Tyranny and tyrants are usually creative and hyper-persistent about gaining power and keeping it. Despite diversity in circumstances, forms of governments and social norms, there are generalizations about how tyrant wannabes go about their business of obliterating opposition, dissent, civil liberties and an even-handed rule of law. A common tactic, maybe the dominant one, is to either foment social unrest, fear, anger, bigotry, and dissatisfaction, or to amplify it when bad sentiments arise more or less spontaneously on their own.
A great example is unfolding now in France. There is an ongoing, widespread national protest against high cost of living (partly caused by Trump’s stupid, unprovoked, now lost Iran war), underfunded public education and public services, and deep dissatisfaction with Macron’s government. So what does the radical right authoritarian movement in France do? It does what tyrants everywhere nearly always do. They fire up their mind-poisoning demagoguery, lies and bullshit rhetoric. They are making a run at killing off France’s democracy, rule of law and civil liberties.
In other words, the radical right tyrant wannabes in France employ the same mind-poisoning demagoguery tactics that America’s radical right tyrant wannabes, i.e., Trump and his MAGA elites, are doing in the US right now.
A NYT article, France’s Far Right Seizes the Moment as Rioting Stuns the Country, is blunt: After riots erupted this weekend in cities across France, its centrist government blamed the main far-left party, accusing its politicians of inciting the violence. That party blamed the government, accusing it of stirring public anger through years of bad governance and heavy-handed policing. What did the main far-right party do? It blamed both, and launched into campaign mode. (emphasis added)
A spokesman for France’s radical right tyranny party commented: “We are paying for decades of being soft on crime, of weak authority, of the moral, psychological, and material disarmament of our internal security forces. ….. People [“honest citizens”] need to wake up now. They need to make the right political choices, and in any case, we stand ready to restore order in the country.”
So there we have it, France’s main tyranny party is going to reinstate national stability, law and order. The way for “honest citizens” to to that is by voting in the coming election for his tyranny party.
That should sound very familiar. America’s tyranny party, the MAGA Party, heavily demagogued national unrest and damage from George Floyd protests into a horror it wasn’t. America’s MAGA demagogues rigidly ignored and denied the fact (not opinion) that nearly all the Floyd protests were peaceful. MAGA demagoguery slandered America’s entire left as radical and lawless. The tyrants in France are doing the exact same thing there to gain power.
Also exactly like America’s radical right tyranny movement, the French radical right tyranny party has absolutely no plan for how to deal with high living costs and underfunded public services. Those were the triggers that set off the unrest. The French tyrant party ignores those core issues. As usual, the authoritarians deflect to talk about stopping protests with brute force. That is the same thing Trump said he would like to do with peaceful protesters in the US. Stopping protests in France by force will do absolutely nothing at all about honest citizens’ core complaints about a fading standard of living and increasing living costs.
Tyranny vs democracy
In France, this is how tyranny is making a run at power. It is not much different than how American tyrants made their run at power. Americans were unhappy with the old two-party status quo. They wanted major changes. They voted for major change. But they got MAGA with its major changes being cruelty, bigotry, fascism, kleptocracy, and significant loss of the rule of law for the elites and civil liberties for everyone else.
This should not need to be said. But it does need to be said because MAGA’s demagoguery has poisoned so many minds. Democracy is generally better and far more moral than tyranny because it gives people a voice, protects their freedom to criticize government, and lets them replace failed or abusive leaders through elections rather than violence (Our World in Data). Democracy does not eliminate corruption, but free journalism, organized opposition, and meaningful elections give citizens ways to expose wrongdoing and hold rulers accountable. Those are checks that tyranny suppresses or removes (V-Dem’s democratic criteria). Its advantages are also material: democratization raises income per person over the long run, with evidence suggesting improvements in investment, education, and health care (Acemoglu and colleagues). Democracy’s central advantage is not that its leaders are inherently wiser or more virtuous, but that citizens still have mechanisms for challenging crappy leaders and correcting their mistakes.
Q1: Is tyranny, with its usual deep corruption, generally better than democracy because the dictators can shoot protesters dead in the streets, leading to social calm and order, while making the grieving families or estates of the dead pay for all the costs?
Q2: Is there really such a thing as Plato’s benign Philosopher King or dictator, you know, a dictator who shoots us dead in the streets for the “greater good” or whatever lipstick the tyrant puts on murdering people in legitimate public protest?
Note for the trolls: No, this OP is not an endorsement of any violence or lawbreaking in the protests in France or in the Floyd protests in the US, or anywhere else, ever. Such violence is far worse than deplorable because it gives demagogues a great way to slander protestors and downplay or deflect from legit grievances. Demagogues point to the illegality of a few hooligans and thugs who commit violence to smear everyone and everything involved. If anyone is aware of a reasonably effective way to weed out people who join protests for the opportunity to enjoy being violent or to destroy property, let’s hear about it.
