[pessimist]

It turns out that when elections are fought on the basis of identity (race, religion) etc corruption is actually considered a benefit! This is because the loyalists interpret this as "we" are winning and "they" are losing.

I witnessed this up close in India where parties openly exist to benefit certain constituencies based on caste, language, religion and so on.

It is horrifying to see this attitude take root in my adopted land.

[clumsysmurf]

> corruption is actually considered a benefit! This is because the loyalists interpret this as "we" are winning and "they" are losing.

I think the end goal is domination. From https://mastodon.social/@JuliusGoat/109551955251655267 :

It’s best to understand that fascists see hypocrisy as a virtue. It’s how they signal that the things they are doing to people were never meant to be equally applied.

It’s not an inconsistency. It’s very consistent to the only true fascist value, which is domination.

It’s very important to understand, fascists don’t just see hypocrisy as a necessary evil or an unintended side-effect.

It’s the purpose. The ability to enjoy yourself the thing you’re able to deny others, because you dominate, is the whole point.

For fascists, hypocrisy is a great virtue — the greatest.

https://hac.bard.edu/amor-mundi/hypocrisy-and-fascism-2018-0...

[dralley]

>It’s best to understand that fascists see hypocrisy as a virtue. It’s how they signal that the things they are doing to people were never meant to be equally applied.

For my friends - everything, for my enemies - the law.

[AlexandrB]

I used to love this pithy quote but reflecting on it more recently this doesn't seem like something limited to fascists or fascism. Indeed, this kind of thinking is used by those of any political leaning when ideology becomes more important than principles. An obvious example is the USSR.

[danielheath]

Authoritarianism is the umbrella term describing the behaviour of both fascist states and various others. AFAIK all fascist states have been authoritarian - but it’s a common outcome anytime the people running the government are replaced en masse.

[palmfacehn]

The tyranny of the majority is another, often overlooked form of authoritarianism.

[WhyIsItAlwaysHN]

Good point, and much harder to challenge. If the majority is against an authoritarian there's protests and sabotage of social structures. If the majority oppresses a fringe group, it's often socially encouraged

[EasyMark]

that's kind of what the USA is going through right now but it's more aptly described as "tyranny of the plurality" because Trump didn't win either majority of of registered voters or majority of the actual vote.

[account42]

As is the tyranny of the minority.

[consumer451]

This is a great example of the horseshoe theory of politics [0], which I believe in very strongly. I made a separate post if anyone cares to discuss it. [1]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe_theory

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44214040

[thephyber]

Horseshoe Theory is stupid.

It’s based on the flawed assumption that politics can or should be understood on a single axis. It can’t and shouldn’t be. That heuristic is wrong.

If viewed on a 2d axis, the “cohorts that appear similar” on the ends of the horseshoe are still on opposing ends of one of the axes, despite being near each other on another axis.

[consumer451]

I see it as the gateway to people realizing that the left/right 1D line, and even the political compass, are ridiculous.

IMHO, political positioning should be described as a tensor, where each data point is the person's position on a specific policy.

[rendall]

Horseshoe theory has always read like a Pythagorean epicycle to me, an attempt to redeem a broken model. For a reductive political model, I prefer the 2 dimensional Collectivist-Individualist, Authoritarian-Libertarian axes. No need to literally contort the outdated Left-Right spectrum.

An added benefit is you get to avoid annoying semantic battles such as whether Nazis or Fascists are Right wing or Left wing.

Plus you get to add other axes as needed. My favorite, perhaps relevant today, is principled vs. expedient: do we apply principles like this "Rights" stuff impartially, even to people with whom we disagree, or do we just git 'r done?

[consumer451]

To me, the horshoe theory is just a step in the right direction. It shows the limits of a straight 1D line to describe politics, and is a stepping-off point for deeper exploration.

Ideally, maybe we would describe a person's politics with something like a tensor, where each value is the person's support of a specific policy.

[popalchemist]

Agreed, the matrix expresses this idea more exactly.

