Thread by @Doc_0

The Great Reset vision of "democracy" with an authoritarian core includes a permanent bureaucracy, untouchable by voters, that has both the power and duty to override elections when the voters make an unacceptable choice.

Great Reset pseudo-democracy usually isn't upfront about what the unacceptable choices are, although we are coming closer to Iran-style "guardian councils" that will vet candidates and eliminate the "dangerous" ones before voters have anything to say about it.

Instead, the permanent core State takes action to disrupt and block the actions of unacceptable elected officials, working relentlessly to overturn elections by sabotage, inventing special new "rules" that only apply to certain representatives and agendas.

It's tough to find any "democracy" whose political class would agree that voters can elect anyone they support, or that electorates can pursue any agenda they find agreeable. They give lip service to democracy, but what they really mean is choosing from a very limited menu.

This mindset is a natural consequence of big-spending socialist Big Government in its various evolutionary stages - from the welfare state, to tax-and-spend liberalism, to madcap deficit spending. In each case, billions are spent to create glaciers of institutional inertia.

Seizing and spending billions of dollars on a Big Government socialist priority is a way of saying that voters will no longer have anything to say on the subject. No one gets to vote against the momentum of nine-figure spending. Good money must be thrown after bad, forever.

The bureaucracy is indestructible and beyond reform. Firing unionized federal employees or trimming the staff of titan agencies is all but impossible. Taxpayers never get their money or freedom back. There are no admissions of failure. That wouldn't be "progressive."

After decades of that, it's entirely natural that the permanent bureaucracy would view itself as a power above democracy, with a duty to ensure the electorate never casts an unacceptable vote. The government does not "serve" the people - it metes out "justice" upon them.

Government at every level has become weaponized, and those weapons will be swiftly deployed against any unacceptable candidate that wins an election, or any grassroots movement that supports an unacceptable agenda. Democracy is fenced in now, and the walls are heavily policed.

The growing list of things you're not allowed to vote for, or against, is a yardstick that measures how small democracy is becoming. You'll notice you are also increasingly forbidden to discuss these topics in public. Free speech dwindles in tandem with political freedom.

Just about every elected government in the world now includes an untouchable permanent core state of immense size. Constitutions no longer set the limits of government power; instead, government determines the limits of who, and what, the people are allowed to vote for.

One way to begin turning this around is to challenge the authoritarian core at every turn. Plucky citizens should constantly ask candidates and officials if they would respect the results of an election that demanded something they despise. Make them go viral when they say no.

Candidates who oppose the permanent state should propose - and follow up on - significant actions to cut down its power. Think big, go after our hideously incompetent and seemingly permanent institutions, and keep the status quo on permanent defense. Hammer the hell out of them.

You can't just give one or two speeches calling for some big idea, or toss it out on the debate stage now and then. It's too easy for the State's media to bury and ridicule such half-hearted rebellion. Say it often, and make it happen when you get into office. Rally the public.

Inertia and despair are big reasons we've fallen as far as we have. Authoritarian "democracy" looks reasonable to ruling elites who are long accustomed to their electorates throwing up their hands in surrender, or tearing each other to shreds for scraps from the State's table.

We talk about "accountability" a lot, but that doesn't just mean firing a few bureaucrats or tossing the most corrupt of them in jail. It means holding the SYSTEM itself accountable, taking away its money and power when it fails, breaking up the vast legions of the Army of Debt.

Think big, go big, use power to accomplish some truly revolutionary acts of dismantling the permanent State, make it clear that democracy is wholly incompatible with authoritarianism - even when the authoritarians are totally convinced of their own righteousness.

They're ALWAYS convinced of their righteousness. That's how authoritarianism always begins. That is its essence: the conviction that no one should be allowed to resist or escape "righteous" political crusades. No one should be allowed to be "wrong."

There are plenty of reforms that would break authoritarianism down and liberate Western democracy. None of them would work quickly, but all are possible with determination. Don't let the servants of the permanent State convince you that reform is unthinkable.

This is the perfect moment to strike back, after years of stunning demonstrations that the "authorities" are corrupt and foolish, that statism is vicious politics and bull-headed stupidity rather than brilliant scientific stewardship. Time for the failures to step aside. /end