Tiers Of Tyranny
By Mitch Berg
Earlier this week, the Facebook page of the Scott County GOP compared Governor Walz and the DFL’s legislative majority to to Hitler and Stalin.
Silly Republicans. Only Democrats get to make specious, scabrous, historically-void comparisons to dictators.
Now, as someone who studies history – especially the history of tyranny – very seriously, I’d like to make two points:
- I hate willy-nilly dictator references. Calling people “Hitler” or “Stalin” is lazy. The only thing I hate nearly as much is…
- Dismissing legitimate claims of tyrannical behavior as if the claim itself, rather than the aptitude of the facts presented, is the joke.
Because it’s not like tyrannies generally drop in on society unannounced.
Tyranny, like cancer, has four stages. There is no stage five.
(Definition of terms: “Regime” is used in the original French sense of the term; it means the person, people or parties running the government).
| Stage | Characteristics | Examples |
| Stage I | Regime uses populist means to expand government power to the detriment of citizens individual rights. Key institutions – media, education, the bureaucracy – find it in their interest to scratch the regime’s back, politically and socially. | ??? |
| Stage II | The regime is part of an open coalition with the state’s bureaucracy, news media and social institutions, and are weaponized against the opposition. Opponents are actively targeted by the media, law enforcement, education and academia. Opposition parties and uncoopted institutions are actively harassed, either legally (via a legal system whose interests largely coincide with those of the regime) or via direct action groups “secretly” affiliated with the regime – who are able to operate fairly openly. Peaceful change of power is subject to a process controlled by the regime; being an opposition politician frequently results in harassment. | Orban, Erdogan |
| Stage III | All institutions of the state are more or less openly and directly controlled by the regime. Opposition is harassed to the point where it largely or completely exists underground. Opponents are eliminated in ones and twos, using a co-opted version of the judicial process or, sometimes, direct action; the direct action groups are either tightly affiliated with the state, or are actually stage agents (the police). Peaceful change of power depends on the good will of the regime (as with post-Franco Spain); being an opposition politicians runs a very high risk of exile, prison, disappearance or death. . | Franco, Mussolini |
| Stage IV | The Regime, it’s power and society as a whole are indistinguishable. All institutions are subsumed by the regime, which has an absolute monopoly on information and force. Opponents – or those perceived as opponents, or scapegoats – are eliminated in boxcar lots, sometimes literally; being “underground” is profoundly dangerous. Change of power is a lethal matter; the regime recognizes no power but itself. | Hitler, Stalin, Saddam Hussein, Lenin, Mao, Pol Pot, Kim Jong Un. |
I’d say the Walz administration is a solid stage 1.
Thoughts?
June 15th, 2023 at 11:05 am
And Republicans wonder why they can’t win statewide office.
June 15th, 2023 at 11:15 am
And Fluffy drops by to prove point 2.
June 15th, 2023 at 11:26 am
Very much looking forward to the MAGA Republican base nominating centrist candidates that appeal to conservative Democrats and independent voters.
June 15th, 2023 at 11:31 am
Worth the read
https://alphanews.org/what-republicans-need-to-learn-from-the-iron-range-gop/
June 15th, 2023 at 12:25 pm
You cannot compare past dictators to the group of degenerates in charge today.
Never before has a regime actively gone after children as methodically and as purposefully as they are now.
June 15th, 2023 at 12:28 pm
“Conservative Democrats”
“The female penis”
Same energy. Same nitwits spewing the garbage.
June 15th, 2023 at 12:28 pm
Conservative Democrats”
“The female benis”
Same energy. Same nitwits spewing the garbage.
June 15th, 2023 at 12:44 pm
oh no i wrote a comment about trump in a thread about the mngop and now it’s gone.
June 15th, 2023 at 1:00 pm
“Nayib Bukele, the president of El Salvador, slammed the indictment of former President Donald Trump, suggesting it would now be hypocritical for the U.S. to promote democracy with its foreign policy.
