I guess I’m happy some media is talking about this. When they no longer can stop you, then exercise corruption openly to show everyone the opposition’s helplessness, or to counterintuitively kindle anger against that opposition which appears feckless and powerless.
It’s the reason Putin poisons people in ways obviously traceable to Russia.
It also directly contributes to hypernormalization, since the autocrat will then deny - with obvious lies - the truth of that corruption, which further exhausts the populace who eventually gets tired of trying to keep track of what is true and what is a lie, thereby handing more power to the autocrat to shape reality.
Trump, of course, is speedrunning every step of this.
I guess I’m happy some media is talking about this. When they no longer can stop you, then exercise corruption openly to show everyone the opposition’s helplessness, or to counterintuitively kindle anger against that opposition which appears feckless and powerless.
It’s the reason Putin poisons people in ways obviously traceable to Russia.
It also directly contributes to hypernormalization, since the autocrat will then deny - with obvious lies - the truth of that corruption, which further exhausts the populace who eventually gets tired of trying to keep track of what is true and what is a lie, thereby handing more power to the autocrat to shape reality.
Trump, of course, is speedrunning every step of this.