At best - and I think its a huge stretch - you MIGHT to patternation regionally. Might.
The really useful analysis - not presented here - is what were the economies doing at the same time. What was housing doing. What was education doing. Crime stats in a vacuum are nearly useless.
Dennis, thanks for writing this article. Its a subject much on all our minds these days.
I don’t know if we can get back to normal, even though a lot of people in opinion articles and podcasts want to say the pandemic is over and we can throw off our masks. The life that we had before COVID is probably gone for good. What comes next? We don’t know yet. I think the new normal is being built as we speak and we might not really be aware of the new normal until years from now.
Your citation below this paragraph of the "new normal" after the 1918 Influenza Pandemic backs this up. As does a lot of other history. Which means this paragraph is your money shot.
Frankly I don't think we can "go back" nor should we. Going back means more people ignoring class and race disparities in our society. Going back means too many people too underpaid for their work. Going back means too many people absent from their families too often because they have to make a living.
I get that a lot of people can't navigate the change well. And yes - we have miles to go before we sleep. History teaches us we can do this.
Down here in Mississippi all that money has to be appropriated by the legislature. They can't even get the governor to call a special session to "fix" medical marijuana, much less get this out the door.
Truth be told, Trump isn’t nearly as popular among Republicans as the worrier types would have you believe.
Peddle your BS elsewhere, please:
A Quinnipiac University poll conducted Oct. 15-18 found Trump has an 86 percent favorable rating and just a 10 percent unfavorable rating among Republican adults. And he already dominates early polls of the 2024 Republican primary. A Morning Consult/Politico survey from Oct. 8-11 found that 47 percent of Republican voters would vote for Trump; no other candidate was above 13 percent.
David Pepper's opinion piece over at the Guardian seems salient:
In some cases, even when a majority of voters voted for one party to be in charge, the rigged districts meant that the losing party remained in charge. In Michigan, in 2018, voters chose Democrats over Republicans for their statehouse by 52%-47%. Nevertheless, this led to a Republican majority in that statehouse of 58-52. In Wisconsin, losing the popular vote for the statehouse across the state by a 54-45 gave Republicans a 63-36 supermajority in that statehouse. Now that would truly impress a foreign autocrat – a system locking a minority into power despite a clear mandate by the voters that they wanted the opposite.
The prime culprits behind all this election rigging are the statehouses themselves – mostly anonymous elected officials who few voters know but who wield far more power than most Americans appreciate. And that includes the power to draw the district lines of both federal and state representatives (ie their own districts), as well as establishing most of the other rules of how elections are run, including how presidential electors are divvied up.
if you talk to more nationalist types, you’ll find that the thing they want to defend about America is its limited government
So a defense budget topping $700 Billion a year is limited government? Laws PREVENTING private companies from making decision about health requirements for their workforce is limited government? Tax cuts that only accrue to a small percentage of the economy but saddle the rest with growing dependencies on government assistance is limited government? DOMA was limited government? Really?
he also took over steel production for a time because private businesses were being ... obstructionist. Yet he's never lumped in with 1950's communist dictators like Stalin and then Kruyschev who did the same thing. I've always wondered why that is.
so the decades of polling showing a consistent rise in self identified right wing authoritarianism are - as far as you are concerned - lies as well? Good to know.
A lot of elites wanted that outcome because people were literally dying on their doorsteps and they didn't want to be held accountable for crashing the economy in 1929. Not unlike now actually.
As bad as they were, Jim crow, the treatment of Native Americans, etc. were not the result of unilateral Presidential action, but the whole government to include the Congress. Jackson’s “trail of tears” was enabled by legislation. Slavery and Jim Crow were legal, not the product of Executive decree.
As I note above many of the actions of authoritarian dictators are enabled by legislation or legislative acquiescence. History shows that most authoritarian regimes are propped up by legislators. It doesn't make them any less authoritarian.
Desantis signs a bill that was passed by the Florida assembly to protect individual rights. Absolutely none of that is authoritarian. It’s quite the opposite.
Cause China, and Russia, and every tin pot dictator in South America never had compliant legislatures that did the same sort of thing? So if Congress passed a bill saying you can't ever get a job anywhere in the private sector unless you are vaccinated and boosted you'd be ok with that?
You'd think after Gabby Petito's death this would be front page news, with Republican politicians lining up to decry the evil Chinese who did this . . .
To be completely transparent I agree with you on FDR's incarceration of Japanese Americans. It makes all his other progressive ideas difficult to support.
You can see it in how they flip-flop on Executive power depending on which President holds office.
Both parties are quite consistent on this from - each uses the executive powers aggrandized by the other and each complains about the other doing so.
You'd think that's glaringly obvious, but right above you there is reference to a "laundry list" of authoritarian things the left is alleged to do. I mean, It doesn't get more dictatorial then the Governor of Florida - who claims a p[political allegiance that is supposedly hyper supportive of private sector capitalism - signing a law banning private corporations from imposing vaccine mandates, even though statistically a company will shell out much more money for unvaccinated people because private insurance is raising rates, and because such people are almost uniformly the people being hospitalized and dying (which also has economic impacts).
SO the lack of statistics is I think part of the problem. Aside from the study I cited that is profiled in the Atlantic, there isn't academic work on this - or polling. You'd think there would be; I could see Fox or Rasmuessen or Quinnipiac riding the topic hard. But so far they have avoided it.
