Zombie Democracy?
What democratic backsliding looks like.
The Atlantic‘s George Packer reflects on what he dubs “America’s Zombie Democracy.” His theme is that, while daily life isn’t much different for most Americans, authoritarianism is on the march. It just looks different from what we’ve been accustomed to in the past.
We have in our heads specific images of authoritarianism that come from the 20th century: uniformed men goose-stepping in jackboots, masses of people chanting party slogans, streets lined with giant portraits of the leader, secret opposition meetings in basements, interrogations under naked light bulbs, executions by firing squad. Similar things still happen—in China, North Korea, Iran. But I’d be surprised if this essay got me hauled off to prison in America. Authoritarianism in the 21st century looks different, because it is different. Political scientists have tried to find a new term for it: illiberal democracy, competitive authoritarianism, right-wing populism. In countries such as Hungary, Turkey, Venezuela, and India, democracies aren’t overthrown, nor do they collapse all at once. Instead, they erode. Opposition parties, the judiciary, the press, and civil-society groups aren’t destroyed, but over time they lose their life, staggering on like zombie institutions, giving the impression that democracy is still alive.
The blurred line between democracy and autocracy is an important feature of modern authoritarianism. How do we know when we’ve crossed it? These sorts of regimes have constitutions, but the teeth are missing. Elections take place, but they’re no longer truly fair or free—the party in power controls the electoral machinery, and if the results aren’t desirable, they’ll be challenged and likely overturned. To keep their jobs, civil servants have to prove not their competence but their personal loyalty to the leader. Independent government officers—prosecutors, inspectors general, federal commissioners, central bankers—are fired and their positions handed to flunkies. The legislature, in the hands of the ruling party, becomes a rubber stamp for the executive. Courts still hear cases, but judges are appointed for their political views, not their expertise, and their opinions, cloaked in neutral-sounding legal terms, predictably give the leader what he wants, endorsing his most illiberal policies and immunizing him from accountability. The rule of law amounts to favors for friends and persecution for enemies. The separation of powers turns out to be a paper-thin gentleman’s agreement. There are no meaningful checks on the leader’s power.
It’s not entirely clear that we’ve reached that point, but there are numerous indicators. We’ll almost certainly have congressional elections in November 2026, but they will be less free and fair than the ones that preceded them. And, while it’s possible that the Supreme Court will decide differently when cases come before them on the merits than they have on the Shadow Docket, I’m not holding my breath.
The firing of statisticians, lawyers, inspectors general, and others who stand in the way of administration policy has certainly had a chilling effect. And corporations and others who need regulatory approval to operate are rushing to bend the knee.
Packer sees another way in which what’s happening today differs from the past:
Does an ideology drive these regimes? Would they sacrifice everything for the survival of some almighty ism? Doubtful. Instead of ideologies, they have slogans without much content. Fascism, like communism, was a serious ideology—one that mobilized populations in some of the most advanced countries of the 20th century to throw away their freedoms, go hungry and work themselves to the bone, give their lives in struggle and war. Fascism was serious enough to produce a mountain of corpses.
Today’s authoritarianism doesn’t move people to heroic feats on behalf of the Fatherland. The leader and his cronies, in and out of government, use their positions to hold on to power and enrich themselves. Corruption becomes so routine that it’s expected; the public grows desensitized, and violations of ethical norms that would have caused outrage in any other time go barely noticed. The regime has no utopian visions of a classless or hierarchical society in a purified state. It doesn’t thrive on war. In fact, it asks very little of the people. At important political moments it mobilizes its core supporters with frenzies of hatred, but its overriding goal is to render most citizens passive. If the leader’s speech gets boring, you can even leave early (no one left Nuremberg early). Twenty-first-century authoritarianism keeps the public content with abundant calories and dazzling entertainment. Its dominant emotions aren’t euphoria and rage, but indifference and cynicism. Because most people still expect to have certain rights respected, blatant totalitarian mechanisms of repression are avoided. The most effective tools of control are distraction, confusion, and division.