[ahf8Aithaex7Nai]

It should be a trident theory.

[consumer451]

If you don't mind, could you expand on this a bit?

[FireBeyond]

Absolutely. See "the only moral abortion is my abortion".

Republicans can play all sorts of games because their mistresses will always be able to get an abortion on the DL without consequence, while "single black mom? 25 to life for murder!"

[wyre]

Red fascism is a term that has been used to equate Stalinism with fascism, so maybe the quote still has merit?

[pinkmuffinere]

For my true friends, champagne! For my sham friends, true pain.

[kennyadam]

Close, but the correct version has better wordplay: "Champagne for my real friends, real pain for my sham friends."

[KennyBlanken]

[flagged]

[andyjohnson0]

> I think the end goal is domination. From https://mastodon.social/@JuliusGoat/109551955251655267

I don't know whether Trump can accurately be described as a fascist, but its been clear to me since his first term that domination is the only thing that matters to him. The obscene wealth and the swaggering deceitfulness and the gold-plated bathrooms are just the secondary outcomes of his need to dominate.

Domineering father-figure; raised as a sociopath; given a lot of money. Kind of inevitable.

[wefinh]

Yeah, only the issue here is that @realFascists are in opposition to Trump. And reading this text in that light - it check out and not really a news.

Also, frankly, you folks need to stop monopolizing these topics, based on highly polarized ideological filter, because even before Trump there was dissatisfaction about how Musk monopolized NASA contracts on the promise, that he would deliver more efficient and cheaper solution, while in reality the result is that NASA is currently paying more for Musks private solutions, than when it had to do it by itself. There are sure many other options to what Musk offers and if Trump is there to break up that monopoly and open up the market, then it is a win situation.

[Cipater]

>there was dissatisfaction about how Musk monopolized NASA contracts on the promise, that he would deliver more efficient and cheaper solution, while in reality the result is that NASA is currently paying more for Musks private solutions, than when it had to do it by itself

SLS, NASA's rocket, costs $2.5 billion, PER LAUNCH.

[avmich]

Can you clarify what reality you're talking about? How NASA would do it cheaper?

[wqaatwt]

That’s all very nice but according to Trump this only suddenly became a problem only a few weeks ago due to some reason. So whatever you are saying has absolutely no relevance to this decision making. If Musk continued licking his boots he’d be doing fine..

[shigawire]

Doublethink

[tempodox]

I think double standards would be a better term than hypocricy. Hypocricy would imply the pretense to be bound by certain rules, but the whole point of fascism is that those in power are not bound by any rules. They only make rules to bind others. I don't see any hypocricy in the openly advertised corruption of the current administration, it's just plain evil of the “we do it because we can” sort.

[BeFlatXIII]

> It turns out that when elections are fought on the basis of identity (race, religion) etc corruption is actually considered a benefit! This is because the loyalists interpret this as "we" are winning and "they" are losing.

In history textbooks, it's known as the spoils system.

[ethbr1]

For those unaware of ~1900 US political history and how the spoils system was dismantled through political will: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_service_reform_in_the_...

[EasyMark]

hopefully this time around it will go a little quicker, aka one term. project 2025 specifically pointed out all "disloyal" government employees should be kicked out and only those who bent a knee to trump should replace them, whatever their actual merit and ability to occupy the position

[more_corn]

But is his plan to only stay one term?

[FranzFerdiNaN]

The goal is to make sure the Republicans never lose another election ever again, no matter how. So yeah no it won’t last only one term.

[alephnerd]

Vote banks and patronage politics has always been a thing in the US, especially at the local and state level. The main difference is a significant portion of governance was temporarily de-politicized in the 1960s-90s period as leadership on both sides of the aisle had formative unifying experiences during the World Wars and the Korean War, but has been re-politicized now that activism on both sides of the aisle has resurged and social polarization has taken root.

The expansion of executive powers also played a role in this erosion, as both the judicial and legislative branch increasingly devolved their prerogative to the executive, leaving it much more open to political tampering and reducing the power of checks and balances.

