Yelnats—thanks for this long, well-researched, and thoughtful piece.
I agree that political polarization, destabilization, and potential civil war in the US (and elsewhere) are worthy of more serious consideration within EA, since they amplify many potential catastrophic risks and extinction risks.
However, I would urge you to try much harder to develop a less partisan analysis of these issues. This essay comes across (to me, as a libertarian centrist with some traditionalist tendencies) as a very elaborate rationalization for ‘Stop Trump at all costs!‘, based on the commonly-repeated claim that ‘Trump is an existential threat to democracy’. And a lot of the rhetoric, and examples, are basically repeating highly partisan Democratic Party talking points, which have been promoted ad nauseum by CNN, MSNBC, Washington Post, NY Times, etc. And, many of which have been debunked upon further investigation.
EAs tend to lean Left. We know this from EA surveys. Rich EAs (such as SBF) have donated very large sums of money to Democratic candidates. That makes it very important for us to become more aware of our own political biases, when we address issues such as polarization.
In my opinion, both current US political parties are showing some highly authoritarian tendencies. You mentioned some authoritarian tendencies from the Republican side. But you seem to have overlooked many authoritarian trends on the Democratic/Leftist side, which have included:
outsourcing government censorship to social media and Big Tech, especially from 2015 through today
demanding lockdowns, school closures, mandatory vaccinations, and public masking during Covid
using organized ‘lawfare’ against political opponents, including Trump
promoting pro-Jihadist, pro-Hamas, anti-semitic protests on college campuses,
promoting racially and sexually divisive identity politics in public K-12 schools and universities,
threatening the independence and integrity of the Supreme Court (e.g. by planning court-packing, AOC threatening to impeach SCOTUS justices, and Biden ignoring SCOTUS decisions, e.g. prohibiting ‘forgiving’ student loans)
promoting infringements on Second Amendment rights through unconstitutional ‘gun control’ legislation and executive orders
promoting ‘regulation by enforcement’, e.g. Gary Gensler & Elizabeth Warren weaponizing the SEC to harass the crypto industry and infringe on American rights to hold digital assets
undermining states’ autonomy to pass their own laws regarding controversial social and sexual issues, such as abortion
promoting a Central Bank Digital Currency, which would create a ‘financial panopticon’ in which the federal government has information about every economic transaction that every citizen makes
trying to protect the permanent, unelected, unaccountable, federal bureaucracy (aka ‘deep state’) from legislative oversight (e.g. objecting to SCOTUS recently overturning ‘Chevron deference’)
turning federal law enforcement (e.g. the FBI) into a partisan weapon for demonizing political opponents (e.g. claiming the ‘white nationalism’ is the ‘biggest terrorist threat to America’)
treating the outcome of the 2016 presidential election as illegitimate for years afterwards, e.g. blaming it on ‘Russian interference’
defending a manifestly senile president (Biden) whose executive branch seems to be run by an unelected, unaccountable, shadowy set of advisors who remain unknown to most citizens, and who have concentrated a huge amount of authoritarian power behind an aging, incompetent figurehead.
Many on the Left think of ‘authoritarianism’ as a purely Right-wing phenomenon, following the Frankfurt School Leftists such as Adorno et al. publishing ‘The authoritarian personality’ (1950). However, more recent work in political psychology shows that there are plenty of Leftist authoritarians. Also, history reveals plenty of examples of authoritarian socialists, such as Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Castro, etc—who are responsible for tens of millions of deaths.
Moreover, the standard 2-D graph of political orientation, which includes a Left-vs-Right dimension, but also an Authoritarian-vs-Libertarian dimension, reminds us that the Right does not have a monopoly on authoritarianism.
So, I would urge you to continue this work, but to re-examine your own political biases, and perhaps to collaborate with researchers who hold more diverse political views, such as Centrists, Libertarians, Conservatives, Neo-Reactionaries, Nationalists, Populists, etc.
I expect this comment to be downvoted into oblivion by EAs who reflexively think ‘Trump bad, Progressives good’.
But I beseech you all, consider the possibility that the Democrats are just as much of a threat to American democracy and liberty as the Republicans have ever been.