I disagree that there’s no ideology at work. Most of the governments engaged in so-called “democratic backsliding” use some form of populist nationalism as their ostensible organizing principle. They leverage some other—whether it’s immigrants, secularists, or some combination of groups—that they see as corrupting the founding culture as a pretext for crackdown.
And, semantics aside, Packer agrees:
These regimes thrive on polarizing the electorate into us and them. Us is defined as the “real” people—often working-class, rural, less educated—who think of themselves as the traditional backbone of the country and the victims of rapid economic and social change: globalization, immigration, technology, new ideas about race and gender identity. Them are the elites who benefit from these changes, who have no loyalty to the country and its traditions, along with the aliens and minorities whom the elites use to undermine the national way of life. The leader speaks directly for the people and embodies their will against the people’s enemies. As defender of the nation, he claims the right to override any obstacles, legal or otherwise. Whatever he does is the rule of law.
Regardless, the result is stark:
Over time, society is hollowed out. Civic organizations that engage in public affairs hesitate to get too political for fear of drawing unwanted attention. Universities, churches, NGOs, and law firms mute themselves to stay in the good graces of the state, which has tremendous financial and regulatory power over them. The press isn’t silenced, but it is intimidated by demagogic rhetoric, investigations, and lawsuits, so that journalists are constantly asking themselves what the negative consequences of a particular story or opinion will be. Over time, the major media fall under the control of the leader’s friends, leaving a few independent outlets to struggle on in pursuit of the truth.
Simply having to consider how the state might respond creates a chilling effect. One naturally asks, “Is it worth it?” and makes compromises.
We’ve been there for a while. And this is to say nothing of the incendiary language naturally justifying political violence. If the other is an existential threat to the Nation, then its elimination is not only just but necessary.
Packer devotes the rest of the essay to an argument that this has all been enabled by our algorithm-driven information environment. I’m skeptical of that. But that’s a subject for another post.
********************@
The people who refused to accept the legitimacy of the 2016 election, actively fought to “resist” and undermine a lawfully elected U.S. President, then tried to throw that President in prison after he left office the first time…are now worried about “authoritarianism.”
I’m also confused about where rampant censorship and lying to the public about something as basic as the mental health of a nation’s leader fit under “democratic backsliding.”
@PepperPrepper:
Cute. Precocious. Consider your cheek pinched for the day.
You can now go about your normal business—burning ants with a magnifying glass and selling lemonade on the sidewalk.
@PepperPrepper:
What are you going on about now? As surprised as people were, that did not happen. I think you meant the people who refused to accept the legitimacy of the 2020 election (which is you of course, but you will not say it because it confirms you are a quack) and stormed the Capitol, killed people and were subsequently pardoned. But please go on with your completely incomparable whataboutisms and unseriousness….Who takes you seriously? Anyone? Make an argument, man. Geez.
@PepperPrepper:
God, it must be so nice to be able to live in their own warped reality like Pepper does.
DFTFT. Please.
@Jc:
Have you seen what passes as argumentation among the MAGA crowd? Have you ever seen any of them who show up here say anything that does not seem like a stump speech outline with words added to form complete sentences?
They think an assertion=an argument.
—
Here is a piece by Cathy Young cross-posted on Cato from the Bulwark.
Young nor Cato nor The Bulwark could credibly be described as anything other than part of the broad center of politics. Certainly not fiscally/economically; socially only to the point that they are not bigots. But I have little doubt that some significant portion of MAGA see them as Leftist.
Even then, I somewhat disagree with Young (and James) about the Abrams-Kemp race. Mainly on the basis that no candidate should ever be the sitting official responsible for overseeing elections.* Shit, college football referees are not allowed to work a bowl game that features a team from their own conference.
*The purge of voter rolls and closing of polling stations may or may not have played a role in that race, but I see those as reasons for an overhaul of electoral systems rather than a reason to question a single result.
