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Comment by criley2 | Hacker News Reader

The Tartars are over the hills. Democracy is in decline. Authoritarianism is on the mega-rise. The state of democracy is bad and looking worse, and if the Brexit/Trump trend of destroying the EU and breaking up the Atlantic Alliance bear just a bit more fruit, you may find that these "Tartars" are a lot closer to you than you once believed.

You call me blind to the future by looking at the past, but quite frankly, you appear to be repeating the mistakes of the past by not learning from them.

Democracy was not "won". Liberty for all does not exist.

These are fights that every generation must wage.

Or we will (and are currently) losing.

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It's not obvious to me that democracy is in decline, or authoritarianism on the rise.

Over what time-frame? Do you have supporting data you can point me to ("In the past 10 years, more countries have switched from democratic to non-democratic government than vice versa")?

Thanks!

You’d probably be interested in the book “How democracies die” by two Harvard political scientists. They walk through the warning signs of a failing democracy and how many others have collapsed - and the answer is actually yes, there are plenty of warning signs that American democracy in particular is in trouble.

Some of the evidence they walk through: the collapse of political norms, political restraint and the rise of win at all costs brinksmanship, the delegitimization and dehumanization of political rivals, attacks against independent institutions and neutral arbiters, and much more.

Sure. https://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2018/01/daily-...

Is a great place to start.

The EU under its unelected President and unaccountable unelected lawmakers (the EU parliament can't propose laws) with a constitution that would be thrown out anywhere else (and never put to the electorate as a whole) is doing a pretty good job of destroying itself never mind the rats deserting the sinking ship.

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