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"Authoritarian" is a philosophy of how to govern. It is orthogonal to whether the government was fairly elected. (It's true that many authoritarian regimes see

"Authoritarian" is a philosophy of how to govern. It is orthogonal to whether the government was fairly elected. (It's true that many authoritarian regimes seek to eliminate or corrupt elections, but being fairly elected is compatible with being authoritarian.)

nailer 2y ago
[flagged]
- scryers_bloom 2y ago
  I'm not sure if he's arguing that they were not fairly elected.
  - sanderjd 2y ago
    I'm definitely not! That was a weird leap by your parent commenter that has nothing to do with what I said.
- 1shooner 2y ago
  This is an interesting misconception, I had never considered one would think authoritarians can't be fairly elected. Is the thinking that the electorate would just never elect an authoritarian?
  - nailer 2y ago
    The term was 'authoritarian regime', which is generally used for autocratic leaders. Although 'authoritarian' is also false - political freedoms for the general population are exactly where they were prior to the election, as I'm sure you are aware.
    - 1shooner 2y ago
      I guess I'm not nearly as sure of what others are aware of, so I'll just provide https://www.project2025.observer https://www.project2025.observer as a great resource for tracking actions of the current administration.
      - nailer 2y ago
        Project 2025 is a project from the Heritage foundation, there was a conspiracy during the election to say this was the platform of the Republican Party, the GOP platform is Agenda 47.
        sanderjd 2y ago
        Dude, you really need to take the partisan blinders off. They are actively, and extremely obviously, executing on the Project 2025 plan, which they wrote up for exactly this reason. This is primarily being driven by Russell Vought, whose plan this is, through his role at the head of the Office of Management and Budget. There was no "conspiracy" about this, there was only a candidate who brazenly lied about his connection to that plan. Stop trying to gaslight us. We're not idiots, it won't work.
        nailer 2y ago
        Yes there is, the idea that Project 2025 was the GOP platform is provably false. You can read Agenda 47 yourself on the GOP website. The false allegation relies on the fact that very few people will know to do that. As you believe Vought is conspiring - you have stated this yourself, the only gaslighting is pretending you have not - and presumably that publishing Agenda 47 was also a conspiracy to hide a secret alternative platform, provide evidence of the conspiracy.
        sanderjd 2y ago
        Look, if someone writes up "here's what our party's candidate is gonna do when we win the presidency", and then that party's candidate wins the presidency, hires the person who wrote that up to be the budgetary gatekeeper for the administration, and proceeds to do all the stuff that they wrote up, then that was the plan. If the candidate said "that isn't the plan!", then they were just lying about that. This isn't some wild coincidence. Vought isn't "conspiring", he's just straightforwardly executing what the plan was all along. The Republican party and its candidate just lied about what the platform was. That happens, politicians and their parties lie. But what I won't abide is people who lie to me about what is obviously happening in the present, which I can easily see with my own eyes. That is what you're doing here. It's just propaganda. It just makes you a liar.
    - sanderjd 2y ago
      To your first sentence, again, I really think you just have these definitional questions wrong. You seem to be using a vibes-based reading of "authoritarian regime" rather than a "what the words mean" based reading. To your second paragraph: I'm not going to go into a bunch of examples of things the administration has done, though it would not be hard to do. I'll just reiterate that the thing this thread was originally about is the chilling effect that threats and intimidation has on people's speech. That is just an indirect way to infringe on the right to free expression.
- MostlyStable 2y ago
  Elections are one way of selecting government officials. Authoritarianism is a political philosophy that can be pursued no matter how one was selected. Yes, many/most authoritarians arise either not in democracies, or else in situations where the elections are mostly/entirely a sham, but that is not a requirement. You could, at least in principle, have an authoritarian surveillance state where the government watches and controls everything you do...and the people could consistently (and freely!) be electing the officials enacting that state. In other words, authoritarian and democracy/election are not antonyms.
  - nailer 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - MostlyStable 2y ago
      "regime" just means government. You are taking common associations and turning them into hard and fast rules when they aren't. "Biden regime" was a completely accurate (and frequently used) description of the last administration (and almost every other preceding administration). As for your second sentence, while it is often dramatically overstated, I think that Trump having authoritarian tendencies is pretty obviously true. The extent to which he has successfully instantiated those tendencies is up for considerable debate. I think the answer is probably not "not at all". In case it needs to be said, I think that almost every modern presidency has, (to quite varying extents) had some amount of authoritarian tendencies, in the sense that they have all sought to increase the unchecked power of the executive branch at the expense of both the other two branches, and the rights of the populace. I think Trump would, were he able, pretty dramatically extend this trend, but he won't have started it, and it remains to be seen how much farther he succeeds at going than other recent presidents.
      - nailer 2y ago
        [flagged]
        2y ago
- sanderjd 2y ago
  This is simply incorrect.

