No. of Recommendations: 7
Not really a US policy thing specifically.
I read a long time ago (more than 10 years) that authoritarianism is inevitable in human society. I may be embellishing my memory here, but these various points are rummaging around in my brain. Democracy is hard, requires people to put in effort, and that really is contrary to the natural human state (i.e. taking the easy path). So the majority of voters (probably in all democracies**) are low-info voters. Therefore, they can (and do) vote in monsters on occasion. Sometimes they recover from it (like we did in 2020 from the convict). Other times, they can only be displaced by war (like Germany). Russia still hasn't rid itself of its monster. As technology advances, it is easier to control people through surveillance, facial recognition, biometry, crowd control and dispersal tools, and more. So once a regime gets in place, it would be very difficult to dislodge them, because they can fairly easily stifle any dissent, and jail any would-be (or actual) dissidents. China and DPRK are great examples, where no opposition even can get started. With advanced technology, pretty much the only way to dislodge either regime is with vast quantities of kinetic disassembly of the governments (i.e. war...likely waged externally, e.g. NATO or the US). I doubt Russia will change, so Putin is PfL, and his approved successor will be hand-chosen, and any voting will just be a formality. I don't see how the Russian people can get back their government at this point.
Eventually, all regimes will be authoritarian. Any voting will be theater. Want to complain? They'll come for you before you get the chance because they'll know what you're doing and/or planning.
I'm sure the author of what I read was more organized. I'm flying from memory here, and inserting more current events. But I am left wondering if the author was correct. Democracy is on the decline globally. Whether it's from invented waves of "rapists and murders crossing our border", to "those people over there blew up an apartment building" (Russia), to various other "fear and loathing" tactics, the rise of authoritarianism is evident.
**Remember after "BREXIT", the number one google search the day after the referendum was "what is Brexit"...the Brits voted "nay" without even know what it was.
