Thread by @Teri_Kanefield

Timothy Snyder calls it "sadopopulism"

In a normal liberal democracy, the leaders enact policies that benefit the population.

In the kind of oligarchies springing up in the former Soviet Union (which Trump looks to as a model) the leaders do the opposite. . .

1/

https://twitter.com/ChrisMurphyCT/status/1226988557031682050

If would-be oligarchs, who want to control all the nation’s wealth, enact policies that benefit their constituents, lower and middle classes to rise up, others can challenge their right to all the wealth and resources.

So they actually hurt their own constituents. . .

2/

It's basically a 4-part plan:

🔹Identify an “enemy” (homeless migrants, minority communities, Democrats, etc.)
🔹Enact policies that create pain in their own supporters
🔹Blame the pain on the “enemies”
🔹Present themselves as the strongmen to fight the enemies.

3/

We've known for a while that a portion of voters will always vote against their own economic best interests because there's something they want more than economic advancement: They want to be protected from their "enemies."

They're fearful people. Trump stirs their fears.

4/

The more pain they feel, the more afraid they are, and the more eagerly they turn to a strongman to protect them.

Think of the suffering caused by eliminating health care, allowing rivers to be contaminated, etc.

It's pure evil.

5/

Here's professor Snyder, talking about Sadopopulism:

The lecture is best heard in the context of his series of short lectures, Snyder speaks.

6/