A Hopkins Professor Says America’s Descent Into Authoritarianism May Have Started With Policing in Blue Cities. If That’s True, We’re in Big Trouble
A Hopkins Professor Says America’s Descent Into Authoritarianism May Have Started With Policing in Blue Cities. If That’s True, We’re in Big Trouble
As the Trump administration continues to press the boundaries of the Constitution, Johns Hopkins Professor Lester Spence says we need to understand one yet-to-be-examined source of the push towards authoritarianism: urban policing.
The article draws the line from increased policing in the 90's and 00's to today. I think you can also extend that line further back as a response to the great migration. This isn't a criticism of the article, just adding more to it. And I think the great migration just needs to get talked about more often. We've never really dealt with the fact that many Black communities in the north were formed by refugees fleeing terrorism in the south. They weren't welcomed with open arms in the north, but were rather ghettoized and used as a source of cheaper labor
Of course, the line always goes back further. America's descent into authoritarianism isn't really a "descent" as much as an expansion of who the targets are
Yeap, for a long time liberal and conservative politicians utilized putting POC in jail as a middle ground for policy. It's basically the mortar of third way politics, popularized by the Clinton's in the US. Their "super predators " policy was instrumental in breaking the gridlock in Congress in the 90s, and basically responsible for current Democrats willingness to capitulate to the GOP at the drop of a dime. Adopting Third way politics is basically opening an express lane to fascism.
People were generally onboard with liberating plantations, but the question of what to do with the previously disenfranchised was asked, framed, and guided by the previously slave owners. There was the option to give out land and cast a broad social safety net, but White hand wringing abolitionists couldn't get passed "what if Blacks are lazy and stealing from me?" So they leaned on "they can pull themselves up by the bootstraps", but to clear their consciences they also needed to claim they were lifting themselves up by their own bootstraps as proof that they'd contributed to building a system where that's possible. Yada yada, the system that manifested was wage slavery, a late 19th century nail in the coffin currently burying us alive!
I cannot agree more with the impression that the American is falling into authoritarianism... but why I have the feeling the originator of these comments are either a Democrat or an European.
The entire West has been falling into authoritarianism since a while ago, Trump just makes it more obvious, but the trend has been established way before he came. His presidential powers were given by many Congresses before him. The same happend in the EU, where the Commission has been allowed way, way more powers than the instituted in the Treaty of Lisbon (2007), let alone Maastricht Treaty (1992)
Inside the EU countries parliaments I see the same erosion.
But of course, lets all blame Trump so we can get back to normal... because whether you care about immigrants, discrimination, speech freedoms, wars, poverty, famine, etc... it was so much better in 2024!
It's not "falling into authoritarianism", it was always authoritarian.
Policing in "blue" cities by whom? These right wingers are like an ouroboros of self-deception.