{"id":3577,"date":"2016-11-16T09:51:16","date_gmt":"2016-11-16T08:51:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/?p=3577"},"modified":"2016-11-17T15:29:44","modified_gmt":"2016-11-17T14:29:44","slug":"america-according-to-a-political-scientist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/3577\/","title":{"rendered":"Donald Trump According to a Political Scientist"},"content":{"rendered":"

According<\/a> to N. Turkuler Isiksel, an Assistant Professor of the Core Curriculum at the Department of Political Science at Columbia University, Trump is going to instigate regime change in the USA.<\/p>\n

Those of us who witnessed illiberal populist movements take hold in Turkey, Russia, Hungary, Poland, the Philippines, and elsewhere are watching the election of Donald Trump with a particularly acute sense of foreboding.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But as we’ll find out in due course, your fears are largely based on assumptions that would only make sense in the corridors of Ivy League Political Science departments.<\/p>\n

Trump has a wide variety of tried and tested techniques on which to draw; already, he has vowed to take pages out of Putin\u2019s playbook.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Such as winning elections.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t look for ways to soothe your sense of alarm, or assume that a Trump presidency might turn out less harmful than he has so far indicated. Autocrats almost always turn out worse than they seem before coming to power.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Donald Trump – who has never held political office and has yet to assume one – is already branded an autocrat. \u00a0Presumably those clever people in Ivy League Political Science departments just know<\/em> this, in the\u00a0same\u00a0way they all knew Hillary would win the election.<\/p>\n

A presidential candidate who has uncontrollable fits of rage over perceived slights from a former beauty queen is likely to use every resource available to him to hound his enemies.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Begging the question there, aren’t we? \u00a0Or are we to believe a Twitter spat is an “uncontrollable fit of rage”?<\/p>\n

In the United States, those powers are formidable indeed, ranging from a nuclear arsenal to the boundless surveillance powers of the NSA.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And just like that we move from Twitter spats to nuclear weapons. \u00a0Political analysis at its finest.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t expect the Republican establishment to rein him in, as few Republicans were courageous enough to disavow his candidacy even when he appeared to be losing\u00a0<\/i>the election.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Oh, how times have changed since October 9th when the NYT was generating timelines<\/a> telling us why and when\u00a0no less than 160 senior Republicans refused to endorse Trump. \u00a0Presumably our Assistant Professor at Columbia doesn’t have access to Google.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t count on the elaborate system of checks and balances instituted by the founders. James Madison\u2019s ingenious machine was designed to withstand the mundane incompetence, greed, and short-sightedness of politicians, but it cannot weather the onslaught of an aspiring tyrant hell-bent on destroying it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’ll not bother to provide evidence that Trump is an aspiring tyrant hell-bent on destroying the constitutional foundations\u00a0of the United States, but let’s just assume he is, okay? \u00a0Otherwise my article would look a bit silly.<\/p>\n

Consider that the separation of powers, the primary mechanism Madison envisaged for holding tyranny at bay,<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Why yes, let’s consider this. \u00a0Now why wasn’t this a problem when Obama was issuing Executive Orders and saying “I have a pen and a phone”<\/em>? \u00a0See, the problem with turning a blind eye when your<\/em> guy runs roughshod over checks and balances is that one day somebody you don’t like might be in charge.<\/p>\n

is all but irrelevant while Republicans control the House, the Senate, and the presidency\u2014particularly once they get their hands on key federal judicial appointments.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

How dare they get voted in by the citizenry!<\/p>\n

All autocrats set about dismantling countervailing power structures, but with the inauspicious ideological alignment of all three branches of government, Trump won\u2019t even have to try.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So Trump probably won’t behave like an autocrat, or carry out any of the things normally associated with autocrats, but he is still an autocrat, because I say so. \u00a0Got it.<\/p>\n

If you trust in freedom of expression to expose the autocratic machinations of a Trump administration, think again.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And of course, the last eight\u00a0years of Democrat rule have not witnessed an erosion of the right to freedom of expression, oh no! \u00a0Christian bakers may beg to differ.<\/p>\n

It is no coincidence that Erdo?an and Trump are both litigious in the extreme, regularly using personal lawsuits to bludgeon their critics into quiescence.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Trump – a property developer – has sued people. \u00a0So has Erdogan, who is President of Turkey. \u00a0Therefore Trump is just like Erdogan. \u00a0I don’t know about you, but I’m convinced!<\/p>\n

Autocrats understand that freedom of expression is fragile, and seek to stifle it by hook or by crook.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This at a time when Ben Shapiro is being banned<\/a> from speaking at De Paul university – on the topic of Campus Intolerance no less. \u00a0Presumably Trump’s henchmen have already infiltrated universities\u00a0and are clamping down on free speech. \u00a0That’s quick work.<\/p>\n

The American free speech tradition is stronger than Russia\u2019s or Turkey\u2019s, but a hyper-sensitive, bullying White House press office could easily cow the media into favorable reporting.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That ship sailed a long time ago, I’m afraid. \u00a0But it didn’t leave the harbour under a Republican flag.<\/p>\n

Conservative \u201cnews\u201d outlets already enjoy overwhelming dominance in the United States, and Trump\u2019s singular genius is for manipulating the media.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Sorry, what? \u00a0I mean seriously, this article is about what you’d expect from somebody who inhabits the echo chamber of Columbia’s Political Science department, but does she really believe this? \u00a0Did she not follow the media’s election coverage? \u00a0Pretty much every single major organ opposed Trump, catastrophically so. \u00a0Where was Trump’s manipulative genius\u00a0there? \u00a0The author is either spectacularly ignorant or lying. \u00a0I have no idea which.<\/p>\n