Packer is correct, but he misses a few points, at least as quoted. Control of the courts is necessary for an autocrat and the Federalist Society and Leonard Leo took care of that for Trump. Trying to exercise some control over universities is a standard ploy, as is pressuring the press and media. And Rupert Murdoch, Sinclair, and the depths of the intertubes handed Trump significant regime friendly media. Bezos has gone Quisling and NYT is unreliable.
James catches Packer’s big error, “Fascism, like communism, was a serious ideology”. It was not. That’s why it’s so hard to define. James notes that the Orbans and Erdogan’s practice populist nationalism, which is what the paradigmatic fascist, Hitler, practiced, with a unique add on of resentment over losing WWI.
There’s a lot of commentary that it’s over the top to compare Trump to Hitler and we aren’t fascist, using the dodges Packer notes, like no goose stepping masses and no giant pictures of Trump lining the streets, only a few government buildings. And we don’t get a Nuremberg Rally Field, only this ugly ballroom. We may not be fascist, but we are following the populist autocrats’ handbook.
On a thread about Zombies, it is worth noting that PepperPrepper is not just a Troll, but a zombie one at that, but the matter has been attended to.
BTW, just to set the record straight on what the stance of this site was on 2016, somebody wrote this:
He wrote a pretty long post on that subject, in fact. He never changed his mind about that basic assessment, either.
@James: I agree that it is a mistake to continue to assess this administration as non-ideological. I have been thinking a lot about that of late, in fact.
I think this is good stuff by Packer. When you say fascism people think Nazi Germany and we clearly arent that. I disagree that there is no ideology but rather that it’s a confused one. Its a combination of old fashioned conservatism (smaller government, less taxes on rich people), right wing populism/nationalism (the POTUS can order anyone killed he wants, lets kick out the brown people), Christian nationalism (women need to be subservient, kill the trans people) and the cult of personality which is very much fascism adjacent.
It all rolls into their wanting to give Trump almost any power he wants and tolerate, as noted, almost any level of obvious corruption. From the trivial stuff like using Trump buildings and golf courses for political events to the potentially billions of dollars going to Trump via his and the family’s crypto start up. I am sure Trump supporters will claim that all of those people with potential legal cases coming up just happened to invest in the Trump crypto (or Trump Social) because it was such a great investment but cont me skeptical.
Steve
I’m curious, James, what you still need to see to be clear that we’ve reached zombie authoritarianism. Trump 2.0 checked every box in Packer’s list as far as I could tell. Is it a question of degree?
For me, I’m not sure we’ve passed the point of no return, but there’s no doubt the zombies are well placed among us.
@Steven L. Taylor:
I look forward to your thoughts on this, particularly the idea that seeing Trump 2.0 as non-ideological is a “mistake.”
Per James,
To my mind, what James is describing here doesn’t amount to a set of ideas to rally to as an ideology would, but a set of tactics to secure political domination as a power-mongering does. Packer’s saying there need to be ideals as a basis if people are going to be willing to fight to the finish for an authoritarian regime. But, the only “ism” we are seeing here is Trumpism which is more a cult of personality than a belief system.
I see this as a ray of hope – without Trump – what does MAGA rally to? I really don’t know.
The best case scenario would be something like Mexico between 1924 and 1990 or so. One party rule, sham elections that never changed anything, more or less prosperous economy, minimal repression and censorship, and massive, massive corruption.
I don’t think we can know for sure until Jan 2029. But it’s not looking good. At the very least, a lot of damage is done that will take decades to fix, probably, should the republic survive.
@Scott F.:
Counterpoint: the Charlie Kirk memorial and the move to beatify him by many on the right/within the Republican Party
Counterpoint 2: Some who fully support the way ICE is currently behaving because it makes them feel safe.
(And, really, almost anything I post under the “In Front of Our Noses” tag.
C
@DK: This is the best case scenario, I think. The Rs lose in 28, and he leaves the place in shambles.
@Steven L. Taylor: Yeah, I’m still trying to figure it out. Revising my longstanding lecture on the US National Security Process, two things occurred to me:
1) It no longer makes sense to think of Trump as an aberration, or to say “This is the US process unless Trump is President.” It’s just not useful to students facing four more years of Trump.
