The Path to American Authoritarianism
foreignaffairs.com
foreignaffairs.com
From there on, the road is clear. People are gullible, majority will believe anything media tells them.
much of the media is already de-facto captured - look at the headlines on a major news website today and compare it to what has actually happened. they don't need to be bought or sued into the ground like happened in other countries - the US media has just bowed down without force.
What US is this article talking about??? The US government makes up about half the US economy by GDP [0]. It is the largest government in the history of history. Arguably maybe 2nd to China in recent years.
I quite like this article - it has two obvious implications. (1) Reduce the size and scope of government and (2) Maybe the US Democrats should experiment with nominating better candidates and policies. I'm not sure the situation is dire enough to justify either of those things, the Republicans have been in similar straits in the past and just kept on keeping on.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_spending_in_the_Uni...
The important questions are:
1. What services do voters want (enough to pay for)
2. How can we meet that need at the lowest cost
The first has a broad range of valid answers, the second is something that everyone ignored until DOGE
They cared plenty before, and there's no real indication to me of a difference with DOGE.
Both pre- and post-DOGE, it's all about weird anecdotes like "this wrench cost $20,000! This toilet seat cost $600!"[0], which, even at their current rate of work, would only amount to a rounding error compared to the $2 trillion they talk about cutting.
Which is probably for the best, because the $2 trillion goal — about the combined total of the entire US social security system plus all military pensions — is so large that "success" will cause a huge recession.
[0] https://forums.pelicanparts.com/off-topic-discussions/378125...
And things like all the private businesses servicing government workers. Eg, in Washington - sure there'd be a lot there that isn't officially government spending but the ostensibly private infrastructure investment and consumption but really it is all supporting the operation of government.
Once the official stats say the government has reached 40% of the economy, the practical influence is going to be a bit larger again. I'm still happy to say >50%.
> Compared to other nations, especially other developed nations...
I don't think the difference can be defended as important. The US is running a large modern mixed economy. It hasn't been a small-government country since the 70s; at best.
That isn't a compelling case to say 40% of the economy is a small government. The ratio of government spending to private is getting pretty close to 1:1. I'd accept that it isn't "big" in the sense that some places manage to spend even more in % terms, but to call that behemoth "small" is a bridge too far. It is standard sized. Small governments don't control that much of the market.
EDIT And if you want to lean on the "relatively small", in the sense the article is using it makes sense to compare the sizes related to each other, in which case the US government is much larger than every other contender except China. Relative to the German or French government, the US government is enormous. It is a corruption honeypot.
The real difference is how governments involve themselves in the day to day of the economy and that has to do with regulation and other government interventions.
Small government is mostly ideological dogma since it makes no reference to what government is doing for you. Who wants a "small government" that provides no services to taxpayers?
It's amazing, and quite stupid, that the discussion seems to be so much about the size of government rather than what people are getting for their money and if it is worth the cost.
> Who wants a "small government" that provides no services to taxpayers?
The people who are saying "I want a small government". That is what a small government is. A small government is one that doesn't do very much and that test is how you can tell the US government isn't one.
Also, blue states are free to ignore Presidential decrees and laws accepted by Congress if their Supreme Courts see them as unconstitutional, and it will become very inconvenient to rule the country if many of the states start ignoring Washington, which they have full right to do.
https://www.militarystrategymagazine.com/article/civil-war-c...
At the rate things are going after two months, who knows if in four years democratic elections are still a thing.
The increasing authoritarianism disagrees with you, and states can only ignore federal law to the extent that the federal government allows it. There has been an increase in defiance recently, but nothing stops the feds from storming in and enforcing their laws beyond it not being seen as worth doing.
I seriously doubt military loyalty to Trump can be THAT high.
The idea that the national guard will rise up against their own commander in chief is a fantasy. We've already seen how it plays out when states raise an army against the federal government and it doesn't work out very well for them.
Even if (and it's a big if) the military didn't agree with Trump specifically, they'll still largely believe in the country and the constitution. If the federal government does something terrible and unconstitutional enough that it becomes necessary for states to attack the federal government they will have abandoned anything resembling 'state's rights' and moved into lawless/oath-breaking civil war.
While the military have sworn an oath to the constitution first and only the person of president to the extent that orders are lawful, the most recent opinion poll I found suggests 2:1 support in favour of Trump in the closest proxy I have for active military — I'll have to let everyone else argue how good a proxy "veterans" is, as I'm neither military nor Ami:
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/09/30/military-...
https://lithub.com/resist-authoritarianism-by-refusing-to-ob...
Between the two, it's become an irrelevant document.
>CBS News poll — Trump has positive approval amid "energetic" opening weeks; seen as doing what he promised (CBS polliing article https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-approval-opinion-poll-202...)
I think the fix may be more for the Democrats to change closer to what the origins of their name mean - people power - and align more with what the average people want rather than the leftmost 10%.
President Trump was voted in to do what he's doing. The fact that the Democrats are screaming bloody murder about him doing things they don't like doesn't suddenly transform the actions into authoritarianism.
> Authoritarianism is a political system characterized by the rejection of political plurality, the use of strong central power to preserve the political status quo, and reductions in democracy, separation of powers, civil liberties, and the rule of law. -- Wikipedia
Strong-arm tactics to preserve the power of the state and entrench one-party control were what was happening under the previous two Democrat administrations. What's happening now is a dismantling of those control structures in government. The funneling of billions of dollars out through NGOs and back in to DNC coffers and news organizations is stopping and the people on the gravy train are flipping out. Good.
Also, what do you mean by "paying civil servants to move?" They're creating buy-out packages for some federal employees. What evidence do you have that they are paying them to accept positions "for people like Elon" as opposed to, say, federal employees taking the buy-out and finding jobs in the private sector?
Sure; people like the eight inspector generals that were fired [^0] or the civil servants on the NSC [^1].
> Also, what do you mean by "paying civil servants to move?"
Civil servants moving into defense/public sector from the USG is a known phenomenon. Their deep ties to the USG and experience working through the process/red tape makes their value obvious to these companies.
From my perspective, these buyout packages are basically warm invitations for these people to slide into equivalent roles at contractors like Lockheed/Northrup/BAH/BAE/etc. I don't have sources to back this; this is just my intuition.
They'll be paid more by these companies, sure, but they're also working for the mission the execs/boards of these companies set (i.e. "people like Elon"), not the missions that are best for citizens at large. They'll also cost taxpayers more, since these contractors need to make profit on the margin.
There's also long-term planning to consider. Some things, like so many Internet technologies we take advantage of, take a really long time to provide a net-positive return. Governments, by and large, can afford to spend decades funding and researching things that seem like good ideas. Private sector companies can't.
There are many people that chose to work for the USG to pursue these ultra-long-time-horizon projects while being fully well-aware of how much money they're leaving on the table by not working in the private sector. Many of them are now being told "sorry, only companies that make the line go up matter now; here's a rack; go work for them."
[^0] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/inspectors-general-fired-trump-...
[^1] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic...