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Since you are reading why nations fail I would like to recommend a pairing. How democracies die by Daniel Ziblatt and Steven Levitsky. The central thesis here i

Since you are reading why nations fail I would like to recommend a pairing. How democracies die by Daniel Ziblatt and Steven Levitsky. The central thesis here is parties are the gatekeepers of democracies and when they put party before nation they erode the democracy that eventually fails. More often it’s a slow degrade than a sudden spectacular collapse. The erosion paves way for leaders that are more “spectacular” in every negative way than the last one. Makes you think if trump is the problem or merely a symptom. GOP put party win before a nation by agreeing to nominate an unfit individual for office. They failed as gatekeepers. His presidency will lead to future leaders justifying behaving like him or worse and the “norm” Keeps degrading over time to the point where people are fed up and bring into power a person that they don’t fully understand and one who plays to their fears and portrays themself as their only solution. The book is amazing to read specially with the context of last 4 - 6 years of American politics.

etrabroline 6y ago
>GOP put party win before a nation by agreeing to nominate an unfit individual for office. They failed as gatekeepers. Trump won the primary because he took positions that closely follow the article being discussed here, anti-war, anti-outsourcing (additionally he took an anti-immigration position) while all of the other 18 GOP candidates had the same pro-war, pro-free trade, pro-immigration positions that the party gatekeepers (big donors) favor. I think Ziblatt and Levitsky don't like that voters agree more with Marc Andreessen and what Trump said in the campaign. EDIT: People didn't elect Trump because they trust the gatekeepers and were tricked by them. They elected him because he was the only candidate who promised to do what the people wanted who was able to _go around_ the gatekeepers by financing his own campaign. We wouldn't be on the road to neo-Hitler if the gatekeepers allowed sane people with popular opinions into the major parties, but that would mean ending the middle eastern wars, raising wages, lowering corporate profits, and ending the cheap labor glut in ways that will seriously dent the fortunes and power of the gatekeepers.
- baq 6y ago
  Why don’t you think people elected Trump because he was the only GOP candidate?
  - etrabroline 6y ago
    Donald Trump was not the only GOP candidate, and he was the candidate with the least internal party support. >Trump used ideas of populism to persuade the average American throughout the election process.[139] In mid-September, the first two major candidates dropped out of the race. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Republican_Party_presidential_primaries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Republican_Party_presiden...
    - jacobush 6y ago
      Donald Trump is what gate keeping led to. We are now over the cusp. Enjoy.
- roenxi 6y ago
  > but that would mean ending the middle eastern wars Do you want the terrorists to win? >:| It is a remarkable bellweather of US politics that despite being a relatively peaceful polity the voting public have been unable to drag the country out of a permanent state of expensive and wasteful war. I think both Trump and Obama campaigned as pro-peace candidates so it is a presumably a popular position with voters. US foreign policy is almost inexplicable when it comes to war. The death, destruction and raising a generation Middle Easterners with excellent motivation to hate America seems like a foolish long term strategy. It also doesn't look profitable.
  - huntertwo 6y ago
    > US foreign policy is almost inexplicable when it comes to war. The death, destruction and raising a generation Middle Easterners with excellent motivation to hate America seems like a foolish long term strategy. It also doesn't look profitable. Not for the U.S., not for its citizens, but for a certain set of people the constant war is very profitable. And I think you'll find that those that profit from war have considerable influence over the foreign policy that keeps us in constant war.
    - WanderPanda 6y ago
      You mean >>the swamp<<? :D
    - Silhouette 6y ago
      War is bad for business, unless war is your business.
    - raincom 6y ago
      War is profitable to energy sector (XLE), aerospace & defense (ITA, XAR). It is profitable to states where oil production is dominant (gulf states, some parts of the midwest). There are many oil billionaires in the states.
