Thread by @SlaterPolitics

Yesterday a 97-year-old Arizona man told me "I'm terrified how close we're getting to #authoritarianism in this country." Sounds like something I might say! But his example? Gavin Newsom. Which has inspired some new thoughts on #democracy and its multiple opposites. A 🧵 1/18

It now occurs to me that people with different political orientations think democracy’s opposite is a totally different thing. Loosely speaking, please hear me out…..

For the Center: Authoritarianism
For the Right: Socialism
For the Left: Oligarchy
2/18

When centrists (i.e. mainstream liberals and conservatives) think about democracy, they broadly agree that maintaining fair elections and the freedoms that support them is paramount. Authoritarianism is the enemy of democracy. 3/18

When those on the Right think about democracy, they see protecting core individual freedoms (very much including their economic freedoms) against government encroachment as paramount. Socialism is the enemy of democracy. 4/18

And when those on the Left think about democracy, they see achieving rule by the many and replacing rule by the few (usually the moneyed few) is paramount. Oligarchy is the enemy of democracy. 5/18

This may help us think differently about how and why democracy is endangered. As I’ve argued in my work on “Democratic Careening,” polarized opponents can destabilize democracy even if both sides are convinced they’re defending it, when their definitions of democracy differ. 6/18

As in other settings, the situation in America today may be less that one side devalues democracy, full stop, and more that both sides genuinely see themselves defending democracy against those who they think would destroy it. 7/18

But this isn’t the only way to interpret what’s going on. By considering that oligarchy and socialism might be seen as the opposite of democracy, rather than authoritarianism, we can readily see why the Left and Right alike might embrace authoritarianism. 8/18

Logically, if the Left sees oligarchy as a more imminent concern than authoritarianism, and the Right sees free and fair elections leading toward socialism, both sides might support authoritarianism. 9/18

For both camps, authoritarianism would be sincerely seen as essential to defend democracy in its truest sense: defeating oligarchy for the Left, and defeating socialism for the Right. 10/18

But this framework also sheds light on why the overwhelming risk of authoritarianism today comes from the Right, not the Left, even though left-wing authoritarianism is logically almost as likely (and arguably almost as historically common) as right-wing authoritarianism. 11/18

Commitment to rule by the many, a hallmark of the Leftist democratic vision, is closely thought not automatically tied to the majoritarian electoral principle. 12/18

But if the opposite of democracy is neither authoritarianism nor oligarchy but socialism, throwing elections overboard to defend democracy, defined as core individual freedoms (including economic freedoms), is a perilously easy leap to make. 13/18

This is why I think we can see the 97-year-old Arizonan’s fear of Gavin Newsom as both a sincere defense of democracy and at least a potential embrace of what mainstream liberals and conservatives define as authoritarianism: undermining free and fair elections. 14/18

I’ve said more on these themes at more length, both comparatively in my work on “Democratic Careening”…. 15/18 cambridge.org/core/journals/…

And in the American context in my more recent work on “Threats or Gains”…. 16/18 journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.117…

There’s obviously a lot more to unpack here than I can do in a single thread, even one that’s way too long like this one! Every concept I’ve toyed with here has complexities, wrinkles, vernaculars. And no person is just one category. 17/18

But I hope it gives us some language for puzzling over what’s happening to democracy today – and maybe even some language for talking with other citizens with whom we fundamentally disagree, on exactly why and how we fundamentally disagree. 18/18

It also occurs to me that, by trying to understand a concept better by excavating its multiple opposites (and not just its opponents), I owe a big debt to the wonderful Nick Cheesman's (ANU) wonderful "Opposing the Rule of Law," on Myanmar... cambridge.org/core/books/opp…