There's a reason LKY in SG, Yoshida Shigeru and Sato Eisaku in Japan, and François Mitterrand in France tried to decentralize power to a semi-independent civil service.

[pessimist]

Low-level corruption at the local/state level is related but its effects are different though. In fact even today low level corruption in the US is extremely low by global standards - you can't bribe your way to a drivers license openly, for example. I'm sure it happens but it's not common or openly boasted about (parts of CA or DC could be an exception).

Here the corruption is openly displayed as a kind of peacock-tail to the beneficiaries.

[alephnerd]

I'd rather not have a whole discussion over this atm (I'm out rn - maybe later), but I recommend reading Yuen Yuen Ang's paper on "Unbundling Corruption" - there are different typographies of what "corruption" is, and some nations have always had a similar type of corruption compared to others.

In addition, low level corruption is orthogonal to grand corruption as can be seen in Singapore, Japan, South Korea, and the US.

Finally, Indian public discourse around corruption is non-targeted, and fails to contextualize significant institutional differences in how local, state, and federal governments operate in India compared to other states (be they democratic like the US or authoritarian like China).

[Feel free to add questions or points of contention, but I won't be able to reply quickly]

[pessimist]

Fine, I don't disagree with anything you point out. However where we differ is that I believe identity politics is the trigger factor here, all the other changes you mention (loss of balance of power etc) are downstream of this.

[lern_too_spel]

Your causal diagram is backwards. Identity politics isn't the path to corruption. Corrupt politicians like Trump use identity politics to gain power to practice their corruption. Nobody who wanted to bring back Christian hegemony and re-oppress minority groups is cheering that Trump is threatening to take away contracts from Musk because "their side is winning."

[lostlogin]

> minority groups

This includes ‘women’. A group that probably has a small majority.

[hiatus]

> Identity politics isn't the path to corruption. Corrupt politicians like Trump use identity politics to gain power to practice their corruption.

These two sentences, taken together, lead me to exactly the opposite conclusion—exploitation of identity politics allows one to gain power to enact corruption. You play into what people want by being the savior they think they need and then once in power do whatever the hell you wanted in the first place.

[walleeee]

Idpol can exacerbate corruption. There are strong feedback dynamics.

And to reply to the comment above yours, there are material factors upstream of idpol. It's not a coincidence that sort of thing is in renaissance across the world.

[wqaatwt]

> you can't bribe your way to a drivers license openly

No but when it comes to local government contracts, building permits and similar stuff its quite different. Also a lot of (what sane people would consider) corruption is legal and institutionalized.

i.e. bribing politicians running for office is perfectly legal and entirely expected by all sides (that Americans are so open about this is quite unique).

[0xDEAFBEAD]

I understand that US federal law makes it difficult for a politician to appropriate campaign donations and use them for personal expenses.

[neilv]

Interesting; is there an accessible 10-minute read on this US (edit: governance) de-politicized/re-politicized history, or does it have a name?

[medler]

The notion that this kind of politicization started in the 90s is fanciful revisionism. It wasn’t really a thing in the US until about 2017. The word it’s known by is Trumpism.

[neilv]

I'm familiar with the rise of talk radio, News Corp, Web propaganda, alt-right, etc., in politics and public sentiment.

What's new to me is that the last couple decades might be a reversion to a pre-war mode of US governance.

(I know WW2 was unifying in some ways, as we'd expect, but I don't recall much from school about how US politics was played before then, other than punctuated events like the Civil War, civil rights movement, etc.)

[throwawaymaths]

its revisionism to say that the US has been free of politicization this bad. for most of its history, not counting the civil war very minor (and very major) issues sparked massacres, revolts, and even minor wars between states.

[KennyBlanken]

First off, Trump skyrocketed to political fame with his nonsense claims about Obama's citizenship.

The slide started in the 80's when Reagan killed off the 'fairness doctrine' which meant news outlets could present completely one-sided coverage of an issue.

