Oddbean new post about login | logout The reaction to Trump winning this time is so different than last time. Instead of being inspired to organize resistance there’s dispare and fear. Maybe once Trump’s project 2025 starts to be implemented people will get organized. Maybe Trump will succeed in remaking America in the image of Orban’s Hungary. https://archive.is/Orybg
Why would Trump look to remake the US with its 335 million people in the image of a tiny European country with 10 million people? Hungary has a homogeneous population, is landlocked, doesn’t run a global empire, doesn’t have rogue agencies running things from the shadows, doesn’t have the global reserve currency, on and on we can go with this. The idea makes no sense at all.
While the countries are quite different, the political projects of Orban and Trump have lots of parallels. Their two parties have had many connections and talk often about their common cause. Like or dislike Trump, if you want to know with this new consolidated power, look to Hungary. Orban was able to transform his country and consolidate power, in ways Trump admires. https://ecfr.eu/publication/the-orbanisation-of-america-hungarys-lessons-for-donald-trump/
If we remove all the "scare words", Orban's playbook is strikingly similar to Obama, Biden and Kamala's. He just serves different masters. I don't think Trump has the organisation or attention span to launch a similar effort in America. Democracy makes gains when elites are divided and distracted. I'm optimistic, but we, globally, need to make it happen.
Obama didn’t shutdown independent universities or all opposition ngo’s in the country.
He did have them all audited, and pulled the not-for-profit status of many. Term limits are a real bitch for that kind of project lol Obama was a brilliant, methodical insider and team player. Like Orban. Trump is none of those.
In ways that Trump has no hope of emulating given the constraints he faces, which Orban doesn’t. It’s like tech debt - you can’t just handwave that shit away in the real world, that’s not how it works, but that’s essentially what you’re saying even though you never would if the topic was tech debt.
"the political projects of Orban and Trump have lots of parallels" Yes, they both want to act within the system to gain power and then use that power to do what they think (perhaps mistakenly) is best for the people of their nation. You know WHO ELSE wanted to do what he thought was best for his nation?
People shouldn't have this kind of reaction: rising up or curling into a ball, for a result of a vote. Especially one for a two party corrupt either way system. If the votes were proven to be rigged, sure. If a war were started or even instigated or fuelled, sure, but not this. This, whether you like it or not, was the result of democracy. It is what a large percentage of your fellow citizens wanted. This is the result of so much divide and extreme belittling between parties.
The gradual closing of society to the right is just the counterpart of the same movement to the left; the closed society seems to be in vogue.
Do you think the US was basically a functioning democracy in 2008? Do you think the general government was basically structured as described by the Constitution? I think "No" to both. I think the elected officials have very little control and the real power lies in the institutions, and consequently US democracy is window dressing on an authoritarian system. I think the Constitution is not remotely followed. The Constitution forbids a standing army, vests all executive power in the President, requires only gold and silver as money, and forbids Congress from doing anything at all other than a handful of specifically listed powers. I view project 2025 as (partially) remaking America in the image of the Constitution, with the likely consequence that judges eventually bring it even closer in line.
I think the US constitution was a reactionary authoritarian document which was written 10 years after the American revolution. The document was the end of American democracy and the founding of the American republic. After the federalists consolidated power there were generations of activists who opened up the republic to some democratic governance over the last couple of centuries. The Declaration of Independence happened a full decade before the US constitution. The latter represented a major setback. Restoring the American government to the original constitution is something many people want but they shouldn’t call that democracy. It’s a republic governed by a few wealthy men.
What democratic governance? How is elected officials actually exercising real power less democratic than unelected bureaucrats exercising real power?
Project 2025 is not Trump's project 😂 wrong! That's what far left media keeps peddling and brainwashing already deranged people into believing. And the only thing that Orban and him have in common is healthy dose of common sense in some aspects, mainly not allowing to let their country's history and traditions get destroyed by bunch of lunatics.
Well I hope that Trump doesn’t implement the vision or plan of project 2025.
The Democrats look far more like Orban than Trump. Who talks about packing the Courts? Who created a "Disinformation Governance Board" to censor the opposition? The only Orban-like idea in the Trump camp is that elected officials should actually be in charge, which is the meaning of (representative) democracy.
There’s whole compilations of Trump saying he hasn’t even was project 2025 and has nothing to do with it so I doubt anything g changes there. Best resistance to all politicians is to stack bitcoin and live your life without giving in to any of the fear narratives.