I just thought to note that the variable named "material hardship" has its impact in relative terms, not absolute terms. Material loss is hard to bear, regardless of the absolute level. And we experienced significant material loss during the Great Recession, even though in absolute terms we remain the richest that ever was, except for what we were a few years ago.
I don't think this is a coincidence. I think certain groups of white people have been having a hard time of it - addiction, loss of jobs, loss of prestige. That doesn't mean I regret salient social changes, but the loss still exists, and is a social force.
I certainly agree with Brad that fascism is an innate disease of mass democracy. But I think that there is another major contributing factor: the death of God, which also occurred during the rise of fascism. Many people need transcendence, as much as bread. If they cannot find it in contemplating the Divine, they'll find it in the here and now. Hence the invention of the sports fan. Or the authoritarian follower, who will owe allegiance to anybody who promises merger with something bigger: e.g., MAGA. (Or for that matter, the scholar who draws life's meaning from their work.)
Maybe this is just another way of saying that fascism is nourished by a weak civil society. I don't know if this points to anything useful we can do.
First, I'm always fascinated how the good professor can pull so many threads together on seemingly any given theme. It definitely sparks contemplation.
My contribution is that there may be a unique vulnerability in American democracy, separate from the propensity of East African Plains Apes to form tribes and follow charismatic leaders (inherited from a common ancestor with chimps?), or the inherent risk that democracies can fall prey to common passions and a single leader. I refer to our historical compromise with slavery and indulging racism. Not that anti-black racism itself explains our vulnerability. Rather, a large section of the country has developed a habit of mind, reinforced for a very long time with constitutional mechanisms, of respecting anti-majoritarian factions and being open to societal ranking within the species. Such people are simply not scared of authoritarianism. Maybe its due to roundheads settling in New England and cavaliers settling in the South, or the slavocracy tricking poor whites into hating blacks, or the Republican Party trading the Presidency for an end to Reconstruction, etc., but our history has made it easier than most for some people to hold democracy lightly or see it as an occasional impediment to the right ordering of society.
1848: In France universal suffrage was pushed by the right in 1848 as a way to regain power and succeeded in that respect. From this came the concept of the "dictatorship of the proletariat" via Blanqui, according to my recollection.
I just thought to note that the variable named "material hardship" has its impact in relative terms, not absolute terms. Material loss is hard to bear, regardless of the absolute level. And we experienced significant material loss during the Great Recession, even though in absolute terms we remain the richest that ever was, except for what we were a few years ago.
I don't think this is a coincidence. I think certain groups of white people have been having a hard time of it - addiction, loss of jobs, loss of prestige. That doesn't mean I regret salient social changes, but the loss still exists, and is a social force.
I certainly agree with Brad that fascism is an innate disease of mass democracy. But I think that there is another major contributing factor: the death of God, which also occurred during the rise of fascism. Many people need transcendence, as much as bread. If they cannot find it in contemplating the Divine, they'll find it in the here and now. Hence the invention of the sports fan. Or the authoritarian follower, who will owe allegiance to anybody who promises merger with something bigger: e.g., MAGA. (Or for that matter, the scholar who draws life's meaning from their work.)
Maybe this is just another way of saying that fascism is nourished by a weak civil society. I don't know if this points to anything useful we can do.
First, I'm always fascinated how the good professor can pull so many threads together on seemingly any given theme. It definitely sparks contemplation.
My contribution is that there may be a unique vulnerability in American democracy, separate from the propensity of East African Plains Apes to form tribes and follow charismatic leaders (inherited from a common ancestor with chimps?), or the inherent risk that democracies can fall prey to common passions and a single leader. I refer to our historical compromise with slavery and indulging racism. Not that anti-black racism itself explains our vulnerability. Rather, a large section of the country has developed a habit of mind, reinforced for a very long time with constitutional mechanisms, of respecting anti-majoritarian factions and being open to societal ranking within the species. Such people are simply not scared of authoritarianism. Maybe its due to roundheads settling in New England and cavaliers settling in the South, or the slavocracy tricking poor whites into hating blacks, or the Republican Party trading the Presidency for an end to Reconstruction, etc., but our history has made it easier than most for some people to hold democracy lightly or see it as an occasional impediment to the right ordering of society.
1848: In France universal suffrage was pushed by the right in 1848 as a way to regain power and succeeded in that respect. From this came the concept of the "dictatorship of the proletariat" via Blanqui, according to my recollection.
The intelligent version of Trump is Napoleon III, who developed many effective "populist" techniques still in use. (Ref: https://alor.org/Storage/Library/PDF/Dialogue-in-Hell.pdf)