@blatham,
blatham wrote:
If you read one thing today, make it this
Quote:Is Donald Trump a Threat to Democracy?
Unlike his predecessors, Mr. Trump is a serial norm-breaker. There are signs that Mr. Trump seeks to diminish the news media’s traditional role by using Twitter, video messages and public rallies to circumvent the White House press corps and communicate directly with voters — taking a page out of the playbook of populist leaders like Silvio Berlusconi in Italy, Hugo Chávez in Venezuela and Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey.
An even more basic norm under threat today is the idea of legitimate opposition. In a democracy, partisan rivals must fully accept one another’s right to exist, to compete and to govern. Democrats and Republicans may disagree intensely, but they must view one another as loyal Americans and accept that the other side will occasionally win elections and lead the country. Without such mutual acceptance, democracy is imperiled. Governments throughout history have used the claim that their opponents are disloyal or criminal or a threat to the nation’s way of life to justify acts of authoritarianism.
link here
Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt are professors of government at Harvard University.
Well I read it, but I'm underwhelmed. My experience with academia reminds me that it is populated with a few wise and well informed people who truly search for better understanding of our exceedingly complex world, and also a large number of self-important pipsqueaks, given to rather ponderous pontificating about trivia. It appears that Blatham has found two of them.
In the first place the news media consists of profit making corporations and paid commentators who depend on their audiences. It, and the White House Press Corps, has no statutory right to interpose itself between our government and the voters, and no harm is necessarily done in going around them. It certainly has a proper function and can play any role the law allows and its audience gives it: however it has no "rights" to anything. Populists of all type sppear in politics. Some of ours have included Andrew Jackson , Franklin Roosevelt, and Harry Truman. There indeed are others including Hugo Chavez and many others. Populism is a technique not a policy. Blatham's selected pipsqueaks appear to be unaware of these obvious truths.
Secondly, the only rejection I can see of oppositions to the "right to exist, to compete and to govern" on the part of the opposition - something so earnestly advocated by Blatham's pipsqueaks - appears to be coming right now from the Democrats who appear to be in a major state of denial regarding our election.
I was duly impressed by the cited credentials - "proferssors of government at Harvard". However, such people can dissappoint. Consider a recently famous "Professor of Constitutional Law " (actually an instructor, not a Professor) at the University of Chicago.
