There are no easy, or safe, solutions--but an idea that universities can carry on business as usual without regard to the level of federal funding of their most essential activities has already been shown to be incredibly naive.
I agree. The distinction between authoritarianism and corruption is important. But I would caution against overdrawing the distinction by posing a choice between two versions of what is "most important" -- "resting authoritarianism" OR "pulling our institutions away from corruption." Surely, we must do both of these things and do them equally.
Agreed. All of the corruption Danielle mentions is typical consolidation of power (gerrymandering, fixing elections to come out one way, fixing congress to support only the president) which is the first step toward authoritarianism. We can keep saying “we’re not at authoritarianism yet” depending on where people want to draw the line, but it doesn’t change the matter that we’re heading there. That’s the path we are on. Stopping the corruption IS stopping authoritarianism in this case.
Agree that stopping corruption is stopping authoritarianism. But I think when one shifts the focus one sees a different set of strategies. That’s why I think it’s important to get people to focus on corruption.
The suggestion I’m making is that we might do better at resisting authoritarianism if we focus in on pulling our institutions away from corruption…. I’m drawing on lessons from history in making that suggestion.
Prof. Allen, I took the liberty of sharing this with Rachel Maddow's staff. You make several points in this article that are game-changers for how we on the Left view the current environment and what approach could work in some arenas to build a stronger democracy. Thank you.
There are no easy, or safe, solutions--but an idea that universities can carry on business as usual without regard to the level of federal funding of their most essential activities has already been shown to be incredibly naive.
I agree. The distinction between authoritarianism and corruption is important. But I would caution against overdrawing the distinction by posing a choice between two versions of what is "most important" -- "resting authoritarianism" OR "pulling our institutions away from corruption." Surely, we must do both of these things and do them equally.
Agreed. All of the corruption Danielle mentions is typical consolidation of power (gerrymandering, fixing elections to come out one way, fixing congress to support only the president) which is the first step toward authoritarianism. We can keep saying “we’re not at authoritarianism yet” depending on where people want to draw the line, but it doesn’t change the matter that we’re heading there. That’s the path we are on. Stopping the corruption IS stopping authoritarianism in this case.
Agree that stopping corruption is stopping authoritarianism. But I think when one shifts the focus one sees a different set of strategies. That’s why I think it’s important to get people to focus on corruption.
The suggestion I’m making is that we might do better at resisting authoritarianism if we focus in on pulling our institutions away from corruption…. I’m drawing on lessons from history in making that suggestion.
Prof. Allen, I took the liberty of sharing this with Rachel Maddow's staff. You make several points in this article that are game-changers for how we on the Left view the current environment and what approach could work in some arenas to build a stronger democracy. Thank you.