2) It was already quite clear weeks ago that Trump 47 is not a mere continuation of Trump 45. It’s a completely different presidency, with much more radical and crystallized goals.
@Scott F.:
We’re on the brink, for sure. But I don’t know that we know for sure without two more milestones:
1. How free and fair are the 2026 elections? Given the popularity numbers and economy, one would naturally expect Democrats to win back the House. Will they be able to do that given even more gerrymandering and voter suppression? And, if they do, will they be able to constrain presidential action?
2. Will the Supreme Court continue blessing the raw power grab on the merits? Or will they rule against much of this? And, if the latter, will that constrain the administration?
Maria Ressa (Nobel Peace Prize-winning journalist Maria Ressa) thinks that Cambridge Analytica and algorithmic manipulation were critical in the Philippines She says that they practiced the techniques there, and brought them here.
I kind of think they were practicing the techniques here, and in the UK as well at the same time, but I take her point.
Yes, the internet and in particular Facebook is a critical tool for them here. Absolutely critical.
@James Joyner:
Thank you. Those milestones are clarifying for me.
Two related things brought down Mexico’s PRI authoritarian model.
One were the successive devaluations of the currency in 1976 and 1982, plus the debt debacle and hyperinflation later in the 80s.
This led to the second: the neoliberal economic reforms which required opening up markets to imports. This meant taking seriously the concerns of many foreign governments about the PRI dominance and corruption, particularly the US.
El Taco is working very hard on something like the first point, but he has a way to go yet.
@Steven L. Taylor:
I get you. I really do – big fan of the “In Front of Our Noses” posts BTW – so I think we’re cross-talking in the semantics space. Nevertheless, the differentiation in terminology is helping me sort out how to deal with the current state of US politics.
Ideology is the underlying system of beliefs, values, and ideals that forms a framework for understanding the world and how society should be organized, while tactics are the specific, practical, and actionable steps taken to achieve goals aligned with a particular ideology or strategy. [Full disclosure: AI generated, but I think on point.]
I believe the Beatification of Kirk is tactical, not ideological. To riff a bit on James’ point, it is the “pretext for a crackdown” on the Others [a tactic], but it is awfully weak on the “corrupting of the founding culture” part [a framework for understanding how society should be organized]. Stephen Miller’s “eulogy” at the Kirk’s memorial was seen as a low point for those not already in the cult.
Nazism needed “Deutschland über alles” – the Thems at the time (oversimplified – the Jews and Gypsies) were a relatively small part of the population – the “nationalist” part of nationalist populism was key to holding power. For Trumpism, the Them is everybody who doesn’t bend the knee to Trump, be they leftists, RINOs, Deep State bureaucrats, etc. That’s a plurality of the country. That’s a problem for the Trumpists if they want to scale MAGA to a nationalist populism robust enough to hold power.
My read on your INOON posts is that they pose a pretty simple argument. You, who fully support [insert latest egregious Trumpian act], if you are honest about [said act], is “feeling safe” or “the price of eggs” really worth that?!? And the response you get, if any have the courage for this look in the mirror, is either “[the egregious act] isn’t as bad as all that” or “I didn’t sign on for that [egregious act] and it is unfair for you to associate that part of the agenda with me.” I’ve yet to see “Yes! Feeling safe and cheaper eggs are worth ICE beating up on brown people.”
Sorry for going on and on, but all this is to say that I see Trumpism or MAGA as Ideology Light at best. This is a good thing. It means at the end of the day, if people don’t actually feel safer or pay less for groceries, MAGAism fails. This failure seems easier and more likely than overcoming ardent nationalist/supremacist pride.
@Scott F.: I really do need to flesh out my thoughts on this, but I think that part of the problem is that being in the middle of it sometimes makes it hard to see.
