{"id":2915,"date":"2024-11-01T20:17:00","date_gmt":"2024-11-01T20:17:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/andyjohnson.uk\/blog\/?p=2915"},"modified":"2024-11-02T19:29:49","modified_gmt":"2024-11-02T19:29:49","slug":"the-strongman-fantasy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/andyjohnson.uk\/blog\/2024\/11\/01\/the-strongman-fantasy\/","title":{"rendered":"The Strongman Fantasy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Timothy Snyder on <a href=\"https:\/\/snyder.substack.com\/p\/the-strongman-fantasy-text-and-audio\">The Strongman Fantasy<\/a> \u2014 life in the near-future Trump-style authoritarian dictatorship. The way that it starts:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>We dream that a strongman will let us focus on America. But dictatorship opens our country to the worst the world has to offer. An American strongman will measure himself by the wealth and power of other dictators. He will befriend them and compete with them. From them he will learn new ways to oppress and to exploit his own people.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>And the way that it ends:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>Once this process begins, it is hard to stop.\u00a0 At the present stage of the strongman fantasy, people imagine an exciting experiment.\u00a0 If they don&#8217;t like strongman rule, they think, they can just elect someone else the next time.\u00a0 This misses the point.\u00a0 If you help a strongman come to power, you are eliminating democracy.\u00a0 You burn that bridge behind you.\u00a0 The strongman fantasy dissolves, and real dictatorship remains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Most likely you won\u2019t be killed or be required to kill. But amid the dreariness of life under dictatorship is dark responsibility for others\u2019 death. By the time the killing starts, you will know that it is not about unity, or the nation, or getting things done. The best Americans, betrayed by you when you cast your vote, will be murdered at the whim and for the wealth of a dictator. Your tragedy will be living long enough to understand this.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/snyder.substack.com\/p\/the-strongman-fantasy-text-and-audio\">Link<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Timothy Snyder on The Strongman Fantasy \u2014 life in the near-future Trump-style authoritarian dictatorship. The way that it starts: We dream that a strongman will let us focus on America. But dictatorship opens our country to the worst the world has to offer. An American strongman will measure himself by the wealth and power of &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/andyjohnson.uk\/blog\/2024\/11\/01\/the-strongman-fantasy\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;The Strongman Fantasy&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[24,58,59],"class_list":["post-2915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-politics","tag-trump","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/andyjohnson.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/andyjohnson.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/andyjohnson.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andyjohnson.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andyjohnson.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2915"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/andyjohnson.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2915\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2916,"href":"https:\/\/andyjohnson.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2915\/revisions\/2916"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/andyjohnson.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andyjohnson.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andyjohnson.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}