Fourteen Steps to Tyranny: How Autocratic Breakthrough Happens -- And How We Can Stop It

[erronis]

https://hartmannreport.com/p/fourteen-steps-to-tyranny-how-autocratic-8d3
Thom Hartmann

Autocrats follow a predictable playbook. Learn how we can disrupt their rise before revolution or civil war become the only solutions...

Excellent presentation of how autocracies come in to existence and accumulate power.

The Trump administration has arrested a mayor, a judge, a member of Congress, and beaten a United States Senator to the ground. They’ve deployed the military, over the objections of the governor and mayor, into a major American city. We just experienced a political assassination.

The nation’s chief law-enforcement officer, DHS Secretary Noem, asserted:

“We are staying here to liberate the city [of Los Angeles] from the socialists and the burdensome leadership that this governor and that this mayor have placed on this country and what they have tried to insert into the city.”

The president demanded a military parade for his birthday and is threatening to revoke broadcast licenses from television networks. The Trump regime is ignoring court orders, including one from the Supreme Court, and Trump’s press secretary says:

“The courts should have no role here. There is a troubling and dangerous trend of unelected judges inserting themselves into the presidential decision-making process.“

What does all this mean?

“Autocratic breakthrough” is a phrase you’ll be hearing more and more about in coming months. It refers to the moment in time when a wannabe dictator and the oligarchy that supports him push a democratic country toward authoritarianism so far that its political systems “break through” into full-blown autocracy/dictatorship.

. . .

Please read Thom's article for the list of fourteen steps and the striking similarity that many of them have to what we have already endured.

My article yesterday about how Republicans in Congress are trying to slam shut the courthouse doors to democracy advocates is one of many indicators that we’re solidly in the middle (second stage) of this process.

It’s a deeply dangerous sign.

Autocratic breakthrough is characterized by 14 steps that typically happen in three stages.

It can be stopped at the first and second stage, although it gets progressively more difficult; when the third stage is reached, reversing autocratic breakthrough requires something akin to a revolution; it typically involves the death or overthrow of the autocrat or a full-blown civil war.

That’s exactly what happened here in the US the last time this happened, in fact, as I’ll detail toward the end of this article.