For example, MAGA is not that different than “Deutschland über alles”–the main difference is that Nazis came to power in the middle of a national emergency linked to the recent (relatively speaking) defeat in a foreign war and in the middle of a worldwide depression. It made mobilization easier.
But I think that the White Nationalism of Trumpism is a significant ideological factor. We are in the middle of an administration seeking to define what a “real American” is, and seeking ot define those who do not qualify as terrorists.
It is certainly “ideology light” as compared to, say, Lenin. But Peron and Pinochet, to name two southern cone dictators that start with P, weren’t philosophers like Lenin (or Mao), but there was enough ideology there to matter.
I think we (Americans writ large) think that “ideology” has to come with a big book of ideas that the leader has assembled as a blueprint. But I think this is not necessarily the case.
@Steven L. Taylor:
So 100% this. And we can see that in the (literal) Orwellian obsession with history.
This is especially apparent in the censoring of state institutions. Removing “wokeness” from the National Museums is one example. Honestly, I wonder about the fate of the Museum of the American Indian and the African American Museum, but I’m not sure this administration has the necessary capital or willingness to close either of them outright.
We also see it in recent announcements about Federal parks. I have no idea if Harpers Ferry–a park literally based around a slave uprising–will need to hide that part of its history. The jury is still out on that, and at the same time, the fact that the possibility is in play is a HUGE issue: https://wjla.com/newsletter-daily/harpers-ferry-historic-site-slavery-trump-white-house-executive-order-history-john-brown-alan-spears-tourism
Then we have the decision from yesterday to restore the Medals of Honor distributed for the Wounded Knee massacre. The fact that the administration is paying attention to rewriting history that old (fun fact, more Medals of Honor were given out for killing Native American women and children than were given out for soldiers storming the beaches on D-Day) is a prime example of this White nationalist agenda.
https://apnews.com/article/wounded-knee-hegseth-soldiers-medal-of-honor-0310c47952ad7aeabb176f94d8af4d52
I suspect at least one person is reading this who is currently thinking, “sure that’s bad, but what about the 1619 project’s historical overreach?”
@Kathy:
That’s a good point about the PRI.
Also re
@Scott F.:
@Steven L. Taylor:
The default analogy for Trump and MAGA is fascism; but I suspect other varieties of authoritarianism might be better comparative models.
Those of Latin America, South Korea under Syngman Rhee, central/eastern Europe in the 1930’s, much of post-colonial Africa, Portugal under Salazar, Napoleon III, the German Second Reich, etc.
It’s a bit too half-arsed and not militarised to be full-on fascism.
otoh, it does as Professor Taylor points out, have a certain ideological bent, if unsystematised, based on White/Christian Nationalism.
And the combination of grumpiness and a persecution complex, as evidenced by a certain peppery person.
“I speak severely to my boy,
I beat him when he sneezes;
For he can thoroughly enjoy
The pepper when he pleases!”
“Wow! wow! wow!”
@Scott F.:
White Supremacy, with a side of Eugenics. And a little Social Darwinism sprinkled on top.
The question isn’t what MAGA will rally to, but who. That’s where I think it comes crumbling down.
Trump is fun. It’s a spectacle of hate. An absolute carnival of hate. The Baskin-Robins 31-derful flavors of hate.
No one on the right can duplicate that. Ron DeSantis tries. The TechBros have their heart set on Vance, but he just brings hate without spectacle.
And Trump barely won, and he is holding that Party together like Tito held together Yugoslavia. Who can repeat that?
Oh, god… it’s going to be fucking RFKJr., isn’t it?
Mr. “Healthy people don’t die of measles.” Mr. “There wasn’t this level of gun violence when I was young.” Mr. “I sawed the head off a whale, strapped it to the roof of my car, and drove home with my kids wearing plastic bags to keep the dripping whale juice off them.”
Hopefully his awful voice will save us.
On the other hand, being devoured by the monster they created is kind of on brand for Republicans. The Bush-Era establishment Republicans got crushed by the Tea Party that they elevated, the Tea Party got flattened by Trump… MAGA being decimated by MAHA just feels right.
