Kerry warns OSCE of rise in 'authoritarian populism'

[FarCenter]

HAMBURG (AFP) -
US Secretary of State John Kerry warned Thursday of "the danger of authoritarian populism" sweeping many Western democracies and cautioned against backsliding on basic freedoms.

"Every chip away at the fundamentals of freedom is actually an ugly building block in the road to tyranny," he told a meeting in Germany of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

"And the fact is that we all need to beware of the danger of authoritarian populism," he told the 57-member forum.

http://www.france24.com/en/20161208-kerry-warns-osce-rise-authoritarian-populism

"Authoritarian populism"? If the authoritarians are voted in by a populist majority, isn't that just a result of normal democracy?

There is no fundamental principle of democracy that prevents authoritarians from being popularly elected.

[shraby]

1. Hitler was voted in by authoritarian populism. A normal democracy is not authoritarian.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

4. "Populism" is generally thought of as a phenomenon of democracies, but

it can also be a tool of an authoritarian regime.

Scholars have argued that populist elements have sometimes appeared in authoritarian or fascist movements. Conspiracist scapegoating employed by various populist movements can create "a seedbed for fascism." National Socialist populism interacted with and facilitated fascism in interwar Germany. In this case, distressed middle–class populists during the pre-Nazi Weimar period mobilized their anger at government and big business. The Nazis "parasitized the forms and themes of the populists and moved their constituencies far to the right through ideological appeals involving demagoguery, scapegoating, and conspiracism." According to Fritzsche:

The Nazis expressed the populist yearnings of middle–class constituents and at the same time advocated a strong and resolutely anti-Marxist mobilization....Against "unnaturally" divisive parties and querulous organized interest groups, National Socialists cast themselves as representatives of the commonwealth, of an allegedly betrayed and neglected German public....Breaking social barriers of status and caste, and celebrating at least rhetorically the populist ideal of the people's community...

In Argentina in the 1940s, a local brand of authoritarian populism emerged known as Peronism, after its leader Juan Perón. It emerged from an intellectual authoritarian movement in the 1920s and 1930s that delegitimized democracy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Populism

[jberryhill]

2. "no fundamental principle of democracy that prevents authoritarians from being popularly elected"

Typically, dictators are given their power by relatively democratic mechanisms, and this goes all the way back to the Roman Senate, and includes numerous examples such as Napoleon, Mussolini, Hitler, Marcos, Mugabe, and so on.

It is a relatively common feature of democracy that, yes, democratic systems do this. "Democracy", broadly speaking, has no safeguards against this sort of thing.

There are things that people tend to believe as articles of faith, supported by various arguments, which are simply articles of faith. That democracy is some kind of foolproof safeguard against tyranny is one of them.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

3. " Hitler was voted in by authoritarian populism. A normal democracy is not authoritarian."

[jberryhill]

6. ...and a True Scotsman, etc.

I think I'd like a definition of "normal" in this context.

Mussolini, Marcos, Napoleon, Mugabe... how long a list is needed before we reach some definition of "normal".

The same sort of problem happened with Commodus, who routed around the elite Senate "democracy" such as it was, for the support of the people.

The belief that despots cannot be popular is simply something that people choose to believe. Despots can be enormously popular - at least long enough to bring their societies to ruin.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

7. Hitler was voted in by authoritarian populism. A healthy democracy is not authoritarian.

[jberryhill]

9. Well that simply reduces to a tautology as one defines "healthy"

i.e. "healthy democracy" = "democracy that produces outcomes consistent with some pre-defined set of desirable attributes"

When did the US become a "healthy democracy"? When slavery was abolished? When women could vote? Was it an "unhealthy democracy" prior to some point in time and, if so, when?

But if you want "safeguards" against this sort of thing, then they are going to be "anti-democratic" to avoid what we might casually call "mob rule". If the "mob" is a majority, then that's democracy.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

10. Hitler was voted in by authoritarian populism. A liberal democracy is not authoritarian.

[jberryhill]

11. Rotating the adjective in front of the word "democracy" doesn't change things

[DemocratSinceBirth]

12. A liberal democracy by its very definition can not be authoritarian.

[jberryhill]

13. Is the US a "liberal democracy"? When did it become one, what year?

[C_U_L8R]

5. It sounds like an overabundance of hate-filled stupids

who are easily manipulated into a frenzy

[jberryhill]

8. In other words, Homo Sapiens

Why do you believe that humans are any other than mainly "hate-filled stupids who are easily manipulated into a frenzy"?

All sovereign governments are simply the heirs to whomever was able to kick the shit out of someone else most effectively at some previous point in time.

If it were not for hate-filled stupids who are easily manipulated into a frenzy, our species would have never managed to organize large societies on the basis we have now, because those who refused to "go along with the program" would never have been beaten into submission or kept at bay long enough to manage to develop civilization in the first place.