Mastodawn

How to stop a dictator | I spent months studying how authoritarians like Trump lose. The answer is shockingly simple.

https://slrpnk.net/post/34528122

How to stop a dictator | I spent months studying how authoritarians like Trump lose. The answer is shockingly simple. - SLRPNK

> For this reason, elected authoritarians who wish to consolidate control typically win not by flashy displays of might, but by convincing a critical mass of people that they’re just a normal politician — no threat to democracy at all. > > That means the survival of democracy depends, to an extent not fully appreciated, on perceptions and narratives. In three recent countries where a democracy survived an incumbent government bent on destroying it — Brazil, South Korea, and Poland — the belief among elites, the public, and the opposition that democracy was at stake played a critical role in motivating pushback.

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cobysev Feb 24

TL;DR: “Making democratic threats legible,” i.e. spreading the word about how every action Trump takes is a threat to our democracy. It has been proven in several other countries run by authoritarian governments to be effective at stomping out fascism before it can take hold.

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tomatolung

I really appreciate the TLDR, as I like to know the point before I start reading the support of it. However “legible” is a horrible word for this as precise as it might be.

Once a threat becomes legible — primarily, by an elected authoritarian beginning to act in authoritarian ways once in office — people start prioritizing democracy in a way they didn’t beforehand.

Which I would rephrase as saying: 'When politicians act like dictators, document it, yell it out, and call them out."

And even that’s to long and not direct enough.