I would urge you to try much harder to develop a less partisan analysis of these issues. This essay comes across (to me, as a libertarian centrist with some traditionalist tendencies) as a very elaborate rationalization for ‘Stop Trump at all costs!‘, based on the commonly-repeated claim that ‘Trump is an existential threat to democracy’.
Threats to democracy aren’t always distributed evenly across party lines. It’s unclear why that should be your prior.
You can see from this that the two sides aren’t equal.
Purely definitionally, it seems pretty uncontroversial to say that a presidential candidate who’s tried to steal an election is a threat to democracy. Like, it’s unclear what a “threat to democracy” would even mean, if it doesn’t include “president trying to steal an election”.
I’m a libertarian myself and understand the negative reaction towards seemingly hysterical statements. I spent late 2015 and all of 2016 disregarding people who were scared of a Trump presidency.
But, just as a matter of base rates, it’s reasonable to consider that hysteria is justified. Many countries have voted themselves out of a democracy before. It’s not a rare phenomenon. And if a presidential candidate who did not accept defeat, plus a vice presidential candidate who’s openly said he would have stolen an election and defied the Supreme Court, isn’t grounds for worry, it’s unclear what would be.
I asked GPT-4 to list democracies in which a major candidate refused to accept defeat in a national election. GPT-4 was unable to list any democracy other than the US. (Instead, it misunderstood the question and included countries like Kenya, Venezuela and Belarus, which obviously don’t count). So this is a pretty unprecedented situation.
…
Your comment contains many policies that conservatives dislike because they’re associated with the left — not because they’re authoritarian. You phrase them in a way to make them sound maximally authoritarian, but one could do the same about the opposite policies. For example:
undermining states’ autonomy to pass their own laws regarding controversial social and sexual issues, such as abortion
I could equally say that conservatives are authoritarian for limiting women’s autonomy to make decisions that affect their health and reproductive choices. In fact, this is much closer to the central meaning of the term “authoritarian” than your usage in this bullet point.
AOC threatening to impeach SCOTUS justices
The Constitution clearly states that Justices ”shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour.” It’s perfectly constitutional to remove SCOTUS justices. The allegations against Alito and Thomas seem to make a good case that their behavior hasn’t been “good.” In fact, one of the most common features of authoritarian governments worldwide is corruption. Enforcing a norm against it is good for maintaining the integrity of democratic institutions. Were AOC trying to remove Coney Barret, the situation would be different.
promoting pro-Jihadist, pro-Hamas, anti-semitic protests on college campuses
Suppressing protests is generally considered repressive and antidemocratic.
Other points in your comment sound like standard conservative grievances with liberal policies, with tenuous connections to authoritarianism or with the risk of democratic backsliding. E.g. “promoting racially and sexually divisive identity politics in public K-12 schools and universities.”
You can see from this that the two sides aren’t equal.
Unfortunately these questions will be resolved based on V-DEM indicators which are a poor metric for this question, as I illustrated here. The scores are not particularly rigourous or consistent and the evaluators have clear partisan bias.
Very minor point, in defence of African countries where there might be decent-ish democracy. Depending on your criteria, Kenya might “count” here.
”I asked GPT-4 to list democracies in which a major candidate refused to accept defeat in a national election. GPT-4 was unable to list any democracy other than the US. (Instead, it misunderstood the question and included countries like Kenya, Venezuela and Belarus, which obviously don’t count).”
Well, the main asymmetry here is that the Left-leaning ‘mainstream’ press doesn’t understand or report the Right’s concerns about Leftist authoritarianism, but it generates and amplifies the Left’s concerns about ‘far Right authoritarianism’.
So, any EAs who follow ‘mainstream’ journalism (e.g. CNN, MSNBC, NY Times, WaPo) will tend to repeat their talking points, their analyses, and their biases.
Most reasonable observers, IMHO, understand that the US ‘mainstream’ press has become very left-leaning and highly biased over the last few decades, especially since 2015, and it is functioning largely as a propaganda wing of the Democratic Party. (Consider, for example, the ‘mainstream’ media’s systematic denial of Biden’s dementia for the last several years, until the symptoms became too painfully obvious, to everyone, to ignore. Such journalists would never have run cover for Trump, if he’d been developing dementia; they would have been demanding his resignation years ago.)
