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Perhaps if honest journalism existed, Globe and Mail would have taken an honest look at themselves and how they have cracked. I have stopped reading the globe a

Perhaps if honest journalism existed, Globe and Mail would have taken an honest look at themselves and how they have cracked. I have stopped reading the globe a while back, they are newspaper version of the CBC which long ago ceased to be an authentic and unbiased source of news. Ultimately these analysts and policy people have been proven wrong many times and have shown how clueless they are. > By 2030, if not sooner, the country could be governed by a right-wing dictatorship. When the article opens with blatant polarized opening line like this you have to question. It reminds me the whole Russian election conspiracy saga. Has the author visited Portland, Oregon before? Or SF for that matter? If anything America is just as vulnerable of being cracked by left wing autocracy if not more.

ssklash 5y ago
I get the feeling you didn't read anything other than the title. Dismissing it because you don't like it or think it's "polarizing" is intellectually lazy. Judge it on its merits, not your existing biases. The article goes into great depth about how the title premise is possible. Essentially, Trump getting a second term could have drastic consequences for democracy in the US. We are not immune to the things talked about in the article. Because they haven't happen in the past does not mean they can't. I agree with the article that we are closer to a crisis of democracy than at almost any other time in our history. I also think the author's Canadian citizenship and field of study gives him a far more objective, and probably globally representative, view of the current US situation.
- Joeri 5y ago
  I tend to lean left, but after reading the article I have to say it is very biased. For me as an outside observer it looks like both the left and the right political factions have become so polarized they are constantly aiming to “take control” to prevent the “other side” from having a say, because they believe the others are destroying America. The notion that politics is about consensus-building is long gone. I do agree with the article that 2024 could be an inflection point where the U.S. fundamentally moves away from democracy, but it is not a given that this happens under a Trump presidency, because it seems also possible that a second Biden presidency declares martial law to control millions of angry and armed Trump supporters.
raxxorrax 5y ago
I am surprised by the people demanding election reform to be honest. In my mind that is the last thing you would want to do if integrity is questioned, since the changes would need political consent of every voter. It could open up far more vectors to manipulate elections and the premise and is it true that people still are excluded from voting? Or is this just to shift voting weights in another direction?
kafkaIncarnate 5y ago
This isn't a news article by The Globe and Mail, it's an opinion piece by Thomas Homer-Dixon published in The Globe and Mail's Op-Ed (Opposite the Editorial Page) section. One of the biggest tragedies of misinformation online is the failure of readers to understand that opinion sections of all newspapers are meant to be garbage heaps, and not to have quality at all. They were originally blank parts of the newspaper they felt like filling up, and today they became so popular since all garbage heaps are popular (see: any fashion magazine, Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, 4chan, etc), so they have to publish more and more and again, just publish whatever in there as if it were a forum, and try not to censor as long as it is written well. It's a "first-tier" internet comment section for a newspaper. When you read a newspaper, the proper way to read it is to throw the ads out first, then the opinion pages, then start reading. On the internet, you only see the opinion pages because that's all that gets shared because it's the most outrageous and most like a tabloid, then the header is seen and assumed they are the source. DISCLAIMER: Just because the header says "Hacker News" and "YCombinator" this comment does not represent the views of either group.

ssklash 5y ago

I get the feeling you didn't read anything other than the title. Dismissing it because you don't like it or think it's "polarizing" is intellectually lazy. Judge it on its merits, not your existing biases. The article goes into great depth about how the title premise is possible. Essentially, Trump getting a second term could have drastic consequences for democracy in the US. We are not immune to the things talked about in the article. Because they haven't happen in the past does not mean they can't. I agree with the article that we are closer to a crisis of democracy than at almost any other time in our history. I also think the author's Canadian citizenship and field of study gives him a far more objective, and probably globally representative, view of the current US situation.

Joeri 5y ago
I tend to lean left, but after reading the article I have to say it is very biased. For me as an outside observer it looks like both the left and the right political factions have become so polarized they are constantly aiming to “take control” to prevent the “other side” from having a say, because they believe the others are destroying America. The notion that politics is about consensus-building is long gone. I do agree with the article that 2024 could be an inflection point where the U.S. fundamentally moves away from democracy, but it is not a given that this happens under a Trump presidency, because it seems also possible that a second Biden presidency declares martial law to control millions of angry and armed Trump supporters.

raxxorrax 5y ago

I am surprised by the people demanding election reform to be honest. In my mind that is the last thing you would want to do if integrity is questioned, since the changes would need political consent of every voter. It could open up far more vectors to manipulate elections and the premise and is it true that people still are excluded from voting? Or is this just to shift voting weights in another direction?

kafkaIncarnate 5y ago

This isn't a news article by The Globe and Mail, it's an opinion piece by Thomas Homer-Dixon published in The Globe and Mail's Op-Ed (Opposite the Editorial Page) section. One of the biggest tragedies of misinformation online is the failure of readers to understand that opinion sections of all newspapers are meant to be garbage heaps, and not to have quality at all. They were originally blank parts of the newspaper they felt like filling up, and today they became so popular since all garbage heaps are popular (see: any fashion magazine, Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, 4chan, etc), so they have to publish more and more and again, just publish whatever in there as if it were a forum, and try not to censor as long as it is written well. It's a "first-tier" internet comment section for a newspaper. When you read a newspaper, the proper way to read it is to throw the ads out first, then the opinion pages, then start reading. On the internet, you only see the opinion pages because that's all that gets shared because it's the most outrageous and most like a tabloid, then the header is seen and assumed they are the source. DISCLAIMER: Just because the header says "Hacker News" and "YCombinator" this comment does not represent the views of either group.