A healthy party doesn’t get taken over by random idiots they thought they could woo and control. Only natural they get culled.
@JohnSF:
Fascism by C-minus students.
I was also thinking over the recent discussion here about religion and politics.
It was argued, and I agreed, that religion tends to be degraded when it gets co-opted by politics.
But, it could be that’s a rather recent “modern West” point of view, and one that largely developed in the US, and has since spread to be the accepted default position in most of “the West” (broadly defined).
In a longer historical perspective, religion and politics have often been very difficualt to disentangle.
I could cite umpteen instances fom BC to recent.
For instance, the UK “Church and King and Aristocracy” Anglican Establishment.
Japanese “State Shinto”.
The European ancien regime, in both Catholic and Protestant variants.
Islam, in much of its history.
The East Roman/Byzantine Empire
The Indic/Brahmanic caste structured social order.
Ancient Egypt.
etc etc etc
Religion has far more often been part of social and communal custom, and deeply intertwined with the established political order, and social hierarchies, than the relatively novel American disconnection, where religion becomes primarily a matter of personal conscience conditioned by family habituation.
In some ways the “Christo-Nationalist” strand of MAGA seems to be a denial of the “liberal” tradition of the US (“liberal” in this sense NOT meaning “progressive/left” in the contemporary usage).
So perhaps it’s not surprising that such atavism also brings in its train pseudo-monarchic inclinations.
Or in the case of some “alt-Right” (eg the ludicrous Yarvin) an explicit preference for “limited monarchy” or “CEO authority” governance.
It’s quite ironic really: attempting to harness populism out of fear of the people.
@Steven L. Taylor:
I agree with all of this. This why I see the tenuousness of the “ideology” of the White Nationalism of Trumpism as a hopeful sign. The Trumpists are overreaching. When the Them for Trumpism was merely illegal immigrants, trans people, and “socialists,” that left a big enough swath of the populace still in the “real American” bucket to believe a populist movement could hold power in a zombie democracy. But, by making everyone a leftist terrorist if they won’t beatify Charlie Kirk or lionize ICE agents (both more ideological stances), they will shrink the number of “Real Americans” to size of a coalition that can be defeated at the ballot box, even a zombified ballot box.
@Gustopher:
This is a personal bugbear, I admit, and I’m not sniping at you for using the term, but “Social Darwinism” as descriptor really grinds my nuts.
Darwin never subscribed to such, and the whole concept was based on the rather nutty Herbert Spencer, whose ideas actually pre-dated Darwin, but seem to have had no influence upon him.
Spencer took Malthus and applied that via “radical liberalism” to sociology and politics in humans, to an absurd degree.
Darwin thought about Malthus, and realised the point of limited ecological capacity, and potential for reproductive success in an entirely ungoverned and competing hereditary speciation potential.
And, to be fair to Spencer, he seems to have been a “liberal” individualist, and never seems to have gone on to racial/ethnic “group selection” and “national competion” concepts which so poisoned European (and some American) political thought in the late 19th/early 20th Centuries.
It’s often forgotten now, perhaps again due to the pervasive impact of American cultural concepts, but in that period, in Europe, “race” was often a synonym for “nation”, rather than being necessarily based on “colour” (mostly).
Different social and political contexts.
@JohnSF:
To be honest, I am not sure that how successful they are determines how they should be classified.
The fact that ICE has a budget that eclipses most country’s militaries as a result of the Trump budget bill makes me less convinced of the lack of militarization.
The NG deployments (and threats) and all the Department of War stuff also fits.
Let’s not forget murder in the Caribbean as policy.
I think there is too much of an expectation that fascism has to look as it did almost a hundred years ago to be the appropriate designation. I get the reticence about the term, but I can’t shake the notion that is it the right one to use.
@Steven L. Taylor:
I mean militarized in a social sense: Italian fascism and German nazism were really invested in large-scale national mobilization and also “Party Armies” – Blackshirts, Brownshirts – that don’t seem to have an analogue in MAGA.
