4 ms·

Authoritarian power transfers usually involve (immediate) executions, or at least the imprisonment/exile of important people from the previous government/admini

by nickff 2y ago

Authoritarian power transfers usually involve (immediate) executions, or at least the imprisonment/exile of important people from the previous government/administration/regime, to stabilize the new regime: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Logic_of_Political_Survival https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Logic_of_Political_Surviva...

tshaddox 2y ago
Presumably authoritarian regimes only execute/imprison/exile dissidents if they think it's necessary to eliminate opposition. An authoritarian regime which does not think there's much of a threat to opposition probably wouldn't bother.
- aaomidi 2y ago
  There is a huge cost in executions. Especially in places where they have not been super common place and super public.
- jojobas 2y ago
  Serves to prove it's not an authoritarian regime? They know they won by not so much and are likely to lose next time, especially given Trump can't run anymore.
groby_b 2y ago
TBF, we're only on day 2. (I am 90% certain it won't come to that, but there's a 10% queasiness left that hasn't been ameliorated by the haphazard approach untethered from legality that we've seen so far)
- jayknight 2y ago
  "This guy is running around giving everyone pardons. The funny thing, maybe the sad thing, is he didn’t give himself a pardon. And if you look at it, it all had to do with him." https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-hannity-interview-biden-pardons-b2684659.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic... I fully expect Trump to ruin Biden's final years with investigations and court cases. Maybe that's not out right execution, but Trump definitely wants revenge.
  - groby_b 2y ago
    Sure. But that is, for better or worse, perfectly legal. (No, I'm not saying it's great, but I'm saying this is still within non-dictatorship realms) Whereas executions have a small issue in that area.
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
    I don't think even Trump wants to call in the constitutional landmark case of a president pardoning himself. That'd be true chaos. >I fully expect Trump to ruin Biden's final years with investigations and court cases I'm still 50/50 on if Trump makes it that far, physically. He's older than when Biden ran his administration and not exactly in the best health. But I guess they did get Regean through his last years. Nothing's impossible.
    - pstuart 2y ago
      > That'd be true chaos. We've crossed the Rubicon.
  - HideousKojima 2y ago
    I mean if Biden actually was making corrupt deals trading influence/access for money then he absolutely should be investigated and prosecuted for it. And there's already hard proof that Hunter was selling access to his father, and that the foreigners he was selling said access to believed he could actually provide it. If we didn't have the DOJ and other institutions protecting Biden for the last several years it would be pretty easy to find out if he actually did sell influence (vs. Hunter deceiving the people he was making deals with) with just a couple of warrants and subpeonas.
    - archagon 2y ago
      https://www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/politics/former-fbi-informant-to-plead-guilty-to-lying-about-fake-bribery-scheme-involving-the-bidens https://www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/politics/former-fbi-informa...
      - 2y ago
dekhn 2y ago
I mean, it's pretty clear they want to sue Fauci and more. Attacking dedicated public servants working for the health of the country is going to have serious negative effects.
- blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - dekhn 2y ago
    It seems unlikely that any court case would "uncover the truth" about the decision making behind that. Unfortunately, this has become so politicized that determining the steps that lead to NIH funding research in China, determining if a law was broken, and what the intent was, are unlikely to happen in the future. It seems very unlikely to me that a knowledgeable head of an NIH institute would break the law in a discoverable way. My guess is that when this occurred, the decision-makers did not believe they were doing anything illegal. (I think NIH funding virology research in China is dumb. That should not have happened.)
    - Enginerrrd 2y ago
      >I think NIH funding virology research in China is dumb. That should not have happened. This gets really subtle and tricky. This type of thing is closely linked to biological weapons research and we want collaboration and transparency to an extent to maintain access to information.
    - blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
      A couple things make me think they knew they were doing something illegal. One, they changed the definition of GoF when questioned about it, in a way that makes no sense. Two, they tried to avoid transparency laws like FOIA as well: https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/nih-foia-covid-origins-morens-hearing/ https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/nih-foia-covid-ori...
      - 2y ago
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
HumblyTossed 2y ago
The Heritage Foundation (who is behind all this and has been at it since 1973), says that the transfer of power will be bloodless if we allow it to remain bloodless. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/03/us/politics/heritage-foundation-2025-policy-america.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/03/us/politics/heritage-foun... They've been telling us exactly what they're going to do ... and we just let it happen.
gunian 2y ago
that's the beauty of it all outright murders usually create resistance this way the opposition is cleansed in a mini genocide as well as algorithmically in a decentralized manner so resistance can't form the fourth reich is here :)
mschuster91 2y ago
An established bureaucracy used to "following orders" will just soldier on assuming the authoritarian comes in legally. The most well known example is Germany. The Führer came in elected, got voted to dictator after the Reichstagsbrand and then never left power - and barely anyone in the executive resisted. And this is likely also where the US are heading. The putsch will not be loud and with a bang like Syria, it will be slow as molasses but about as difficult to impossible to stop like a broken dam worth of water moving downstream.

