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The people that want to close the borders tend to be right-wing populists, who tend to hold illiberal and anti-democratic values with a higher frequency. Orban,

The people that want to close the borders tend to be right-wing populists, who tend to hold illiberal and anti-democratic values with a higher frequency. Orban, Le Pen and AfD are a reaction to a few things, but one of those things is a fairly modest number of refugees. If there are 100x as many refugees, and economic collapse, I don't see it likely that the elected politician isn't some kind of populist strongman.

TekMol 4y ago
Are you saying there is a flaw in the system of democracy? If a majority of people want a certain decision (in this example closed borders) - why can't they have it without anti-democratic forces coming into play? Why wouldn't there be a democratic party offering to implement it?
- hackerlight 4y ago
  Firstly, there are some things that should be disallowed irrespective of majority opinion. Raping people, for example. That's why countries have constitution-type documents that require super majorities to overturn instead of a simple majority. Secondly, putting aside whether closed borders are in this category of things (I personally happen to believe it is), it unlikely that the economy can crash and refugees can 100x and we can get a right-wing populist who is also pro-democracy and liberal. Right-wing populists have consistently shown that they don't care about democracy -- they care about nation and empire and glory and race, not liberalism and not individuals. In fact, they hate liberalism with a passion. Look at how Orban has undermined the free press in Hungary. Look at how Trump has undermined confidence in US elections. Look at Turkey. And this is when things are prosperous. Look what happened after Russia's post-Soviet economic turmoil. We got Putin who threw away democracy the first chance he got. Hitler's popularity went up from the single digits to about 30% in 1 or 2 years into the Great Depression, mostly driven by the impoverished in rural areas. The Russian Revolution happened immediately after the extremely dire conditions post-WW1, leading the authoritarian Bolsheviks to take power. The CCP took power from the KMT in the context of poverty and humiliation resulting from British then Japanese imperialism (among other causes). It's causal, and it happens again and again.

TekMol 4y ago

Are you saying there is a flaw in the system of democracy? If a majority of people want a certain decision (in this example closed borders) - why can't they have it without anti-democratic forces coming into play? Why wouldn't there be a democratic party offering to implement it?

hackerlight 4y ago
Firstly, there are some things that should be disallowed irrespective of majority opinion. Raping people, for example. That's why countries have constitution-type documents that require super majorities to overturn instead of a simple majority. Secondly, putting aside whether closed borders are in this category of things (I personally happen to believe it is), it unlikely that the economy can crash and refugees can 100x and we can get a right-wing populist who is also pro-democracy and liberal. Right-wing populists have consistently shown that they don't care about democracy -- they care about nation and empire and glory and race, not liberalism and not individuals. In fact, they hate liberalism with a passion. Look at how Orban has undermined the free press in Hungary. Look at how Trump has undermined confidence in US elections. Look at Turkey. And this is when things are prosperous. Look what happened after Russia's post-Soviet economic turmoil. We got Putin who threw away democracy the first chance he got. Hitler's popularity went up from the single digits to about 30% in 1 or 2 years into the Great Depression, mostly driven by the impoverished in rural areas. The Russian Revolution happened immediately after the extremely dire conditions post-WW1, leading the authoritarian Bolsheviks to take power. The CCP took power from the KMT in the context of poverty and humiliation resulting from British then Japanese imperialism (among other causes). It's causal, and it happens again and again.