Couple that with massive consolidation of newspapers and TV news stations where all the programming is heavily coordinated and groups like Sinclair started pushing identically worded "false news" narratives across all their stations: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fHfgU8oMSo

[nfg]

I recommend people read this to see why this comment is wrong: When the Cloke Broke by John Ganz https://a.co/d/hL4vo7d

[fcatalan]

9/11 was a big turning point in my experience. American conservatives that I considered online friends were simple impossible to reason with within days and completely alien beings after a few weeks.

[jfengel]

Interesting. Things did change on 9/11 but it seemed incremental to me. Before that was the constant investigation of Clinton by Gingrich, the dog whistling of Reagan, Nixon's Southern Strategy, and before that to McCarthy and so on.

This is high level rather than your direct experience, so it's not a contradiction. Just a different perspective.

[xnx]

Yes. Almost everything about our current situation can be traced back to Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh. Things were much more civil and reasonable before that point.

[metabagel]

It has actually been a gradual process for decades from the John Birch Society to Paul Harvey to Rush Limbaugh to Newt Gingrich to Dick Cheney to Citizens United to Donald Trump.

Edit: Forgot Pat Buchanan. He belongs in there somewhere.

[alterom]

Trumpism is just Reaganomics brought to its logical conclusion.

[baobun]

This predates Trumpism.

[0xDEAFBEAD]

You can see the rise of left-wing identity politics by looking at term usage in the NY Times:

https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2019/06/th...

It started before 2017. The right adopted identity politics as a response to the left doing so. Note that even NY Times word usage is a lagging indicator -- this is a case of prestige media picking up trends which originated on social media such as tumblr.

Vox even wrote a defense of the shift back in 2015, with an article called "All politics is identity politics":

https://www.vox.com/2015/1/29/7945119/all-politics-is-identi...

[sirtaj]

Are you tracking actual identity politics or the term "identity politics"? Because the meaning of the term applies just as much to ending slavery, womens' suffrage and civil rights movements.

Otherwise, you might as well argue that fake news only existed from 2016 onwards, because that's when Google Trends says it did.

[0xDEAFBEAD]

>Are you tracking actual identity politics or the term "identity politics"?

The term "identity politics" is not being tracked. Rather, terminology used by modern left-wing idpol ideology is being tracked. See here: https://davidrozado.substack.com/p/new-york-times-word-usage...

>the meaning of the term applies just as much to ending slavery, womens' suffrage and civil rights movements.

I'm not sure that's true. E.g. Martin Luther King Jr spoke of the "magnificent words" in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. Modern activists would say: "Written by dead pale male slaveholders. We need more diversity! Where are the voices of women and POC?" For King, ideas took precedence over identities. For modern activists, it's the opposite.

The American Anti-Slavery Society was predominantly white. That's puzzling for a movement driven by identity politics. It does make sense for a movement driven by universal humanitarian ideals.

In any case, if you still think I'm wrong, and identity politics is an essential force behind trends such as the civil rights movement -- then I suppose you'll be happy that it's being adopted by the political right in the United States? Since it's got such a great historical track record, surely results will be good? ;-)

>Otherwise, you might as well argue that fake news only existed from 2016 onwards, because that's when Google Trends says it did.

This is a bad analogy, because fake news itself doesn't use the term "fake news". If "fake news" was an ideology which was characterized by particular terminology, we could graph the use of that terminology to document the rise of the ideology. That's what's being done here.

In any case, I do believe that "fake news" (in the narrow sense of websites which write completely bogus news, with no effort at reporting, to drive clicks) is a phenomenon which has, in fact, become more widespread relatively recently (due to the ease of internet publishing etc.) So that's another way in which your analogy is invalid. Fake news did increase in popularity when Trump was the GOP candidate, relative to when Romney was the GOP candidate. And Google Trends helps illuminate that!

[burnte]

> It is horrifying to see this attitude take root in my adopted land.

Agreed, and I was born here. I was taught we expressly want to reject those things, and now it's all the fashion. It feels like a temper tantrum from a third of the electorate, a rejection of adulthood and reason.

