Consolidate Power

[@whysoserious8666]

Huey Long was elected Governor in 1928. This was during the “roaring 20s”and not the Depression that didn’t start until 1929. My point is that we should not make excuses for people voting for the likes of Huey Long, or Donald Trump. The people know exactly what they did.

[@billmitchell2080]

The arrogant ignorance of the average trump supporter is mind boggling. The middle and lower income Republican supporters are 100% to blame. Falling for Reagan's, the government is the problem claim instead of recognizing that your right to pursue life, liberty, and happiness through the government is the only solution for the citizenry.

[@letsRegulateSociopaths]

They don't know that Trump will be gone in months, replaced by Vance and Curtis Yarvin.

[@AlejandroMS67]

At the same time, many of those people are too stupid to realize that they are stupid. This is not to excuse their ignorance in any way nor to reduce the culpability they rightly deserve, it's merely to partially explain their lack of rationale and critical thinking skills, hence their increased likelihood of being duped into an authoritarian cult of personality disorder.

[@acvanzant]

The 'Depression' was once debt and stock markets were impacted after the big crash. The economy wasn't peachy for the lower and middle class people leading into this crash. Markets don't crash because something happens suddenly. They crash because the companies and banks have done everything they can to cover their debts and still failed to get above water. People rush for the exits at their banks and brokers because its finally clear these accounts are worth 0. Banks had been putting it to the poor farmers for years before this. All the way back through several other panics and boom bust cycles from the 1880s forward. Authoritarians have an easier time grabbing power when you blame the people who vote for them as if they didn't have any good reason to do so. They did and they found only a power hungry person validating them. Our two party system is limiting and results in partisanship and should be updated to a more proportional system.

[@MarkLeBay]

Trump won in 2016 when the economy was quite good. Also, Trump supporters are not especially poor

[@fionazerbst5771]

Excellent work! So important. Please keep it up! ❤

[@neilobrien8037]

Every American citizen needs to listen to this.

[@kennythawsh]

Instant click. These are super entertaining. Thank you, Atlantic.

[@surlypiratewench1969]

Absolutely!

[@doniphandiatribes]

Masterful. Love Annie

[@toddwiseman3991]

Everyone should hear this discussion

[@danwylie-sears1134]

Article II gives the president no unilateral powers except to grant pardons and to require the opinion, in writing, of the heads of the executive departments on matters relating to their jobs. The veto is a check, a role in the legislative process, not a unilateral power. Making appointments and negotiating treaties are powers that are primarily presidential, but they're not unilateral: they require confirmation by the Senate. Only pardons and telling department heads to report. The powers of the federal government are not presidential powers. They're all given to Congress, mostly in article I section 8 but also in the various amendments. It's always Congress. The president is supposed to have no power of his own.

[@tanyawilliams8254]

💙 Vote Blue America 🇺🇸

[@robertginsburg8113]

This should be part of the High School curriculum.

[@coathang3r43]

Thank you for your work!

[@MarkLeBay]

Great

[@Edo9River]

❤❤❤Compare him to Jimmy Carter 😢😢😊

[@surlypiratewench1969]

I love Tom Nichols. He’s a brilliant yank!

[@TennesseeJed]

Don't look up!

[@andywinger4197]

Autocrats have existed for 1000's of years and they will continue to pop up now and then and take power at various times and places. Will America succumb? And if so, for how long? I can't imagine we will tolerate autocracy for very long if we do succumb.

[@happytraveller8953]

Respectfully, that's because America has an increasingly short historical memory and most folks don't remember what it was like during the Depression and WW2. They've become (euphemistically) fat and lazy and intoxicated on their own power and way too comfortable during the relative peacetime that hasn't affected the country directly. Folks screaming for 45 to get back in power and who think Russia is the best think since sliced bread will get a huge freaking wake up call as to how suffocatingly stifling that autocracy is they think they want; unfortunately it will be too little, too late...

[@andywinger4197]

@@happytraveller8953 I'm worried about Trump too. But I don't think it will ever be too late.

