religion is that it, and it alone, is the perfect solution. History’s irreducible organizing paradigm. Fukuyama’s End of History.
But what if…it isn’t? 😳
Didn’t we hear Sir Thomas Moore cry out “Save the Papacy!” as England pulled away from Rome?
Didn’t we hear “God Save the Queen!” as monarchies stumbled and parliaments ended royal rule everywhere?
Hasn’t humanity tinkered and toyed with all manner of organizing governance - from Republics to monarchies to theocracies to Marxism to fascism to respond to modernity and changing mores?
Hasn’t the miraculous steam train (a world changing innovation) given way to automobiles and passenger jets and Waymos? Do we still insist on steam trains not retiring to museums as a relic of our glorious past?
We need to see our present moment more deeply and profoundly than merely Preserve Democracy. Democracy is neither sacred nor holy. It was not etched in stone by the finger of God. Our constitution was written by candlelight with a feather dipped in an ink well. It is a structure that thrives ONLY when citizens can cohere on collective values. And citizens, once, cohered around a handful of these values that enabled democracy to function.
Modern technology has FOREVER and IRREPARABLY changed this required ingredient. It atomizes humanity into infinitely smaller interest groups (in an effort to be perfectly targetable and monetized) whose online users forge “mini-fiefdoms” of self interest, rights, privileges, and demands for recognition. That will be the enduring legacy of “social media”.
Technology has rendered democracy a eunuch. It can not function in such a “Right for Me” online world we occupy more everyday. Just as Gutenberg’s press allowed books to be read and Luther’s ideas to spread and the Reformation to obsolete a thousand year reign of Papal rule - so will modern technology destroy what we have now. There is no going back. And maybe, in the Big Picture, that’s called progress. Maybe the painful death of the steam train is the only way to assure humanity invests in highways and airports rather than insisting on laying more track.
So I invite all the Big Thinkers to wrestle with that far more profound, and enduring, challenge.
I'll pick door #2. But where you during Obama ("Never let a good crisis go to waste. I've got a phone and a pen.") and Biden ("What immigration law? I don't see any immigration laws!").
Silence then, but concern now has the whiff of hypocrisy.
I sort of agree with the premise if reduced to rule of law > specific policies. But I think this binary framing is not good. What brought about the zeitgeist the allowed for Trump and Maga? I’d argue a sense that democracy wasn’t delivering. Many before have argued that there is a balance of democratic friction. Too little friction and you can get a seesaw of counterproductive policies, often focussed on short term gains. Too much friction and the deadlock of a withering status quo becomes out of touch and not representative of democratic will.
When norms are gone, how much can well designed systems do whilst maintains their integrity? Option 2 is not really an option of long term democratic survival because Maga is not a true democratic movement. It is a movement of power that delegitimises its targets. So a option two would only further erode norms required to maintain democracy.
Therefore, I would suggest those invested must find an alternative that delivers but that enlivens the sociality of liberal democracy. If door number 3 isn’t an available choice, it must be created.
Churchill said that Americans will do the right thing after trying everything else. Over the last 60 years, we have tried everything else. Let’s get back to a constitutional democratic republic with a strong independent legislative branch, an energetic executive branch and a thoughtful judicial branch.
Throw a copy of the Constitution into a room full of senators and representatives and you are bound to hit someone who won’t recognize what it is.
> "Because it's better to die on one's feet that live on one's knees," Nately retorted with triumphant and lofty conviction. "I guess you've heard that saying before."
> "Yes, I certainly have," mused the treacherous old man, smiling again. "But I'm afraid you have it backward. It is better to live on one's feet than die on one's knees.
I'm agree that "Trump Democracy" is better than "Woke Dictatorship", but I'm not really convinced that everyone on his side loves democracy, and I don't think the next president being of the same ilk is going to be good for democracy.
I see the other guy's point of view, really, but I think we're seeing some things erode which are vital for a restrained government.
I completely agree with you. To my taste, Mr. Trump has many distasteful traits, but the core problem isn't Mr. Trump, it's the ongoing bipartisan shredding of the norms of limited constitutional government, leading to the progressive weakening of liberal democracy in America.
Door #2 would be more interesting if the author could describe how to construct that government.
Ee gad. Really? Is this what we can expect from a newletter called "Persuasion"?
"Door #1: A Democrat occupies the Oval Office, committed to reversing the Trump Administration’s legacy. Given the expansion of executive power in recent years, the new president’s authority is largely unconstrained. The excesses of DOGE, for example, are reversed on Day One. Civil servants are reinstated. Funding for environmental protections, universities, and public broadcasting is restored. More than that, through the power of executive orders, new programs dedicated to addressing social justice issues—from housing and healthcare to universal basic income—are created with a stroke of a pen. Congress, reading the political mood, falls in line and defers to the president’s will."
Nice rose color glasses painting ignoring the actual reality (I know you Critical Theory indocrinees have that issue of rejecting reality over narratives of power). Now let's try the real vision.
Democrat occupies the Oval Office...
Committed to reversing DOGE and getting back to massive waste, fraud and abuse, more government bureaucratic bloat and little agency kings and queens that are just political pawns untouchable by the will of the voters, money flowing to Democrat NGOs, money flowing to the climate crisis industry that is just another money-making scheme for Democrats, More destruction of merit over racist and gender-discriminatory DEI programs, more defunded police and crime, fewer people working and more national debt to give handouts to people that don't work. More massive floods of illegal immigrants to increase Democrat voters rolls and provide upper class Democrats cheap labor. More homeless. More drug addiction. Basically the rest of the nation starts to look like LA and Philadelphia. Oh, and unleash the authoritarian Karens like we experienced during the pandemic in all places run by Democrats. Like in the UK, Canada and Australia, expect to be arrested, fined and jailed for saying wrong words. Expect to be debanked, and have your services disconnected for criticizing the Karen-powered government.
