DWill wrote: ↑Sat Jun 11, 2022 6:16 am
I'm not sure I understand your point on climate policy, Robert,
What I was getting at was that if any government tried to increase the price of fossil fuels to the level that would be needed to reduce their usage enough to slow global warming, it would likely face a military coup. That is a big reason why I support geoengineering rather than emission reduction. Brightening the planet is the only climate policy that can gain genuine bipartisan support as cost effective and safe, despite its current marginal status.
Trump's view that climate change is a hoax is a great example of the Big Lie, calculated to generate an emotional frenzy by convincing supporters that their opponents are engaged in malicious conspiracy.
DWill wrote: ↑Sat Jun 11, 2022 6:16 am
but I agree that the appetite for democracy is fading in the U.S.
The fragility of US democracy is a key theme in
Divided We Fall by David French, with the rise of contempt, disdain and hatred as political emotions that deny legitimacy to the views of opponents.
A number of commentators have compared the January 6 insurrection to Hitler's Munich Beer Hall Putsch of 1923, as priming the pump for a subsequent destruction of institutions of state.
An excellent wikipedia page worth reading on the putsch is at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beer_Hall_Putsch
It is interesting that whereas Hitler was jailed for his abortive fiasco, Trump has continued to freely build his mass movement based on the Big Lie of the stolen election. While in jail, Hitler wrote
Mein Kampf, and his high level military connections led authorities to treat him gently. Here is the extract from
Mein Kampf on The Big Lie:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_lie#H ... escription
Interestingly, Hitler's tactic, like Trump, was to falsely accuse his opponents of spreading Big Lies, while himself employing exactly that impudent method himself.
Adolf Hitler wrote:the principle – which is quite true within itself – [is] that in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods.
It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying.
— Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, vol. I, ch. X