Daniel Little
rising tide of radical populism; defense of liberal democracy; social democracy
Thomas Edsell's piece in the August 3, 2022 New York Times offers a truly chilling view of the plans currently underway by Donald Trump and his supporters for creating an authoritarian one-party state in the United States (link). Edsell draws primarily from Trump's own words at the America First Policy Institute in late July 2022. As he …
Continue reading "The growing risk of authoritarian rule in the US"
In December 2020 I reviewed Hannah Arendt’s analysis of totalitarianism in The Origins of Totalitarianism (link) to try to assess the damage and threats created for our democracy by Donald Trump’s conduct as president. There were very worrisome indications at that time of the slide towards an authoritarian political regime caused by Trump's behavior and …
Continue reading "The GOP descent into right-wing authoritarianism"
The sickening tragedy of Buffalo yesterday -- the racist attack on a group of African-American shoppers and workers by an 18-year-old white supremacist man in body armor, carrying a military-style weapon -- is simply too much to absorb. This is indisputably an act of domestic terrorism; and yet our police and federal counter-terrorism agencies are …
Continue reading "Incitement of violence by far-right media networks"
image: Joseph de Maistre The ideologies of the far right have a particularly strong grip on a segment of democratic society in the current epoch. This is evident in the extremism of the current leadership of the GOP, and it is evident as well in the growth of hate-based groups in the United States (link). …
Senator Mike Braun (R-Indiana) made news in the past few days by questioning whether the Supreme Court was right to rule in 1967 that state bans on interracial marriage were unconstitutional. Here is the exchange (link): "So you would be OK with the Supreme Court leaving the question of interracial marriage to the states?" a …
We sometimes think of political philosophies as falling on a spectrum from left to right. Bernie Sanders is on the left and Greg Abbott is on the right. Our mental map might perhaps look something like this: However, a moment's reflection shows that this scheme doesn't really work. There isn't a single dimension along which …
Sometimes political philosophers think of the The Federalist Papers as fairly minor contributions to the history of political theory -- time-bound, parochial, and written by colonial bumpkins who couldn't really hold a candle to Locke or Hobbes. When addressed at all, they are often used simply as evidence about the "original intent" of various constitutional provisions in …
Continue reading "Factions, insurrections, and the Federalist Papers"
Many organizations express the goal of embracing diversity and inclusiveness. This is an admirable goal, but it is often only weakly pursued in practical terms. Efforts towards this end will be stronger in enhancing diversity and inclusiveness if we think carefully about what we have in mind when we think of that better future we …
The entrenched rule of the BJP and its leader, Narendra Modi, has led to a truly alarming degradation in India's democratic institutions (link). Hindu nationalism and the degradation of citizenship rights for Muslims and other non-Hindus; the rise of paramilitary violence in cities; the repression of non-compliant students and academics through violence and the threat …
Democracy is at risk in the United States. Why do leading political observers like Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt (How Democracies Die) fear for the fate of our democracy? Because anti-democratic forces have taken over one of America's primary political parties -- the GOP; because GOP officials, governors, and legislators openly conspire to subvert future …
Continue reading "United States after the failure of democracy"
Understanding Society 