What @mmasnick said.
Do you think I •want• to be posting about fascism and authoritarianism and institutional collapse all day on here?!? Hell no! I want to be posting about pianos and programming languages and pedagogy!
But like Mike said, this is •the• story.
https://www.techdirt.com/2025/03/04/why-techdirt-is-now-a-democracy-blog-whether-we-like-it-or-not/
This section is particularly chilling:
❝What’s happening now is even more extreme and more terrifying. Something that even experts in democratic collapse didn’t see coming. Normally when democracies fall apart, there’s also a playbook. A series of predictable steps involving the military, or the courts, or sometimes both.
But what’s happening in the US right now is some sort of weird hybrid of the kind of power grabs we’ve seen in the tech industry, combined with a more traditional collapse of democratic institutions.
The destruction is far more systematic and dangerous than many seem to realize. Even Steven Levitsky, the author of How Democracies Die — who has literally written the book on how democracies collapse — admits the speed and scope of America’s institutional collapse has exceeded his worst predictions.❞
https://www.techdirt.com/2025/03/04/why-techdirt-is-now-a-democracy-blog-whether-we-like-it-or-not/
@inthehands One of the best articles. Just think: Teen Vogue stands up for democracy and counters disinformation and now Tech Dirt. What a world!