Yes, Frank, all my life I've seen the horrible America created by Democrats. Why not give the GOP a chance to bring back girdles, back-alley abortions, Papal Bulls on contraception, Jim Crow (I saw the Colored/White drinking fountains in the 50s - just what America is about, Frank), FBI assassinations of those loud-mouthed Blacks, and CIA armies destroying budding nationalist movements. THAT is the America I grew up with and somehow the 60s spawned a bunch of milque-toast, molly-coddling, tree-hugger hippie types who just don't like your values. We simpering types had a good run since the New Deal and got the America we wanted (Great Society, etc.) and now you have yours. jack-booted thugs and all. Viva Democracia!
Yeah, well, none of that is remotely real, but you Dems are chock-full of hysteria, hyperbole and hypocrisy.
The jackboots are from our left-headed, collectivist-loving, establishment of over-educated, under-producing upper-class PMC professional looters and their mob of blue haired, feminazi vagitarians and their low-T male laptops working in bullshit jobs or sponging off the government. In other words, the Democraps.
Now I get it.
Emily, a (far) more profound question - with history in its vast sweep - is this:
IS DEMOCRACY WORTH PRESERVING?
The underlying premise of the Save Democracy! religion is that it, and it alone, is the perfect solution. History’s irreducible organizing paradigm. Fukuyama’s End of History.
But what if…it isn’t? 😳
Didn’t we hear Sir Thomas Moore cry out “Save the Papacy!” as England pulled away from Rome?
Didn’t we hear “God Save the Queen!” as monarchies stumbled and parliaments ended royal rule everywhere?
Hasn’t humanity tinkered and toyed with all manner of organizing governance - from Republics to monarchies to theocracies to Marxism to fascism to respond to modernity and changing mores?
Hasn’t the miraculous steam train (a world changing innovation) given way to automobiles and passenger jets and Waymos? Do we still insist on steam trains not retiring to museums as a relic of our glorious past?
We need to see our present moment more deeply and profoundly than merely Preserve Democracy. Democracy is neither sacred nor holy. It was not etched in stone by the finger of God. Our constitution was written by candlelight with a feather dipped in an ink well. It is a structure that thrives ONLY when citizens can cohere on collective values. And citizens, once, cohered around a handful of these values that enabled democracy to function.
Modern technology has FOREVER and IRREPARABLY changed this required ingredient. It atomizes humanity into infinitely smaller interest groups (in an effort to be perfectly targetable and monetized) whose online users forge “mini-fiefdoms” of self interest, rights, privileges, and demands for recognition. That will be the enduring legacy of “social media”.
Technology has rendered democracy a eunuch. It can not function in such a “Right for Me” online world we occupy more everyday. Just as Gutenberg’s press allowed books to be read and Luther’s ideas to spread and the Reformation to obsolete a thousand year reign of Papal rule - so will modern technology destroy what we have now. There is no going back. And maybe, in the Big Picture, that’s called progress. Maybe the painful death of the steam train is the only way to assure humanity invests in highways and airports rather than insisting on laying more track.
So I invite all the Big Thinkers to wrestle with that far more profound, and enduring, challenge.
What Next? 😳
I'll pick door #2. But where you during Obama ("Never let a good crisis go to waste. I've got a phone and a pen.") and Biden ("What immigration law? I don't see any immigration laws!").
Silence then, but concern now has the whiff of hypocrisy.
When will these people understand that anti-illegal immigration is not anti-immigration.
I sort of agree with the premise if reduced to rule of law > specific policies. But I think this binary framing is not good. What brought about the zeitgeist the allowed for Trump and Maga? I’d argue a sense that democracy wasn’t delivering. Many before have argued that there is a balance of democratic friction. Too little friction and you can get a seesaw of counterproductive policies, often focussed on short term gains. Too much friction and the deadlock of a withering status quo becomes out of touch and not representative of democratic will.
When norms are gone, how much can well designed systems do whilst maintains their integrity? Option 2 is not really an option of long term democratic survival because Maga is not a true democratic movement. It is a movement of power that delegitimises its targets. So a option two would only further erode norms required to maintain democracy.
Therefore, I would suggest those invested must find an alternative that delivers but that enlivens the sociality of liberal democracy. If door number 3 isn’t an available choice, it must be created.
Churchill said that Americans will do the right thing after trying everything else. Over the last 60 years, we have tried everything else. Let’s get back to a constitutional democratic republic with a strong independent legislative branch, an energetic executive branch and a thoughtful judicial branch.
Throw a copy of the Constitution into a room full of senators and representatives and you are bound to hit someone who won’t recognize what it is.
> "Because it's better to die on one's feet that live on one's knees," Nately retorted with triumphant and lofty conviction. "I guess you've heard that saying before."
> "Yes, I certainly have," mused the treacherous old man, smiling again. "But I'm afraid you have it backward. It is better to live on one's feet than die on one's knees.
I'm agree that "Trump Democracy" is better than "Woke Dictatorship", but I'm not really convinced that everyone on his side loves democracy, and I don't think the next president being of the same ilk is going to be good for democracy.
I see the other guy's point of view, really, but I think we're seeing some things erode which are vital for a restrained government.