Historian, Sarah Paine on our polarization

[KT2000]

Sarah Paine is an American historian, author, and professor of strategy and policy at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. She offers history lectures on YouTube that are fascinating. She has studied dictators, how they got there, and war strategies they used. Her lectures offer a global perspective.

https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/interview-sarah-c-paine

N.S.: How much did internal U.S. political polarization and economic dysfunction matter?

S.P.: A lot. The famous twentieth century historian of the West, Arnold Toynbee, wrote that “Civilizations die from suicide, not by murder.” The Republican Party is in the process of committing suicide and its suicide threatens us all. A multiparty system and the respect for differing opinions form the bedrock of democracy. When only one opinion is acceptable and others are either shouted down or threatened with violence, that is called dictatorship—when the nastiest person least willing to play by the rules dictates to everyone else.

The unwillingness of so many Republican representatives to certify the 2020 election—that elected them by the way—is a violation of their oath of office to uphold the Constitution. Those who lose elections must accept their loss. That is how democracy works. Try harder to win legally the next time. Telling the truth, playing by the rules, and treating others with civility are also fundamental to the family values that Republicans claim to espouse.

Democracies outperform dictatorships in global war and in peacetime economic growth in large part because of their citizens’ capacity to engage with each other’s differing ideas through argument, counterargument, and rebuttal, and engage not based on gotcha-moments over unfortunate word choices but based on a thoughtful engagement with the available evidence supporting one’s views AND a willingness to change one’s views as new evidence becomes available. Reassessment is not a flaw but a virtue. As Putin and Xi illustrated daily, dictators tend to double down on bad decisions and to eliminate their critics, focusing first on the most accurate ones.

[BadgerMom]

1. Valuable. Thanks for sharing.

It’s heartening to read that what I think also can be corroborated by historical events. It feels good to read this in a time when the bad guys are in control. Eventually they’ll be their own undoing. I just hope it happens sooner than later so I can see it happen. At this point death of the Republican Party would feel as good as the fall of communism did.

[KT2000]

2. Love this!

"At this point death of the Republican Party would feel as good as the fall of communism did."