  - jeremyjh 6y ago
    > raising a generation Middle Easterners with excellent motivation to hate America seems like a foolish long term strategy We've been doing that since the 1940s. At this point, it is part of our national identity that we cannot even question.
dariosalvi78 6y ago
sounds like the recent story of British politics...
aguyfromnb 6y ago
>GOP put party win before a nation by agreeing to nominate an unfit individual for office. They failed as gatekeepers. Why do we want corrupt politicians as "gatekeepers" to anything? The Democrats did a fine job "gatekeeping" Sanders from the 2016 and 2020 nomination, to what end? By the way, nothing will ever get done in the US until the bitter partisanship ceases. Most of what both parties do is political theatre.
- darkerside 6y ago
  In the gatekeepers' perspective, it was to postpone discussions on policies that would be extremely difficult to implement well. If the Republicans had done their job as well like usual, we wouldn't end up in this awkward situation of having an unpresidential president, but here we are. Freedom has a funny way of getting what it wants, like water flowing downhill.
  - bigbob2 6y ago
    From the non-gatekeepers' perspective, the difficulty of policy implementation does not matter when the policies themselves are ineffective and only serve to maintain status quo financial structures, which benefit the wealthy often at the expense of the most vulnerable. What specifically makes the president unpresidential as opposed to other presidents? Is it removals as a percentage of the estimated illegal immigrant population? The dramatic expansion of the power of the executive branch into the realm of national security? Number of U.S. citizens executed without trial? Those are all things which happened under previous presidencies. > If the Republicans had done their job as well like usual Is it really fair to argue that gatekeepers are effective if they failed to do what you view as their jobs? "If it wasn't for those meddling Republicans!"
    - edmundsauto 6y ago
      > What specifically makes the president unpresidential as opposed to other presidents? I'd start with these: * The scale of his well-documented aversion to the truth (18,000 lies + misleading statements, and counting) * How he never rises above a situation and takes the high road * The demonization of opponents, and the inability to engage meaningfully with opposition * Removal of any oversight (even Nixon allowed oversight) There are lots more.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
WanderPanda 6y ago
Well the old fairytale about the „greater good“ again? Road to hell is paved with good intentions (as history has proven)
bigbob2 6y ago
Very convenient way for party insiders to justify coronation of their preferred candidates regardless of "benefit to the nation." This same line of "gatekeeper" reasoning is exactly what justifies polling locations being closed and reopened elsewhere without notifying voters, years-long revolving door media propaganda campaigns, and accusing everyone who disagrees of being a Russian asset. The Republicans and Democrats alike are guilty of such behavior. I too believe Trump is a symptom, not from lack/failure of gatekeeping, but rather the act of gatekeeping itself. I think the general public is (subconsciously or not) aware that these party insiders view themselves as "gatekeepers" and are anxious to "stick it to them" even if it comes at their own demise. Whether or not you agree or disagree with them, the issue here is that their trust in what they viewed as democracy was already eroded. This is probably reflected through the terribly small number of working class voters who participate in the political process.
- metabagel 6y ago
  “ The Republicans and Democrats alike are guilty of such behavior.” This isn’t a useful line of thinking. We can and should draw distinctions between the two parties. They aren’t the same. Pretending they are just muddies the waters.
dang 6y ago
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22912001 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22912001.
- quietthrow 6y ago
  Thats fine. Just curious why would you do that?
  - dang 6y ago
    Because it went on a generic political tangent.
    - drapred7 6y ago
      Would it make sense to break out the parent that first brought up Why Nations Fail? I'm curious what the logic is.
      - dang 6y ago
        Sorry, I'm not sure I understand the question.

