It has some recommended readings and outlines potential interventions.
I’m still distilling what I would add to it in the present day.
The top thing on my mind is the proposed board to purge generals. (Note: presidents already have the authority to dismiss generals, however the implication of this proposal is that they want to purge so many generals that they need a systematic vehicle to do it.) As I wrote in my piece, our biggest bulwark against an authoritarian power grab is that the United States Military is very strong, professional, competent, and apolitical. Any changes away from that status quo should raise alarm bells.
The nominations to the military/national security apparatus are clearly about total loyalty over competence. These are the military and intelligence services that when captured in other countries by authoritarians have cemented regimes.
Interventions in the immediate term targeted at disrupting the consolidation of power (in the aforementioned moves) could be very high leverage.
For a longer-term intervention that focuses more on the upstream drivers of our political dysfunction which enables authoritarians, I still back the idea of doing local/state ballot initiatives to reform the political system. A gap I see in the space is that political system reform via initiatives is pursued piecemeal instead of comprehensively. Also, anti-establishment sentiments poll very high amongst Americans including the Left and Right, yet that bi-populist agreement is not being effectively tapped. Not only could mobilizing it help get initiatives over the line, but it would create depolarizing interactions between regular citizens.
A post/submission I wrote to OP two years ago has some thoughts on this:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/kmx3rKh2K4ANwMqpW/destabilization-of-the-united-states-the-top-x-factor-ea
It has some recommended readings and outlines potential interventions.
I’m still distilling what I would add to it in the present day.
The top thing on my mind is the proposed board to purge generals. (Note: presidents already have the authority to dismiss generals, however the implication of this proposal is that they want to purge so many generals that they need a systematic vehicle to do it.) As I wrote in my piece, our biggest bulwark against an authoritarian power grab is that the United States Military is very strong, professional, competent, and apolitical. Any changes away from that status quo should raise alarm bells.
The nominations to the military/national security apparatus are clearly about total loyalty over competence. These are the military and intelligence services that when captured in other countries by authoritarians have cemented regimes.
Interventions in the immediate term targeted at disrupting the consolidation of power (in the aforementioned moves) could be very high leverage.
For a longer-term intervention that focuses more on the upstream drivers of our political dysfunction which enables authoritarians, I still back the idea of doing local/state ballot initiatives to reform the political system. A gap I see in the space is that political system reform via initiatives is pursued piecemeal instead of comprehensively. Also, anti-establishment sentiments poll very high amongst Americans including the Left and Right, yet that bi-populist agreement is not being effectively tapped. Not only could mobilizing it help get initiatives over the line, but it would create depolarizing interactions between regular citizens.