- Q: What kind of autocracy might we become? A: I think the most likely outcome is a slide into what I call competitive authoritarianism. These are regimes that constitutionally continue to be democracies. There is a Constitution. There are regular elections, a legislature and importantly, the opposition is legal, above ground and competes for power. So from a distance, if you squint, it looks like a democracy, but the problem is that systematic abuse of power tilts the playing field against the opposition.
- Q: I wonder if there's anything comparable in Putin's rise in Russia, where you had oligarchs who made fortunes and increased Putin's power by allying themselves to his administration. A: The parallel that I see to Putin - and I don't want to draw it too far because the regime in Russia is very authoritarian, much, much more so than anything in the United States, I think, even could become. But the parallel I would draw to oligarchs in the Putin case are more the Zuckerbergs and the Jeff Bezos'. Putin is the guy in charge. The oligarchs are able to make a lot of money, but Putin made it very, very clear soon after he became president that the deal was these guys could make money through legal and illegal means, but the one rule was that they had to stay out of politics. If you financed the opposition, you were done. .... So Bezos and Zuckerberg kind of acquiesce getting on their knees to Trump, that - I see that parallel.
- Q: What's the state of the Republican Party? What's its role in all of this? A: I think the Republican Party has a crucial and really underappreciated role in all of this. It would be pretty easy to put the brakes on what the Trump administration is doing. It would only take a handful of Republicans. It would not take a majority of Republicans. It wouldn't even take a large faction of Republicans could change the dynamic and put the brakes on what is a pretty radical authoritarian turn in the last four months. But the party now, now sort of purged of its last Adam Kinzingers and Liz Cheneys, is almost uniform in backing an openly authoritarian figure or at least acquiescing to an openly authoritarian figure. Unlike 2016, '17, there's no serious debate about Donald Trump's authoritarianism.
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In a weird article, techdirt writes about that nutty interview on 60 Minutes that CBS News aired last Sunday:
60 Minutes is under new management and things are getting stupid faster than you might expect. Last night’s episode featured President Trump, which is currently being described as “nuts.” There are all sorts of crazy moments to call out, but let’s start with the recursively meta nonsense.
60 Minutes edited out a segment where Donald Trump tells them to edit out a segment in which he brags about getting CBS to pay him because of them editing out part of an answer by Kamala Harris, and he notes that CBS clearly did the wrong thing in editing Harris in the same fucking sentence he tells them to edit out what he’s saying.
It is so fucking stupid.
I feel the need to repeat this because it is so incredibly stupid. Literally in the same sentence where he says CBS had to pay him “a lotta money” because it edited a 60 Minutes interview, he tells them to edit the interview not to air that section. Then he claims “you can’t have fake news.” Even though what he’s claiming is literally fake news. They didn’t pay him because they changed the answer. They paid him to get their merger done. Everyone knows it.
Yup, fucking stupid. Also dangerous, insulting and terrifying. And tens of millions of adult Americans still love the guy, believe he is a truth-teller and on their side. Un-fracking-believable.
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