There are the “Proud Boys”, etc, but they are a fringe, relatively.
(And I suspect Rohm’s SA would have sniggered at the “Proud Boys”, then beaten them up.)
There is indeed a nasty strain of the “cult of violence” and “the leader is always right” and “maximum force!” , and unconcern for “petty legality” in MAGA.
But it’s not based on a principle of universal social militarization, led by a largely militarized and hierarchically disciplined Party, and with a pretty defined aim of general social purification by legal and/or illegal force. Though it might get there, and shows worrying indications of doing so.
(And “race based” international expansionism, but that’s more contextual)
Yes, much of MAGA/Trumpian “Republicanism” seems worrying worryingly compfortable with the concept of the law as a means, not a constraint, and with semi-arbitrary violence against “enemies”
But the whole ideological point of fascism was structured militaristic social mobilization in the national cause.
That is why, absent that, Trumpism/MAGA seems to me more like Salazar, or the PRI, or perhaps Putin, than Hitler.
Though, of course, either Salazar or Putin is more than worrying enough.
@JohnSF:
There’s one thing El Taco seems to miss, that the PRI understood well: you have to improve conditions for the people, especially for the base, and this means government handouts even if only to preferred groups (better to all groups, to really quiet the opposition), That’s why the awful economic mismanagement took down the PRI (now reinstated via King Andres Manuel’s MORENA party…)
El Taco pretty much has increased the wealth transfer upwards, raising taxes on the middle class, reducing healthcare access, etc. At some point, pele will realize they cannot eat cruelty towards immigrants, and that ranting at the UN doesn’t help with chronic conditions.
I’m uncertain whether to add corruption to the litany above. During Mexico’s equivalent to the Trente Glorieuses, which likely began before WWII, I’m sure the PRI rulers of the time took their cut of every peso the government spent. Just the same, presidents like Calles, Cardenas, Aleman, Avila Camacho, and Diaz Ordaz, were rather popular in their time. It took the excessive greed and outright stupidity of Echeverria and Portillo to wreck things.
Portillo’s successor was Miguel de la Madrid. A popular joke at the time held he’d be the least corrupt president, as his predecessor left the figurative cupboard bare. No loot, no looting.
@Kathy:
This was not an uncommon pattern: see also Second Empire France, Salazar in Portugal, Peronism in Argentina, post-1945 Francoist Spain.
Even, in many respects, Communism in Eastern Europe 1945-1990.
The problem tends to be: they can’t get it done.
Attempts to central control of distribution of benefit to uphold political position, tends to increase inefficiency and the opportunity for graft, and eventually to a semi-hereditary caste of parasites.
The ruling regime may genuinely desire to spread benefits to all, if only for its own benefit.
But given the “connected” wetting their beaks first, and the increasing economic sclerosis, someone has to lose out.
And it’s a pretty safe bet it won’t be the regime insiders.
This a pattern so frequently repeated in various countries as to be a historial cliche.
The thing about temptation is, mostly it doesn’t get resisted.
@Steven L. Taylor:
Yeah, fascism (and genocide, since we’re on the subject) need not look exactly the same as they did in 1925 to qualify. Democratic governance as our founders understood it — All [straight Anglo-Saxon descended] men [and only men, and only men who own land] are created equal — is tad different from our metric, but the general point stands.
@Gustopher:
That is a great line, funny because it encapsulates a lot of truth. I’m gonna steal it.
Reminds me of Charles Pierce calling W “C+ Augustus”. IIRC Trudeau referenced that in Doonesbury by depicting W as an empty Roman helmet.
@JohnSF:
I think that what political scientists called the “corporatistic” elements of fascism are missing, yes. That included a whole lot of social organization that Vargas in Brazil tried to duplicate at one point, and even influenced Peron in Argentina, IIRC.
I am less convinced that all of that is essential to fascism thank once was.
More to come, I expect.
@Kathy: The PRI knew how to deal out the goodies selectively, that’s for sure.
@Gustopher: Pretty much.