That, after all, is how he fueled the birther movement that in turn made him into a political force.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A political force that nobody saw coming and nobody took seriously\u00a0until late last Tuesday evening, about eight\u00a0years after his birther comments.<\/p>\n

Finally, he can also be expected, like Berlusconi, to create his own private media empire to shape the \u201ctruth\u201d to which a large part of the electorate is exposed.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

More predictions, eh? \u00a0You’d have thought the American Left would have put these on hold for a while, wouldn’t you? \u00a0What’s Trump gonna do, buy a newspaper which has thrown\u00a0its credibility down the toilet\u00a0and is hemorrhaging money by the millions? \u00a0Uh-huh.<\/p>\n

Progressives err in assuming that the worst danger of a Trump presidency is the reversal of Obama legacy, including the Affordable Care Act, the vindication of the constitutional rights of LGBTQ people, the Iran deal, and progress on climate change. There will surely be an all-out assault on these achievements.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Funny, because both the Iran deal and the Paris agreement were pushed through without Congressional approval as Obama didn’t think them necessary. \u00a0And the gay marriage decision was ram-rodded through the Judicial branch because there was no way it would pass through the Legislature. \u00a0What were you saying earlier about checks and balances on Executive power? Ah, but Obama did it so they are “achievements”. \u00a0Whereas Trump – who, we must remind ourselves, has not yet taken office – will be a tyrant because the wholly elected Legislative branch might agree with him.<\/p>\n

And Obamacare? \u00a0Yes, that scraped\u00a0through the House but nobody bothered to read it. \u00a0Which might be why it is now collapsing into an unworkable mess and people are facing enormous premium hikes which drove them into the voting booths by the million to vote for Trump.<\/p>\n

It is a struggle between those who believe in preserving the imperfect but serviceable constitutional system of the republic, and those who will try to undermine it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Oh yes, because nobody personifies\u00a0the preservation of and respect for constitutional systems like Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.<\/p>\n

For all his abhorrent policy positions, a President Cruz could have been counted on to observe the strictures of constitutional democracy, such as the peaceful alternation of power through free and fair elections. Trump gives us every reason to suspect that he will not.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Alas, readers who were expecting those reasons to be listed will be\u00a0disappointed.<\/p>\n

If the tactics of Putin, Orb\u00e1n, Erdo?an, and other populists are any guide, we can expect Trump to do everything he has either threatened to do or baselessly accused the Democrats of doing: fomenting violence and voter intimidation, rigging elections, spying on, prosecuting, and imprisoning his opponents, silencing the press, and more.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s almost as if the author wants<\/em> this to happen, out of pure spite for\u00a0Hillary’s loss. \u00a0Tell me, oh wise one: where is the violence<\/a> coming from now?<\/p>\n

Like other illiberal populists, Trump is capable of inflicting irreparable damage to this country\u2019s institutions within a relatively short space of time.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Like deploying the IRS against political opponents? \u00a0Appointing compliant lackeys to the DoJ? \u00a0Applying\u00a0political pressure on the FBI? \u00a0Persecuting the head of the CIA for an extra-marital affair? \u00a0Calling police forces nationwide racist? \u00a0Thank goodness none of this happened under the careful stewardship of Barack Obama, eh?<\/p>\n

What we therefore have to prepare to resist is not policy change; it is regime change.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There’s nothing Lefty academics like more than fighting imaginary wars from their comfortable offices on hefty salaries.<\/p>\n

This is why it is essential to protest early and often. Citizens of consolidated democracies have absorbed a genteel lesson: if our side loses, we wait our turn until the next election. Under normal circumstances, the internalization of that lesson is essential to democracy\u2019s stability. When those in power are poised to destroy constitutional safeguards, however, hanging on in quiet desperation until the next election can be fatal to democracy.<\/p>\n

Instead, Americans must tap into their rich and proud tradition of civic resistance, whose highlights are the twentieth-century civil rights movement and protests against the Vietnam War. Civic action needs to begin now. We must claim public squares before Trump takes office, marching in droves and communicating a clear message that his brand of autocracy shall not pass.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Translation: my side lost the election fair and square and in my demented state I have invented a scenario where America is about to slide into unchecked tyranny. \u00a0Therefore we should protest the results of this election and refuse to let the new President do his job.<\/p>\n

This in an article bemoaming the lack of respect afforded to the democratic process by Erdogan and Putin respectively.<\/p>\n

This civic resistance must bring together not just progressives of all stripes\u2014including Black Lives Matter activists, unions, and the climate justice movement\u2014but also immigrants, LGBTQ people, conservatives, libertarians, religious groups, veterans, teachers, students, people of all faiths, races, and ethnicities;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The usual hotch-potch of the professionally aggrieved, in other words. \u00a0What’s the common cause here, again?<\/p>\n

in short, all those who believe that political disagreements should only be resolved within the framework of constitutional democracy.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

By holding a free and fair election, for example? \u00a0Now there’s an idea.<\/p>\n

You couldn’t make it up. \u00a0But an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Columbia University plainly could.<\/p>\n

Pitiful stuff.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

According to N. Turkuler Isiksel, an Assistant Professor of the Core Curriculum at the Department of Political Science at Columbia University, Trump is going to instigate regime change in the USA. Those of us who witnessed illiberal populist movements take … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[60,20,44],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3577"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3577"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3577\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3592,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3577\/revisions\/3592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}