etrabroline 6y ago

>GOP put party win before a nation by agreeing to nominate an unfit individual for office. They failed as gatekeepers. Trump won the primary because he took positions that closely follow the article being discussed here, anti-war, anti-outsourcing (additionally he took an anti-immigration position) while all of the other 18 GOP candidates had the same pro-war, pro-free trade, pro-immigration positions that the party gatekeepers (big donors) favor. I think Ziblatt and Levitsky don't like that voters agree more with Marc Andreessen and what Trump said in the campaign. EDIT: People didn't elect Trump because they trust the gatekeepers and were tricked by them. They elected him because he was the only candidate who promised to do what the people wanted who was able to _go around_ the gatekeepers by financing his own campaign. We wouldn't be on the road to neo-Hitler if the gatekeepers allowed sane people with popular opinions into the major parties, but that would mean ending the middle eastern wars, raising wages, lowering corporate profits, and ending the cheap labor glut in ways that will seriously dent the fortunes and power of the gatekeepers.

baq 6y ago
Why don’t you think people elected Trump because he was the only GOP candidate?
- etrabroline 6y ago
  Donald Trump was not the only GOP candidate, and he was the candidate with the least internal party support. >Trump used ideas of populism to persuade the average American throughout the election process.[139] In mid-September, the first two major candidates dropped out of the race. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Republican_Party_presidential_primaries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Republican_Party_presiden...
  - jacobush 6y ago
    Donald Trump is what gate keeping led to. We are now over the cusp. Enjoy.
roenxi 6y ago
> but that would mean ending the middle eastern wars Do you want the terrorists to win? >:| It is a remarkable bellweather of US politics that despite being a relatively peaceful polity the voting public have been unable to drag the country out of a permanent state of expensive and wasteful war. I think both Trump and Obama campaigned as pro-peace candidates so it is a presumably a popular position with voters. US foreign policy is almost inexplicable when it comes to war. The death, destruction and raising a generation Middle Easterners with excellent motivation to hate America seems like a foolish long term strategy. It also doesn't look profitable.
- huntertwo 6y ago
  > US foreign policy is almost inexplicable when it comes to war. The death, destruction and raising a generation Middle Easterners with excellent motivation to hate America seems like a foolish long term strategy. It also doesn't look profitable. Not for the U.S., not for its citizens, but for a certain set of people the constant war is very profitable. And I think you'll find that those that profit from war have considerable influence over the foreign policy that keeps us in constant war.
  - WanderPanda 6y ago
    You mean >>the swamp<<? :D
  - Silhouette 6y ago
    War is bad for business, unless war is your business.
  - raincom 6y ago
    War is profitable to energy sector (XLE), aerospace & defense (ITA, XAR). It is profitable to states where oil production is dominant (gulf states, some parts of the midwest). There are many oil billionaires in the states.
- jeremyjh 6y ago
  > raising a generation Middle Easterners with excellent motivation to hate America seems like a foolish long term strategy We've been doing that since the 1940s. At this point, it is part of our national identity that we cannot even question.

dariosalvi78 6y ago

sounds like the recent story of British politics...

aguyfromnb 6y ago

>GOP put party win before a nation by agreeing to nominate an unfit individual for office. They failed as gatekeepers. Why do we want corrupt politicians as "gatekeepers" to anything? The Democrats did a fine job "gatekeeping" Sanders from the 2016 and 2020 nomination, to what end? By the way, nothing will ever get done in the US until the bitter partisanship ceases. Most of what both parties do is political theatre.

darkerside 6y ago
In the gatekeepers' perspective, it was to postpone discussions on policies that would be extremely difficult to implement well. If the Republicans had done their job as well like usual, we wouldn't end up in this awkward situation of having an unpresidential president, but here we are. Freedom has a funny way of getting what it wants, like water flowing downhill.
- bigbob2 6y ago
  From the non-gatekeepers' perspective, the difficulty of policy implementation does not matter when the policies themselves are ineffective and only serve to maintain status quo financial structures, which benefit the wealthy often at the expense of the most vulnerable. What specifically makes the president unpresidential as opposed to other presidents? Is it removals as a percentage of the estimated illegal immigrant population? The dramatic expansion of the power of the executive branch into the realm of national security? Number of U.S. citizens executed without trial? Those are all things which happened under previous presidencies. > If the Republicans had done their job as well like usual Is it really fair to argue that gatekeepers are effective if they failed to do what you view as their jobs? "If it wasn't for those meddling Republicans!"
  - edmundsauto 6y ago
    > What specifically makes the president unpresidential as opposed to other presidents? I'd start with these: * The scale of his well-documented aversion to the truth (18,000 lies + misleading statements, and counting) * How he never rises above a situation and takes the high road * The demonization of opponents, and the inability to engage meaningfully with opposition * Removal of any oversight (even Nixon allowed oversight) There are lots more.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

WanderPanda 6y ago

Well the old fairytale about the „greater good“ again? Road to hell is paved with good intentions (as history has proven)

bigbob2 6y ago

Very convenient way for party insiders to justify coronation of their preferred candidates regardless of "benefit to the nation." This same line of "gatekeeper" reasoning is exactly what justifies polling locations being closed and reopened elsewhere without notifying voters, years-long revolving door media propaganda campaigns, and accusing everyone who disagrees of being a Russian asset. The Republicans and Democrats alike are guilty of such behavior. I too believe Trump is a symptom, not from lack/failure of gatekeeping, but rather the act of gatekeeping itself. I think the general public is (subconsciously or not) aware that these party insiders view themselves as "gatekeepers" and are anxious to "stick it to them" even if it comes at their own demise. Whether or not you agree or disagree with them, the issue here is that their trust in what they viewed as democracy was already eroded. This is probably reflected through the terribly small number of working class voters who participate in the political process.

metabagel 6y ago
“ The Republicans and Democrats alike are guilty of such behavior.” This isn’t a useful line of thinking. We can and should draw distinctions between the two parties. They aren’t the same. Pretending they are just muddies the waters.

dang 6y ago

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22912001 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22912001.

quietthrow 6y ago
Thats fine. Just curious why would you do that?
- dang 6y ago
  Because it went on a generic political tangent.
  - drapred7 6y ago
    Would it make sense to break out the parent that first brought up Why Nations Fail? I'm curious what the logic is.
    - dang 6y ago
      Sorry, I'm not sure I understand the question.