As to history - the history of authoritarians being used as bogeymen in the US is history the Right owns whole hog. They built that scaremongering on the backs of authoritarian regimes (like the Soviets) cloaked themselves in left looking propaganda. The left never controlled the USSR, and doesn't control China now.
On “Rafael A, Mangual compiles list of cities with record homicide rates in 2021”
At best - and I think its a huge stretch - you MIGHT to patternation regionally. Might.
The really useful analysis - not presented here - is what were the economies doing at the same time. What was housing doing. What was education doing. Crime stats in a vacuum are nearly useless.
On “Chris Cuomo, Of The Cuomo News Network and The New York Cuomos”
Time for him to retire as well.
Talk about white male privilege playing out.
On “What’s Normal After COVID?”
Dennis, thanks for writing this article. Its a subject much on all our minds these days.
Your citation below this paragraph of the "new normal" after the 1918 Influenza Pandemic backs this up. As does a lot of other history. Which means this paragraph is your money shot.
Frankly I don't think we can "go back" nor should we. Going back means more people ignoring class and race disparities in our society. Going back means too many people too underpaid for their work. Going back means too many people absent from their families too often because they have to make a living.
I get that a lot of people can't navigate the change well. And yes - we have miles to go before we sleep. History teaches us we can do this.
On “Government So Poorly Administered It Can’t Even Spend Money”
yeah the state has this budgetary trick for ... reasons ...
The medical marijuana thing is not a budgetary issue but it illustrates the point well . . . .
"
Down here in Mississippi all that money has to be appropriated by the legislature. They can't even get the governor to call a special session to "fix" medical marijuana, much less get this out the door.
On “Yes, Democrats Do Have to Be Perfect”
Yes they do, and their few vetos are constantly overridden by the state legislatures.
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Peddle your BS elsewhere, please:
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/a-majority-of-republican-voters-actively-want-trump-to-run-for-president-again/
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Welcome to my world. Jay's comments are the Whose Line is it anyway of public political discourse - everything is made up and the points don't matter.
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David Pepper's opinion piece over at the Guardian seems salient:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/nov/28/republicans-are-quietly-rigging-election-maps-to-ensure-permanent-rule
On “Some Unsolicited Advice For the January 6th Committee”
i am sure dozens of committee staff will argue this very point, only to be overruled by their members.
On “Is Leftist Authoritarianism A Thing Or Not?”
So a defense budget topping $700 Billion a year is limited government? Laws PREVENTING private companies from making decision about health requirements for their workforce is limited government? Tax cuts that only accrue to a small percentage of the economy but saddle the rest with growing dependencies on government assistance is limited government? DOMA was limited government? Really?
"
Except the actual OP doesn't argue that at all . . . .
"
"
he also took over steel production for a time because private businesses were being ... obstructionist. Yet he's never lumped in with 1950's communist dictators like Stalin and then Kruyschev who did the same thing. I've always wondered why that is.
"
so the decades of polling showing a consistent rise in self identified right wing authoritarianism are - as far as you are concerned - lies as well? Good to know.
"
Argentina was a banana republic with killing fields, a gulag of sorts and a wildly popular dynastic dictatorship.
"
A lot of elites wanted that outcome because people were literally dying on their doorsteps and they didn't want to be held accountable for crashing the economy in 1929. Not unlike now actually.
As I note above many of the actions of authoritarian dictators are enabled by legislation or legislative acquiescence. History shows that most authoritarian regimes are propped up by legislators. It doesn't make them any less authoritarian.
"
Cause China, and Russia, and every tin pot dictator in South America never had compliant legislatures that did the same sort of thing? So if Congress passed a bill saying you can't ever get a job anywhere in the private sector unless you are vaccinated and boosted you'd be ok with that?
On “Outcry Over Missing Chinese Tennis Star Peng Shuai Grows”
You'd think after Gabby Petito's death this would be front page news, with Republican politicians lining up to decry the evil Chinese who did this . . .
On “Is Leftist Authoritarianism A Thing Or Not?”
To be completely transparent I agree with you on FDR's incarceration of Japanese Americans. It makes all his other progressive ideas difficult to support.
Both parties are quite consistent on this from - each uses the executive powers aggrandized by the other and each complains about the other doing so.
"
I chose that governor as an example because he's being cast a Trump with a nicer veneer so that if rump doesn't run in 2024 he will.
You are correct about the national level though.
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Indeed I was. You got me thinking . . . .
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You'd think that's glaringly obvious, but right above you there is reference to a "laundry list" of authoritarian things the left is alleged to do. I mean, It doesn't get more dictatorial then the Governor of Florida - who claims a p[political allegiance that is supposedly hyper supportive of private sector capitalism - signing a law banning private corporations from imposing vaccine mandates, even though statistically a company will shell out much more money for unvaccinated people because private insurance is raising rates, and because such people are almost uniformly the people being hospitalized and dying (which also has economic impacts).
"
To what laundry list would you be referring?
"
SO the lack of statistics is I think part of the problem. Aside from the study I cited that is profiled in the Atlantic, there isn't academic work on this - or polling. You'd think there would be; I could see Fox or Rasmuessen or Quinnipiac riding the topic hard. But so far they have avoided it.
As to history - the history of authoritarians being used as bogeymen in the US is history the Right owns whole hog. They built that scaremongering on the backs of authoritarian regimes (like the Soviets) cloaked themselves in left looking propaganda. The left never controlled the USSR, and doesn't control China now.