[hinkley]

It's because we tried to take down the 'no girls or brown people' sign.

All of this is a long temper tantrum about Obama and then Mrs Clinton, emphasis on the Mrs.

If I had a time machine I would take documentation back and convince someone that we need a few more Old White Guys to let the GOP's base unrustle their jimmies for a bit.

I predicted something like this coming back in the late 90's, not that anyone should have listened to me about civics. I say 'like this', but... not like this. And if I had someone would have requested "wellness checks" (which is American for 'check to see if we can have him involuntarily committed to a mental facility) on my behalf.

My notion back then was that the vibe of the country was such that a black man would need to be elected before a white woman was a serious contender. But that there would have to be a delay. When you rush progress you can spin out. And fuck if we haven't spun out.

Maybe they'll go for a whip-smart gay man next term? Who knows.

[0xDEAFBEAD]

>It turns out that when elections are fought on the basis of identity (race, religion) etc corruption is actually considered a benefit! This is because the loyalists interpret this as "we" are winning and "they" are losing.

So how could one design a political system so this behavior doesn't emerge / is not incentivized?

[avaika]

In no way this is a good example of such a system, but I still find Bosnia and Herzegovina political system absolutely hilarious. After Dayton peace agreement the literally put ethnicity requirement for presidents to Constitution as a hard rule. One Bosnian, one Serb and one Croatian. And yes, the country is ran by 3 presidents at the same time. So there is no longer a competition whether the main guy in the country will be theirs or ours.

There were two guys: a Roma and a Jew in BiH who also wanted to take the president office. However according to Constitution they didn't have a chance. So they went to EU Human Rights Court to look for a justice. The court told the country it's kinda racist to have a rule like that and they should change it. This was like 15 years ago. Guess whether the rule has changed since then. (Sejdić and Finci v. Bosnia and Herzegovina for more details).

PS. If you find 3 presidents not fascinating enough, then google for High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina.

[roryirvine]

Northern Ireland has a similar system, with an executive built on a forced coalition.

The executive is led by a First Minister and Deputy First Minister (despite the difference in title, they have exactly equal powers), who are selected from the largest party representing each of the two main communities.

Major decisions require cross-community support - at least 50% of all those voting AND 50% of the representatives of each of the two communities, OR 60% of all those voting AND 40% of the representatives of each of the two communities.

On paper, it seems slightly absurd... but in practice, it's a reasonable way to deal with deeply divided societies.

[soulofmischief]

I don't know... Never go to sea with two chronometers; take one or three. Two guys with equal power is a recipe for inaction in critical moments.

[tdeck]

In practice Northern Ireland is subordinate to Westminster in most "critical moments".

[0xDEAFBEAD]

I like this term "forced coalition". How about a traditional parliamentary system where a supermajority is required to pass legislation?

I assume if you need 70% to pass legislation then you get a grand coalition pretty much every time?

I guess it could incentivize brinkmanship among coalition partners though, since the leader of the coalition has less leverage if a small party threatens to quit?

[0xDEAFBEAD]

Interesting.

When I put my programmer hat on, there's something inelegant about this approach, because it involves hardcoding the words "Bosnian", "Serb", and "Croatian" into the constitution.

It seems like with a sufficiently clever electoral rule, you could generate a small "national steering committee" with an odd number of members, where each major faction is guaranteed representation. But that also sounds a lot like a parliament where there's one party for each ethnic group, and then we're back where we started?

What happens when the 3 presidents disagree? Maybe the trick is to incentivize consensus-driven decisionmaking?

[avaika]

>What happens when the 3 presidents disagree? Maybe the trick is to incentivize consensus-driven decisionmaking?

That's where High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina comes into play. This is external guy appointed by the EU (US also was participating in the appointment in the beginning, but they withdrew themselves from the process quite a few years ago). This guy has the power to fire any (like ANY) politician in the country. And the permission to overrule or enforce any law.

This guy is probably controlled by EU and can't turn into dictatorship mode, but you never know. At the very least two times presidents were fired due to political disagreement.

