[FRIAM] Up and Out vs Down and in

Sun Feb 9 11:53:18 EST 2020

Well, Dave, I am not assuaged.  Like you, I worry about the Next Guy, perhaps Blumberg?  The Marc Anthony, the Savior from the Center.  Trump looses the election by a slim margin, briongs his base, with their guns, into the streets.  Nobody wants the fight.  Either he prevails and gets a third term, or Blumberg comes in and tries to clear the streets.  Mayhem.  Martial Law.  

FWIW, read the following, courtesy of WIKIPEDIA, 

Hitler rose to a place of prominence in the early years of the party. Being one of its best speakers, he was made leader after he threatened to leave otherwise. He was aided in part by his willingness to use violence in advancing his political objectives and to recruit party members who were willing to do the same. The Beer Hall Putsch <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beer_Hall_Putsch>  in November 1923 and the later release of his book Mein Kampf <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mein_Kampf>  (My Struggle) expanded Hitler's audience. In the mid-1920s, the party engaged in electoral battles in which Hitler participated as a speaker and organizer,[a] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler%27s_rise_to_power#cite_note-citizenship-1>  as well as in street battles and violence between the Rotfrontkämpferbund <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotfrontk%C3%A4mpferbund>  and the Nazis' Sturmabteilung <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturmabteilung>  (SA). Through the late 1920s and early 1930s, the Nazis gathered enough electoral support to become the largest political party in the Reichstag, and Hitler's blend of political acuity, deceptiveness, and cunning converted the party's non-majority <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majority>  but plurality <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plurality_(voting)>  status into effective governing power in the ailing Weimar Republic of 1933

I agree that chilling is a good thing.  Better a cold fear than a hot one.  

Nick

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

 <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com

 <https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of Prof David West
Sent: Sunday, February 9, 2020 4:03 AM
To: friam at redfish.com
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Up and Out vs Down and in

Nick,

May I make a simple suggestion?

Chill.

I recall the conversations at FRIAM the months after mr. T was elected — Apocalypse NOW! is a pretty accurate depiction. (And the same list of "safe havens was presented then.)

There is no conceivable path whereby the donald could become a dictator.

The only way that any president could do so is if the electoral college were eliminated and some parallel of the circumstances around the FDR era were in place. The constitution could be quickly amended to allow more than two terms, and off we go. I guarantee, if that were to happen it would be a dictatorship of the left, not the right.

I used to worry about an American Theocracy, but trump pretty much destroyed the likelihood of that.

As to how "we use our considerable talent, skill, knowledge, resources, and technical knowhow to do everything in our power to reverse the authoritarian pandemic that is sweeping the world." First, recognize that "there is no pandemic; then figure out why almost half the electorate voted the way they did. (It was not FOR trump.)

it would not hurt to understand the difference between finite and infinite games and apply that knowledge to an analysis of US politics since, circa, 1900.

davew

On Sun, Feb 9, 2020, at 6:04 AM, thompnickson2 at gmail.com <mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com>  wrote:

All,

I have a friend who reads a lot of history and thinks HARD about what he reads.  For months he has been reassuring me about the state of American democracy because, as he said, Trump wasn’t a well focused dictator like Hitler.  But I saw him last Monday and he asked me, with an air of genuine panic, “What do I do?”  The reason for his new panic was his realization that Hitler had not always been a focused dictator, but had been entrained, over his career, to play just those themes that would rouse the German people to War.  The impeachment process had convinced him that Trump was gradually developing the focus of a proper Hitler. 

So I passed the question he asked me onto the group on Friday.  “What do we do?”  What struck me was that many of us took the question to be, “where do we best escape to?”  Options included New Zealand, Costa Rica, Bermuda, Canada, Italy, etc.  These answers startled me, because, of course, the question I meant to be asking was, how do we use our considerable talent, skill, knowledge, resources, and technical knowhow to do everything in our power to reverse the authoritarian pandemic that is sweeping the world. 

Now some of you, perhaps many, that we in any kind of an emergency, or even if we are, that there is anything we might do about it, or even that there is any particular reason to save American democracy.  I am happy to have that discussion, too.  However, from those of you who share my panic, I would love to hear suggestions about what I (and others) might do in the next year .

All the best,

Nick   

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com> 

https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

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