nailer 2y ago

[flagged]

scryers_bloom 2y ago
I'm not sure if he's arguing that they were not fairly elected.
- sanderjd 2y ago
  I'm definitely not! That was a weird leap by your parent commenter that has nothing to do with what I said.
1shooner 2y ago
This is an interesting misconception, I had never considered one would think authoritarians can't be fairly elected. Is the thinking that the electorate would just never elect an authoritarian?
- nailer 2y ago
  The term was 'authoritarian regime', which is generally used for autocratic leaders. Although 'authoritarian' is also false - political freedoms for the general population are exactly where they were prior to the election, as I'm sure you are aware.
  - 1shooner 2y ago
    I guess I'm not nearly as sure of what others are aware of, so I'll just provide https://www.project2025.observer https://www.project2025.observer as a great resource for tracking actions of the current administration.
    - nailer 2y ago
      Project 2025 is a project from the Heritage foundation, there was a conspiracy during the election to say this was the platform of the Republican Party, the GOP platform is Agenda 47.
      - sanderjd 2y ago
        Dude, you really need to take the partisan blinders off. They are actively, and extremely obviously, executing on the Project 2025 plan, which they wrote up for exactly this reason. This is primarily being driven by Russell Vought, whose plan this is, through his role at the head of the Office of Management and Budget. There was no "conspiracy" about this, there was only a candidate who brazenly lied about his connection to that plan. Stop trying to gaslight us. We're not idiots, it won't work.
        nailer 2y ago
        Yes there is, the idea that Project 2025 was the GOP platform is provably false. You can read Agenda 47 yourself on the GOP website. The false allegation relies on the fact that very few people will know to do that. As you believe Vought is conspiring - you have stated this yourself, the only gaslighting is pretending you have not - and presumably that publishing Agenda 47 was also a conspiracy to hide a secret alternative platform, provide evidence of the conspiracy.
        sanderjd 2y ago
        Look, if someone writes up "here's what our party's candidate is gonna do when we win the presidency", and then that party's candidate wins the presidency, hires the person who wrote that up to be the budgetary gatekeeper for the administration, and proceeds to do all the stuff that they wrote up, then that was the plan. If the candidate said "that isn't the plan!", then they were just lying about that. This isn't some wild coincidence. Vought isn't "conspiring", he's just straightforwardly executing what the plan was all along. The Republican party and its candidate just lied about what the platform was. That happens, politicians and their parties lie. But what I won't abide is people who lie to me about what is obviously happening in the present, which I can easily see with my own eyes. That is what you're doing here. It's just propaganda. It just makes you a liar.
  - sanderjd 2y ago
    To your first sentence, again, I really think you just have these definitional questions wrong. You seem to be using a vibes-based reading of "authoritarian regime" rather than a "what the words mean" based reading. To your second paragraph: I'm not going to go into a bunch of examples of things the administration has done, though it would not be hard to do. I'll just reiterate that the thing this thread was originally about is the chilling effect that threats and intimidation has on people's speech. That is just an indirect way to infringe on the right to free expression.
MostlyStable 2y ago
Elections are one way of selecting government officials. Authoritarianism is a political philosophy that can be pursued no matter how one was selected. Yes, many/most authoritarians arise either not in democracies, or else in situations where the elections are mostly/entirely a sham, but that is not a requirement. You could, at least in principle, have an authoritarian surveillance state where the government watches and controls everything you do...and the people could consistently (and freely!) be electing the officials enacting that state. In other words, authoritarian and democracy/election are not antonyms.
- nailer 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - MostlyStable 2y ago
    "regime" just means government. You are taking common associations and turning them into hard and fast rules when they aren't. "Biden regime" was a completely accurate (and frequently used) description of the last administration (and almost every other preceding administration). As for your second sentence, while it is often dramatically overstated, I think that Trump having authoritarian tendencies is pretty obviously true. The extent to which he has successfully instantiated those tendencies is up for considerable debate. I think the answer is probably not "not at all". In case it needs to be said, I think that almost every modern presidency has, (to quite varying extents) had some amount of authoritarian tendencies, in the sense that they have all sought to increase the unchecked power of the executive branch at the expense of both the other two branches, and the rights of the populace. I think Trump would, were he able, pretty dramatically extend this trend, but he won't have started it, and it remains to be seen how much farther he succeeds at going than other recent presidents.
    - nailer 2y ago
      [flagged]
      - 2y ago
sanderjd 2y ago
This is simply incorrect.