“Think what you want about former President Trump and the reasons he’s being indicted,” tweeted Bukele. “But just imagine if this happened in any other country, where a government arrested the main opposition candidate. The United States ability to use ‘democracy’ as foreign policy is gone.”
Even politicians in actual Third World Banana Republics, for God’s sake, recognize the Left’s efforts for what they are, and they scorn to stoop so low.
The problem will not be the next election – that will get stolen in due course. The problem will not be people rising up against the usurpers – that’s what always happens to them. The problem will be identifying and dealing with the Useful Idiots – the RINOs and people like the Emery Collective – who gave the election thieves useful cover. There won’t be enough lampposts to go around. We’ll have to resurrect Madame Defarge and her favorite machine.
June 15th, 2023 at 1:02 pm
“ it will be a referendum on the rule of law.”
Right.
1. Memaw Clinton cackling and goading everyone on Twitter about her “emails”. (>3000 classified docs; 10 Top secret; 2 SAP program)
2. Hunter Biden falsified ATF firearms purchase form; a felony.
3. FJBiden extortion of $10 million from Burisma.
The rule of law.
June 15th, 2023 at 1:12 pm
The interesting thing about Little Timmy Walz is that his Covid power play doesn’t fit the traditional pattern of tyranny. See for yourself, how extreme it was . . .
Question: what is the purpose of the United States Constitution?
Answer: to protect individual rights by limiting the power of the government.
Question: under what circumstances can the governor of a single state suspend the United States Constitution? That is, under what circumstances can he forbid the opposition party from holding political gatherings; order certain private businesses closed indefinitely (but not his friends’ businesses); ban religious worship; outlaw national holidays such as Thanksgiving; and jail anyone who asserts their rights?
Answer:
June 15th, 2023 at 1:19 pm
All Trump-related comments are going away in a moment, here.
June 15th, 2023 at 1:33 pm
Hitler, Stalin and Mao were all mass murderers. People who use such comparisons to our President — or our previous President — are terribly callous.
The less resourceful have banded together in one political party. Don’t expect insightful meaningful statements from them. They have alternative facts which they believe. The alternative facts offer a path to political victory. For this to work their leaders have to use the rhetorical technique called “the big lie”. No one is better at the big lie than the leading Republican candidate for president. You just keep saying the lie over and over and over … .
Thankfully the Scott County GOP is completely irrelevant in election outcomes.
June 15th, 2023 at 1:37 pm
“All Trump-related comments are going away in a moment, here.”
Excellent. Thank you.
June 15th, 2023 at 1:42 pm
Scott county GOP is the best thing that ever happened to suburban Democrats.
And it’s not like the Democrats are pure as the driven snow, but they don’t deny elections results, stage insurrections when they lose elections or scream “politics” when one of there leaders is caught red handed and prosecuted —on multiple fronts. And that’s a short list of their recent doings.
Until the GOP takes a good, hard look in the mirror, their current crazy phase will only get crazier. And they intend to take the country with them — one way or the other — as we see in machinations of the GOP radicals in the House.
June 15th, 2023 at 2:28 pm
Sort of riffing off of Blade’s comment that You cannot compare past dictators to the group of degenerates in charge today, I think that list needs an awful lot of work.
First of all, tiers or stages? The first implies rankings, possibly fixed while the second implies a movement from one to another. The analogy to cancer seems to indicate a preference to stages. But not every example of a tyranny starts at stage 1 and moves to stage 4. And, in fact, they didn’t. Franco, for example, never passed through stages 1 and 2 to get to 3. In fact, he simply changed the 3 of the preceding commie republic from left to right. Same could be said of Pinochet (who isn’t on the list).
That sort of context is lacking as is the experience of the last three years. The treatment of the unvaccinated in general as well as anti-immigration folks in Europe has been shocking. But only Orban is given as “modern” example – pretty weak tea seeing as how he is quite popular (especially when compared to the present MN DemoCommie gov’t).