EU considered to discontinue this practice, but local people encouraged EU to leave things as is. Cause nobody trusts politicians and the systems is still pretty corrupt.

Anyway, whatever decision presidents have to make, all 3 must agree. That's why a lot of controversial topics are hanging for eternity (e.g. recognition of Kosovo).

When country was trying to choose a national flags, all the parts couldn't find the agreement for a long time. That's why High Representative just approved his own version nobody really liked. So today if you visit the country, you will find Serbian flag in the parts where Serbs live and Croatian flags in the part with Croats. Actual country flag normally is in the parts where majority is Bosnian.

[sterlind]

having three is interesting because it gives a way to break ties. how do they handle candidates with mixed ethnicity, though? or the Serbians and Croatians converging, while the Bosnians move farther apart from both?

[intended]

This has not emerged due to the political system, this has emerged due to the issues in the information economy.

The core issue is that news cannot compete with entertainment, and the firms that appeared after Murdoch on the right, insulate themselves and their politicians from the need to be accurate.

The cycle is essentially:

1) Fringe theory appears on the internet

2) Fringe theory is picked up by Notable Person (Someone who is able to come on Prime time Television)

3) Notable comes onto media network and repeats fringe theory

4) Reporting can now cover Fringe Theory as main stream

This economy of ideas shares little with the processes on the center and the left. People who come up with counter arguments don’t end up getting amplified.

This has demolished the exchange and debate of Ideas, and it has worked in all liberal democracies. Implacable Partisanship has been rewarded.

[Atreiden]

Get rid of FPTP and the Electoral College that enables a two-party stranglehold. If a vote for a third party wasn't a wasted vote, we could see nuanced parties and politicians emerge that don't have to tow a party line.

[0xDEAFBEAD]

Strengthening third parties can also increase extremism though. Consider parties such as Reform in the UK or AfD in Germany.

I think what you want is electoral rules which tend to select for consensus-makers. Approval voting would be an example.

[solumunus]

FPTP is what makes Reform so dangerous though. They have a real chance of having a lot of power. In a proportional representation system where parties have to share power in coalitions these extreme parties actually have to be involved in government, at which point they’re exposed as completely incompetent. See the Netherlands right now for example. I would rather have these extreme positions represented, because they will be represented poorly. It takes wind out of the populist sails, where they can no longer simply promise everything until they’re in power and completely destroy the country.

[0xDEAFBEAD]

I think FPTP ends up working out a lot different in the parliamentary context. The US only has 2 parties in Congress, despite FPTP.

In terms of strength of 3rd parties, I'd say they are generally quite weak in the US system, somewhat stronger in a proportional representation parliamentary system, and potentially overpowered in a FPTP parliament like in the UK.

Historically I believe the 2-party system in the US was pretty good at tamping down on extremism, but recently the 2 major parties have acquired too many extremists.

[zimpenfish]

> the 2 major parties have acquired too many extremists.

You're blaming both parties for where the US is now?

[secos]

Ranked Choice Voting goes a long way to solving this as well.

[t_mann]

Does it? Could you explain which mechanism you suggest using? Because the main results from social choice theory about ranked choice voting that come to mind seem to be all about impossibility of fair elections (eg Arrow) or even paradoxical situations such as cyclic preferences (eg Condorcet).

[pornel]

These kinds of perfectionism complaints keep the status quo of FPTP, which is the worst of them all.

[cardiffspaceman]

Since none of the proposed replacements can be perfect according to the theory, let’s just stick with the worst one.

Big fat /s

[trueismywork]

You need to educate the people and convince them on how it works. Easily a 30 year project in places like India.

[FireBeyond]

Easily a 30 year project in the US, too.

[0xDEAFBEAD]

Yep. Sadly, Ranked Choice is not doing too well at the ballot in the US.

https://ballotpedia.org/Results_for_ranked-choice_voting_(RC...