In any case, the partisan polarization on such issues is, perhaps, precisely why EAs should be very careful not to wade into these debates unless they have a very good reason for doing so, a lot of political knowledge and wisdom, an ability to understand both sides, and a recognition that these political differences are probably neither neglected nor tractable.
If we really want to make a difference in politics, I think we should be nudging the relevant decision-makers, policy wonks, staffers, and pundits into developing a better understanding of the global catastrophic risks that we face from nuclear war, bioweapons, and AI.
It’s unclear what your specific disagreements with my comment are.
Take what I think is the most crucial point I made: that there doesn’t seem to be a democratic country in which a major candidate refused to accept defeat in a national election.
Which of these 4 best represents your position?
Trump won the 2020 election
Trump did not refuse to accept the results of the 2020 election or try to subvert it, that’s just a leftist media narrative. If you talk to him, he’ll say he accepts that Biden won fair and square.
Trump did try to subvert the election or refuse to accept defeat, but it’s not a big deal (despite the lack of precedent in democratic countries)
Trump did do those things and they are a big deal, but things that similarly powerful Democrats have done are just as bad or worse.
If it’s the latter, can you show that those actions from powerful Democrats are unprecedented in democratic countries?
While I agree that the post suffers from an unfortunate left-wing bias, I don’t think this bias weakens its conclusions. Most of the discussed anti-polarization interventions are applicable to both right-wing and left-wing autocracy and extremism, so, for the sake of depolarization efforts, it matters relatively little how much authoritarianism is coming from each side of the aisle. The fact that you can also identify anti-democratic tendencies on the left strengthens the case for depolarization.
Yelnats—thanks for this long, well-researched, and thoughtful piece.
I agree that political polarization, destabilization, and potential civil war in the US (and elsewhere) are worthy of more serious consideration within EA, since they amplify many potential catastrophic risks and extinction risks.
However, I would urge you to try much harder to develop a less partisan analysis of these issues. This essay comes across (to me, as a libertarian centrist with some traditionalist tendencies) as a very elaborate rationalization for ‘Stop Trump at all costs!‘, based on the commonly-repeated claim that ‘Trump is an existential threat to democracy’. And a lot of the rhetoric, and examples, are basically repeating highly partisan Democratic Party talking points, which have been promoted ad nauseum by CNN, MSNBC, Washington Post, NY Times, etc. And, many of which have been debunked upon further investigation.
EAs tend to lean Left. We know this from EA surveys. Rich EAs (such as SBF) have donated very large sums of money to Democratic candidates. That makes it very important for us to become more aware of our own political biases, when we address issues such as polarization.
In my opinion, both current US political parties are showing some highly authoritarian tendencies. You mentioned some authoritarian tendencies from the Republican side. But you seem to have overlooked many authoritarian trends on the Democratic/Leftist side, which have included:
outsourcing government censorship to social media and Big Tech, especially from 2015 through today
demanding lockdowns, school closures, mandatory vaccinations, and public masking during Covid
using organized ‘lawfare’ against political opponents, including Trump
promoting pro-Jihadist, pro-Hamas, anti-semitic protests on college campuses,
promoting racially and sexually divisive identity politics in public K-12 schools and universities,
threatening the independence and integrity of the Supreme Court (e.g. by planning court-packing, AOC threatening to impeach SCOTUS justices, and Biden ignoring SCOTUS decisions, e.g. prohibiting ‘forgiving’ student loans)
promoting infringements on Second Amendment rights through unconstitutional ‘gun control’ legislation and executive orders
promoting ‘regulation by enforcement’, e.g. Gary Gensler & Elizabeth Warren weaponizing the SEC to harass the crypto industry and infringe on American rights to hold digital assets
undermining states’ autonomy to pass their own laws regarding controversial social and sexual issues, such as abortion
promoting a Central Bank Digital Currency, which would create a ‘financial panopticon’ in which the federal government has information about every economic transaction that every citizen makes
trying to protect the permanent, unelected, unaccountable, federal bureaucracy (aka ‘deep state’) from legislative oversight (e.g. objecting to SCOTUS recently overturning ‘Chevron deference’)
turning federal law enforcement (e.g. the FBI) into a partisan weapon for demonizing political opponents (e.g. claiming the ‘white nationalism’ is the ‘biggest terrorist threat to America’)
treating the outcome of the 2016 presidential election as illegitimate for years afterwards, e.g. blaming it on ‘Russian interference’
defending a manifestly senile president (Biden) whose executive branch seems to be run by an unelected, unaccountable, shadowy set of advisors who remain unknown to most citizens, and who have concentrated a huge amount of authoritarian power behind an aging, incompetent figurehead.
