Stalin
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Apr 4, 2008
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Probably the best people to recognise creeping autocracy are those who have witnessed it
"Don Moynihan, a political scientist and professor at the University of Michigan, wrote this week that “today, America is a competitive authoritarian system, with a rapidly increasing emphasis on the authoritarian part.”
The checklist to consolidate power, he wrote, includes efforts to control the government bureaucracy, the military, internal security, the legal system, civil society, higher education, the media and elections. The pursuit of those aims had been “systematic”, he wrote.
Abdelrahman ElGendy has watched this process with a feeling of grim recognition. ElGendy spent six years in prison in his native Egypt on political charges, but fled to the US in order to work on a memoir he is set to release next year.
In April, however, he packed his things and left the US following the detention of the Columbia graduate Mahmoud Khalil. ElGendy’s lawyers warned him that he could face a similar fate after his personal details were posted on a website used to target opponents of Israel’s war in Gaza.
Since then, he has watched from abroad as the situation has worsened.
“I haven’t second-guessed leaving the US. In fact I feel very grateful that I made the choice that I did before things got even worse,” he said. “I left Egypt to escape political persecution … The reason I left the US is because I started to recognize those same patterns forming around me. And since leaving it’s only gone downhill.”
When Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) began carrying out large-scale raids and he was identified online as a potential target, he said he found himself once again waiting to be taken away at any moment.
“I don’t think political incarceration is the most important characteristic of authoritarianism, it’s more the constant threat of it that matters most,” he said. “What really sustains authoritarianism is that quiet knowledge that the prison door is always within reach … that shadow is what shapes behavior.”
From Russia to Turkey, and Hungary to El Salvador, activists, observers and political scientists have watched the quick consolidation of power by the Trump administration as it has followed a familiar pattern of autocratic rollout.
Washington has found common cause with some of the world’s harshest authoritarian regimes such Russia and El Salvador. This week, the US deported nearly 50 Russians, according to activists, including some who probably requested political asylum in the United States. Hundreds of migrants and even citizens have been deported to prisons in El Salvador.
www.theguardian.com
comrade stalin
moscow
"Don Moynihan, a political scientist and professor at the University of Michigan, wrote this week that “today, America is a competitive authoritarian system, with a rapidly increasing emphasis on the authoritarian part.”
The checklist to consolidate power, he wrote, includes efforts to control the government bureaucracy, the military, internal security, the legal system, civil society, higher education, the media and elections. The pursuit of those aims had been “systematic”, he wrote.
Abdelrahman ElGendy has watched this process with a feeling of grim recognition. ElGendy spent six years in prison in his native Egypt on political charges, but fled to the US in order to work on a memoir he is set to release next year.
In April, however, he packed his things and left the US following the detention of the Columbia graduate Mahmoud Khalil. ElGendy’s lawyers warned him that he could face a similar fate after his personal details were posted on a website used to target opponents of Israel’s war in Gaza.
Since then, he has watched from abroad as the situation has worsened.
“I haven’t second-guessed leaving the US. In fact I feel very grateful that I made the choice that I did before things got even worse,” he said. “I left Egypt to escape political persecution … The reason I left the US is because I started to recognize those same patterns forming around me. And since leaving it’s only gone downhill.”
When Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) began carrying out large-scale raids and he was identified online as a potential target, he said he found himself once again waiting to be taken away at any moment.
“I don’t think political incarceration is the most important characteristic of authoritarianism, it’s more the constant threat of it that matters most,” he said. “What really sustains authoritarianism is that quiet knowledge that the prison door is always within reach … that shadow is what shapes behavior.”
From Russia to Turkey, and Hungary to El Salvador, activists, observers and political scientists have watched the quick consolidation of power by the Trump administration as it has followed a familiar pattern of autocratic rollout.
Washington has found common cause with some of the world’s harshest authoritarian regimes such Russia and El Salvador. This week, the US deported nearly 50 Russians, according to activists, including some who probably requested political asylum in the United States. Hundreds of migrants and even citizens have been deported to prisons in El Salvador.
Has Trump succeeded in normalising American autocracy?
People who have experienced the kind of authoritarianism the US used to condemn abroad highlight worrying signs
comrade stalin
moscow