by nickff 2y ago

tshaddox 2y ago

Presumably authoritarian regimes only execute/imprison/exile dissidents if they think it's necessary to eliminate opposition. An authoritarian regime which does not think there's much of a threat to opposition probably wouldn't bother.

aaomidi 2y ago
There is a huge cost in executions. Especially in places where they have not been super common place and super public.
jojobas 2y ago
Serves to prove it's not an authoritarian regime? They know they won by not so much and are likely to lose next time, especially given Trump can't run anymore.

groby_b 2y ago

TBF, we're only on day 2. (I am 90% certain it won't come to that, but there's a 10% queasiness left that hasn't been ameliorated by the haphazard approach untethered from legality that we've seen so far)

jayknight 2y ago
"This guy is running around giving everyone pardons. The funny thing, maybe the sad thing, is he didn’t give himself a pardon. And if you look at it, it all had to do with him." https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-hannity-interview-biden-pardons-b2684659.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic... I fully expect Trump to ruin Biden's final years with investigations and court cases. Maybe that's not out right execution, but Trump definitely wants revenge.
- groby_b 2y ago
  Sure. But that is, for better or worse, perfectly legal. (No, I'm not saying it's great, but I'm saying this is still within non-dictatorship realms) Whereas executions have a small issue in that area.
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  I don't think even Trump wants to call in the constitutional landmark case of a president pardoning himself. That'd be true chaos. >I fully expect Trump to ruin Biden's final years with investigations and court cases I'm still 50/50 on if Trump makes it that far, physically. He's older than when Biden ran his administration and not exactly in the best health. But I guess they did get Regean through his last years. Nothing's impossible.
  - pstuart 2y ago
    > That'd be true chaos. We've crossed the Rubicon.
- HideousKojima 2y ago
  I mean if Biden actually was making corrupt deals trading influence/access for money then he absolutely should be investigated and prosecuted for it. And there's already hard proof that Hunter was selling access to his father, and that the foreigners he was selling said access to believed he could actually provide it. If we didn't have the DOJ and other institutions protecting Biden for the last several years it would be pretty easy to find out if he actually did sell influence (vs. Hunter deceiving the people he was making deals with) with just a couple of warrants and subpeonas.
  - archagon 2y ago
    https://www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/politics/former-fbi-informant-to-plead-guilty-to-lying-about-fake-bribery-scheme-involving-the-bidens https://www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/politics/former-fbi-informa...
    - 2y ago

dekhn 2y ago

I mean, it's pretty clear they want to sue Fauci and more. Attacking dedicated public servants working for the health of the country is going to have serious negative effects.

blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
[flagged]
- dekhn 2y ago
  It seems unlikely that any court case would "uncover the truth" about the decision making behind that. Unfortunately, this has become so politicized that determining the steps that lead to NIH funding research in China, determining if a law was broken, and what the intent was, are unlikely to happen in the future. It seems very unlikely to me that a knowledgeable head of an NIH institute would break the law in a discoverable way. My guess is that when this occurred, the decision-makers did not believe they were doing anything illegal. (I think NIH funding virology research in China is dumb. That should not have happened.)
  - Enginerrrd 2y ago
    >I think NIH funding virology research in China is dumb. That should not have happened. This gets really subtle and tricky. This type of thing is closely linked to biological weapons research and we want collaboration and transparency to an extent to maintain access to information.
  - blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
    A couple things make me think they knew they were doing something illegal. One, they changed the definition of GoF when questioned about it, in a way that makes no sense. Two, they tried to avoid transparency laws like FOIA as well: https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/nih-foia-covid-origins-morens-hearing/ https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/nih-foia-covid-ori...
    - 2y ago

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

HumblyTossed 2y ago

The Heritage Foundation (who is behind all this and has been at it since 1973), says that the transfer of power will be bloodless if we allow it to remain bloodless. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/03/us/politics/heritage-foundation-2025-policy-america.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/03/us/politics/heritage-foun... They've been telling us exactly what they're going to do ... and we just let it happen.

gunian 2y ago

that's the beauty of it all outright murders usually create resistance this way the opposition is cleansed in a mini genocide as well as algorithmically in a decentralized manner so resistance can't form the fourth reich is here :)

mschuster91 2y ago

An established bureaucracy used to "following orders" will just soldier on assuming the authoritarian comes in legally. The most well known example is Germany. The Führer came in elected, got voted to dictator after the Reichstagsbrand and then never left power - and barely anyone in the executive resisted. And this is likely also where the US are heading. The putsch will not be loud and with a bang like Syria, it will be slow as molasses but about as difficult to impossible to stop like a broken dam worth of water moving downstream.