Moreover, both Franco and Pinochet could be said to have taken their respective tyranny stages and reduced them. Franco to 2 and Pinochet to 1. The list gives no indications of this possibility.
June 15th, 2023 at 2:37 pm
Oh, yeah (and wink-wink-nudge-nudge), you might find this interesting with regards to the elimination of political opponents in ones and twos, using a co-opted version of the judicial process.
June 15th, 2023 at 2:55 pm
Hey Bot Boy, you blithering idiot. Here is a 12 minute montage of prominent lefty “election deniers” on the results of the 2016 election.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XX2Ejqjz6TA
But, keep making yourself a laughing stock, hypocrite!
June 15th, 2023 at 2:59 pm
Hot Twitter legal takes are the best legal takes. Try this to see whether your legal analysis or your political bias is driving your conclusion: Reverse the political players and substitute Biden for Trump and see whether your conclusion changes.
June 15th, 2023 at 3:18 pm
Solidly between I and II. Definitely past I. Bidon regime is a solid II going on III.
June 15th, 2023 at 3:33 pm
^ Agreed, jpa
June 15th, 2023 at 3:37 pm
“ Hot Twitter legal takes are the best legal takes.”
How the fuck do you know, shitbag?
Where did you get your JD?
June 15th, 2023 at 6:02 pm
Tyranny is not incompatible with democracy. In a pure democracy, the 51% can do anything they want to the 49%, up to an including taking their property, enslaving them, and killing them.
So we have a Bill of Rights in the US. You need a super majority of state legislatures or in the US congress to amend the constitution & limit the Bill of Rights.
June 16th, 2023 at 4:44 am
Not if you have a pen and a phone. Then you could just issue an executive order. And the media will applaud. The liberals will nod approvingly. The RINOs will write stern letters to the editor.
June 16th, 2023 at 6:27 am
Hey Bot Boy.
Are you going to help your hero Pedo Joe to build his bridge across the Pacific?
June 16th, 2023 at 9:10 am
MP, that is why we are a republic and not a democracy. But then Constitution had been dead and buried and it is the ballot counters who are in charge, fraudulently representing far less than 50%. But then, in the land devoid of law and order, and any law and order that had been left weaponized against the majority, what is recourse for the increasingly oppressed majority?
June 16th, 2023 at 9:30 am
What recourse? .22 rounds. Lots easier to barter for food, than trying to chop up silver coins.
Oh, you mean to avoid the collapse of civilization? Dunno, you’re on your own with that one.
June 16th, 2023 at 2:05 pm
I have taken note of a definite decline in the quality of .22 rounds since I was a kid.
I’ve been clearing brush all this week, and have brought xxxx rounds of .22 for my various rifles and pistols, 2 of which I’ve owned since I was still in HS. They always performed flawlessly, but with this batch of Remingtons, 1 out of 8 jam, or are duds. Even in my beloved, 1972 Ruger MK1, which is the sewing machine of pistols.
Its a corollary for Weimerica.
June 16th, 2023 at 3:33 pm
And they are so much more expensive, Blade.
I have a mk iV, I only buy match quality .22LR, not because I am that good, but because it does not jam. Jams are frikkin’ dangerous to clear.
June 19th, 2023 at 11:00 am
[…] …that was dishonestly wrenched out of context, as Hudson invites you to see for yourself, and which is in no way completely inaccurate, as we pointed out last week. […]
June 20th, 2023 at 12:21 pm
People who use such comparisons to our President — or our previous President — are terribly callous.
Reminds me of the scene from The Godfather:
Michael: My father is no different than any powerful man, any man with power, like a president or senator.
Kay Adams: Do you know how naive you sound, Michael? Presidents and senators don’t have men killed.
Michael: Oh. Who’s being naive, Kay?