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The GOP's authoritarian turn - more graphics from V-Dem

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I wanted to follow up on a previous post about the authoritarian turn that the GOP has taken this century. Both of the following graphics I obtained from a working paper (no longer online, regrettably) by V-Dem in 2020. I seriously doubt the trends have changed. The Guardian had a good summary of the findings. For our purposes I am using the term authoritarianism and illiberalism as synonyms.  This first figure shows two dimensions: economic left/right and illiberalism (authoritarianism). Both dimensions start at 0 and end at 1. A party espousing economic conservatism would appear closer to 1 on the economic dimension. A party espousing authoritarian approach to governing will be closer to 1 on the Illiberalism dimension. Notice that Venezuela's ruling party actually scores a perfect 1 on illiberalism. The GOP appears in orange print and the Democratic Party appears in blue print. Other governing political parties appear in gray, and we get a baseline idea of where autocracies te...
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Ozymandias

When I think of our current era and all of its dictators and would-be dictators, there is a poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley that rings as true now as it did when he wrote it:     I met a traveller from an antique land,     Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone     Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,     Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,     And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,     Tell that its sculptor well those passions read     Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,     The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;     And on the pedestal, these words appear:     My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;     Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!     Nothing beside remains. Round the decay     Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and ...
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The COVID-19 pandemic: Five years later

Five years ago today, the WHO declared Covid-19 a global pandemic. By then it was pretty obvious what was headed our way. After all, it was hard not to doom scroll during the first couple months of 2020 as Covid-19 spread from Wuhan to the rest of China and shortly thereafter Europe and the rest of the planet. The data we were seeing on reputable news sites and health sites were already frightening. Obviously that only continued to get worse for a while.  My life at the very start of 2020 was really no different from the previous year aside from the increasingly grim news from across the Pacific Ocean. I attended events held by a couple local organizations I belong to (including my county's Democratic Party meetings each month), went out once a week with my wife for a meal together, taught my classes and attended or led committee meetings where I work, did the usual grocery shopping, and otherwise tried to carve out some time to walk along some of the riverfront trails (which typic...
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