[@happytraveller8953]

@@andywinger4197 it will for those who get additional freedoms yanked away...

[@mikeyknox7897]

I really like your magazine!

[@PeterZeeke]

Randy Newman

[@BellePal]

Sounds like Florida.

[@davidwilkie9551]

Semantics are "what we believe" we are communicating within the society formed by a common language, (I'm suggesting to the teachers?). Believe, is derived from an admonition to be - alive and aware? Religion is the Observable consequence of this society of communication, so the actual formation of the functional purpose of wording is being, collectively. Who directs religious beliefs is what I'm hearing in this story, thinks they have a godlike "right" to do so, which implies that the mono-dualistic intended meaning of "reght" is usually incorrect and hypocritical. Unless and until everyone is aware of our being/sense in common communication, the holographic positioning presence nucleation of Actuality, no living individual human character is awake to the cycling of characteristics of a personal responsibility in the context of continuous pulse-evolution social, moral, reintegration of human community. The podcast is a good analysis of humanity's civil societies that have been built and corrupted in the manifestation of bio-logical re-evolution survival chemistry and systematic use of resources to be expected in re-action to uncertain/probabilistic Mechanism of Math-Phys-Chem and Geometrical phase-locked, first principles coherence-cohesion objective-aspects of Eternity-now. Review, reiterate and restate the Report in Semantic Actuality. (?)

[@marketads1]

Please see a doctor for your own good. I definitely have empathy. 🫶

[@letsRegulateSociopaths]

Curtis Yarvin.

[@letsRegulateSociopaths]

Curtis Yarvin

[@bensanderson7144]

I don’t think these kinds of podcasts ( with the scary music in the background ) are very helpful. But also, they just don’t sell well. As I’m writing this, there are 34 comments in the comment section. Anyway, I’ll try to be brief. It’s not possible for the USA to become an autocracy, with our elections and separation of powers. Even if an illiberal candidate captures the presidency, and then packs the court, and then his or her party gets control of congress - even then, the USA could not become an autocracy, because we have elections, and those illiberal representatives can be voted out. What we have currently in the USA is a liberal democracy. Properly understood, the contest isn’t between autocracy vs democracy; it is, rather, a contest between liberal democracy and illiberal democracy. Illiberal parties are gaining traction throughout the world: in the UK, in Germany, in Poland, Hungary, Ireland, Russia, China and Philippines. These are not autocracies, these are illiberal democracies. They are basically what the United States was for the first two centuries of its existence, until the cultural revolution of the 1960’s. I hope this helped. Cheers 🎉

[@logankilpatrick3369]

Banger

[@slavajuri]

I can't say I found it helpful. This is an interesting semantic reframing of the title, but doesn't really engage on the substance of this or previous episodes. Absent that, it sounds as if your primary problem is the wrong word being used. Also, I found the music quite cute. I guess everyone has different tastes.

[@bensanderson7144]

@@slavajuri it is rather serious, don’t you think, the correct choice of words? There is one autocracy that I can think of in the world - North Korea.

[@snowmonster42]

Well, let me ask you this: let's say that we the people elect someone who accomplishes his or her goal of transforming the US into an illiberal democracy. If that person changes the Constitution or just gets rid of it, but doesn't change the name of the country, is the US still the same country? This is a difficult question to ask in writing, but I think it's fundamental to your comment. I guess I'm a little shocked by your confidence that a little thing like "the Law" or "the Constitution" would ever stop a few true believers from doing whatever they want if they can gain enough of a toe hold to bend a system to their will. There are metaphors aimed at dealing with the distinctions you are talking about, something about Aristotle boiling frogs slowly?? The point here is that you can turn something into something else, and maybe more easily than we think. I mean, how different are ice and steam?

[@bensanderson7144]

@@snowmonster42 yes, it is true, you could ultimately convert the US into an autocracy, but only if it was the people’s will; it could not be done against their will.

[@letsRegulateSociopaths]

CURTIS YARVIN

[@tlewis615]

L

[@TheNosarajr]

You sound a bit pinko I wonder if you well know that.