#authoritarianism

#authoritarianism

Under the pretext of targeting foreigners abroad, Section 702 has become a vehicle for unconstitutional, warrantless backdoor searches of Americans' private communications. The FBI conducts up to 3.4 million illegal backdoor queries in a single year.

In 1979 the revolution happened, and now Tehran looks like something from an earlier century. Sometimes I think that our whole world has become kind of like that-going backwards in time.

People must forget about democracy. If an African wants to tell you about democracy, you should run away. Democracy kills. This statement by Traore reflects a stark rejection of democratic principles in favor of military governance.

The so-called troika of tyranny in Latin America, the dictatorships of Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua, was always a misleading oversimplification. Despite sharing some common elements due to their authoritarian resilience, 21st-century dictatorships were never a homogeneous bloc.

Dehumanization, as a psychological and socio-political process, represents one of the most destructive phenomena in human history. It involves the denial of attributes that define individuals or social groups as human, thereby devaluing their moral status and legitimizing violence and cruelty against them.

The real Führer is always a judge. Out of Führerdom flows judgeship. One who wants to separate the two from each other or puts them in opposition to each other would have the judge be either the leader of the opposition or the tool of the opposition and is trying to unhinge the state with the help of the judiciary.

The first out transgender member of the U.S. Congress took the world stage in Germany last week, warning that attacks on people like her and on LGBTQ+ rights more broadly are being weaponized in the current political climate, as she joined former first lady and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on a high-profile panel at the Munich Security Conference.

They are looking to withdraw the United States from the entire world so that we can turn into an age of authoritarianism, of authoritarians, that can carve out the world where Donald Trump can command the Western Hemisphere and Latin America as his personal sandbox, where Putin can saber-rattle around Europe and try to bully around our own allies there, and for essentially authoritarians to have their own geographic domains.

Highly Respected Prime Minister of Hungary, Viktor Orban, is a truly strong and powerful Leader, with a proven track record of delivering phenomenal results. He fights tirelessly for, and loves, his Great Country and People, just like I do for the United States of America. Orban has served as Hungary's prime minister since 2010, and previously held the post from 1998 to 2002.

Fifteen years ago, Egyptians from all walks of life took to the street to demand "bread, freedom, social justice." They were protesting the oppressive 30-year rule of Hosni Mubarak. Egypt had been under martial law for 31 years. This meant that political opposition was silenced, and opponents were often imprisoned and tortured. Police brutality was the norm. Egypt's economy was also weak and relied heavily on foreign aid and loans from the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

"Freedom from fear" was the fourth of four freedoms defining democracy President Franklin D. Roosevelt framed in his rally cry to fight fascist conquest from without. It is openly debated whether America is now fighting a fascist takeover from within. It may be debated, but only because the would-be dictators of the world will always disguise their plays for power in the mock forms of democratic legality-by declaring a fake emergency, attacking political rivals through trumped-up legal charges or holding rigged elections.

In the wake of ruthless arrests of journalists Don Lemon and Georgia Fort in Minneapolis, one Harvard political scientist is arguing something many of us have suspected for a long time: the US is moving away from its traditional democratic framework toward a fundamentally different system of governance. In an interview with the media industry publication Status, Harvard political scientist Steven Levitsky made the case that the Trump administration's assault on democratic norms has now become extreme, even by the standards of right-wing dictators.

I lived in Argentina in the mid-1980s, just after the fall of the brutal military dictatorship that ruled from 1976 to 1983. The country was taking its first, shaky steps back toward democracy. It was a time of great hope, but also of grave uncertainty - because while the generals were gone, the political culture that enabled them remained. Like most of the nation, I was captivated by the pioneering trials of the military generals that promised to restore justice.