[unicornporn]

How about not creating a precarious underclass with lack of (higher) education that is ready to vote for whatever solution promising to take down the system that made them so desperate for radical change?

[0xDEAFBEAD]

If the functioning of your nation's political system depends on the functioning of your nation's education system or your nation's economy, you've created a circular dependency. The education system and the economy are themselves downstream of the political system. Dysfunction in one tends to create dysfunction in the others. See https://www.econlib.org/library/Columns/y2004/Caplanidea.htm...

A good political system is one which continues to work well even when education and the economy suck, so societal self-repair is possible. Ideally it would actually start working better when things suck, so society becomes antifragile.

"More college diplomas" is not a great solution when existing graduates are already working at Starbucks. This is the "elite overproduction" which creates instability.

Americans already have a relatively high standard of living by global standards, e.g. see median income adjusted for cost of living: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-median-income?tab=t...

Yet Americans are still dissatisfied. Part of the problem is that our political system incentivizes candidates and media outlets to stir up dissatisfaction so they can exploit it. There's also envy / the hedonic treadmill.

[CamperBob2]

I don't really buy the education argument. How do you "educate" somebody who lived through the first Trump administration and voted for more of the same? Let's get specific: what exactly did they miss in school that would have driven them towards a different decision?

At some point it's necessary to confront the uncomfortable truth: stupid people are easy for smart, ill-intentioned people to herd, which gives the latter a leg up in any democratic election.

This bug in democracy was there in the beginning. But it's only now, 2500 years later, that it can be exploited effectively enough to invalidate the whole concept.

[tshaddox]

> At some point it's necessary to confront the uncomfortable truth

Sometimes the truth is even more uncomfortable than “lots of people are stupid.” A much more insidious scenario is when there’s two groups with no major differences in education or access to facts, but one has a cultural which is actively and explicitly hostile to truth. In such scenarios, ever-escalating hostilities between the two groups is inevitable.

[0xDEAFBEAD]

>This bug in democracy was there in the beginning. But it's only now, 2500 years later, that it can be exploited effectively enough to invalidate the whole concept.

Not sure where the 2500 number came from. The US is about 250 years old, and the founders were extremely wary of democracy based on its history prior to the US. The US constitution was designed to mitigate issues with democracy, e.g. that is the purpose of "checks and balances". By democracy standards, the US has been very successful; the average constitution only lasts 17 years: https://www.law.uchicago.edu/news/lifespan-written-constitut...

This article estimates that the US is the #2 longest-lasting republic after the Roman Republic: https://www.broadstreet.blog/p/the-democratic-institutions-o...

Nonetheless, you would think that the "technology" for writing constitutions would've evolved more in the past 250 years. And in fact, in the Federalist Papers, it is predicted that political technology will evolve, just like any other field of technology. Yet results there have been quite disappointing, if you ask me. There aren't that many interesting and innovative ideas in this area. Most people, even programmers, tend to get lost in the object level us-vs-them conflict instead of going meta with their creative algorithmic brain.

[0xDEAFBEAD]

My comment is too old to edit, but I would like to issue a correction. I should not have written "This article estimates that the US is the #2 longest-lasting republic after the Roman Republic", since the caption for the figure in the article states something different ("Duration of Long-Lived Democracies", i.e. the word "democracy" is used rather than "republic", and also there wasn't a claim to "longest-lived")

Never trust internet comments!

[alimw]

> Not sure where the 2500 number came from.

Athens probably? From what I remember of school, this was the world's first democracy. (I've heard that Americans are taught something else!)

[0xDEAFBEAD]

I didn't get the impression that Athenian democracy was particularly successful. So it seemed weird to say that the flaws in democracy are only now becoming apparent.

In fact, I understand that CamperBob2's critique of democracy is quite similar to that of Socrates. So I'm puzzled by the claim that it's "only now" that the critique is being proven correct, given that US democracy is notably more stable and long-lived than Athenian democracy.

In general, I think times of turmoil are always much more salient when you yourself are living through them. We lack the historical perspective to understand how bad turmoil has been in the past.

[ringeryless]

umm Switzerland disagrees with the assessment of the USA being the oldest democratic republic. If we are only speaking of republic, Portugal has been one since the 12th century, albeit there's been 10 or 11 iterations on the constitution, including Salazars so-called New State.

[0xDEAFBEAD]

Correction here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44223617

[Propelloni]

They missed that liberty and freedom is not a god-given right, but hard-earned privilege. They missed that liberty is not a personal property but a shared practice of pluralism. They missed that liberty is not absolute, but requires compromise and limitations so that we all can be free.

To be fair, those are not things that are taught in school. If they come up at all it is in some historical context, a battle someone else fought--and won. There is no mention that maintaining a liberal democracy requires effort and vigilance. Modern, ie. post-WW2, "fighting democracies" have built-in safeguards to oppose internal enemies of democracy, but if they are effective remains to be seen. The USA mostly does not even have such mechanisms and it shows.

[0xDEAFBEAD]

>Modern, ie. post-WW2, "fighting democracies" have built-in safeguards to oppose internal enemies of democracy, but if they are effective remains to be seen.

Eh, "internal enemies of democracy" is way too vague. E.g. Trump supporters claim that "unelected bureaucrats" in the "deep state" are enemies of democracy. Anyone can call anyone an "enemy of democracy".

[Propelloni]

Those fighting democracies are very specific about what is and what is not irreconcilable. For example, in Germany you can murder the president--that's just homicide--but you cannot abolish the protection of minorities. That's a violation of the constitution. Germany's far-right party Alternative für Deutschland has been under suspicion of violating a few of those provisions for quite some time now.

The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (aka. Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz) completed a report a few weeks ago but is required by law to withhold it from the public due to due process. Of course it leaked, you can read the report here [1] (it's in German, obviously).

Now there is a discussion ongoing, if the Alternative für Deutschland has to been dissolved. That's a fighting democracy at work, following the rule of law.

[1] https://assets.cicero.de/2025-05/Geheimgutachten_Teil%20A.pd...

[petre]

I see it as a continuation of the American Civil War in politics. There was always this attitude but now people are more redicalized, so it's more obvious.

[lotsofpulp]

It seemed more subdued during the 1990s/2000s, until a black guy became President, and a good one at that.

[FireBeyond]

And then the Democrats wanted to put forward a... a... a woman, too!

[tshaddox]

In that case, it would be neat if corruption were illegal!

[ty6853]

Or just more accessible, so the average person can get a piece of the benefits that cartels and megacorp executives already get.

[supriyo-biswas]

Voila, we've ended up with a low trust society with "petty corruption", which is generally considered harmful as it establishes something about that society that cannot be easily corrected unlike "grand corruption."

[kamaal]

>>I witnessed this up close in India where parties openly exist to benefit certain constituencies based on caste, language, religion and so on.

+1

As an Indian, classic definition of corruption here is something that other people do. When our own do it, its not really called corruption, its more intelligent work done to make our people win.

Similar term is appeasement. It kind of means if people I hate are winning, they must be doing bad things or cheating. It is impossible that people I hate should do well in life.

[natmaka]

> "we" are winning and "they" are losing

This is a very important rule stated by the War Nerd: 'Most people are not rational, they are TRIBAL: "my gang yay, your gang boo!" It really is that simple. The rest is cosmetics.'

A small human group is compatible with this tribal behavior because the bulk of actions (or at worst their effects) are quickly perceptible to everyone. The larger the group, the less each person understands what is happening, even the effects of what he does.

[pengaru]

I don't know wtf War Nerd is, but tribalism being alive and well is nowhere near a new/novel observation worth noting anyone pointed out.

[palmfacehn]

Agree that it is not a novel observation, but it is worth noting here. The discussion would be less ridiculous if there were less tribalism.

[natmaka]

It is about more than "being alive and well" but being omnipresent and determinant.

Stating it is useful because many neglect (or maybe even ignore) this fact.

The way the War Nerd puts it is IMHO the best.