Many on the Left think of ‘authoritarianism’ as a purely Right-wing phenomenon, following the Frankfurt School Leftists such as Adorno et al. publishing ‘The authoritarian personality’ (1950). However, more recent work in political psychology shows that there are plenty of Leftist authoritarians. Also, history reveals plenty of examples of authoritarian socialists, such as Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Castro, etc—who are responsible for tens of millions of deaths.
Moreover, the standard 2-D graph of political orientation, which includes a Left-vs-Right dimension, but also an Authoritarian-vs-Libertarian dimension, reminds us that the Right does not have a monopoly on authoritarianism.
So, I would urge you to continue this work, but to re-examine your own political biases, and perhaps to collaborate with researchers who hold more diverse political views, such as Centrists, Libertarians, Conservatives, Neo-Reactionaries, Nationalists, Populists, etc.
I expect this comment to be downvoted into oblivion by EAs who reflexively think ‘Trump bad, Progressives good’.
But I beseech you all, consider the possibility that the Democrats are just as much of a threat to American democracy and liberty as the Republicans have ever been.
Threats to democracy aren’t always distributed evenly across party lines. It’s unclear why that should be your prior.
Let’s see what Manifold markets think about this.
https://manifold.markets/Siebe/if-trump-is-elected-will-the-us-sti
https://manifold.markets/Siebe/if-a-democrat-is-elected-president
You can see from this that the two sides aren’t equal.
Purely definitionally, it seems pretty uncontroversial to say that a presidential candidate who’s tried to steal an election is a threat to democracy. Like, it’s unclear what a “threat to democracy” would even mean, if it doesn’t include “president trying to steal an election”.
I’m a libertarian myself and understand the negative reaction towards seemingly hysterical statements. I spent late 2015 and all of 2016 disregarding people who were scared of a Trump presidency.
But, just as a matter of base rates, it’s reasonable to consider that hysteria is justified. Many countries have voted themselves out of a democracy before. It’s not a rare phenomenon. And if a presidential candidate who did not accept defeat, plus a vice presidential candidate who’s openly said he would have stolen an election and defied the Supreme Court, isn’t grounds for worry, it’s unclear what would be.
I asked GPT-4 to list democracies in which a major candidate refused to accept defeat in a national election. GPT-4 was unable to list any democracy other than the US. (Instead, it misunderstood the question and included countries like Kenya, Venezuela and Belarus, which obviously don’t count). So this is a pretty unprecedented situation.
…
Your comment contains many policies that conservatives dislike because they’re associated with the left — not because they’re authoritarian. You phrase them in a way to make them sound maximally authoritarian, but one could do the same about the opposite policies. For example:
I could equally say that conservatives are authoritarian for limiting women’s autonomy to make decisions that affect their health and reproductive choices. In fact, this is much closer to the central meaning of the term “authoritarian” than your usage in this bullet point.
The Constitution clearly states that Justices ”shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour.” It’s perfectly constitutional to remove SCOTUS justices. The allegations against Alito and Thomas seem to make a good case that their behavior hasn’t been “good.” In fact, one of the most common features of authoritarian governments worldwide is corruption. Enforcing a norm against it is good for maintaining the integrity of democratic institutions. Were AOC trying to remove Coney Barret, the situation would be different.
Suppressing protests is generally considered repressive and antidemocratic.
Other points in your comment sound like standard conservative grievances with liberal policies, with tenuous connections to authoritarianism or with the risk of democratic backsliding. E.g. “promoting racially and sexually divisive identity politics in public K-12 schools and universities.”
Unfortunately these questions will be resolved based on V-DEM indicators which are a poor metric for this question, as I illustrated here. The scores are not particularly rigourous or consistent and the evaluators have clear partisan bias.
Very minor point, in defence of African countries where there might be decent-ish democracy. Depending on your criteria, Kenya might “count” here.
”I asked GPT-4 to list democracies in which a major candidate refused to accept defeat in a national election. GPT-4 was unable to list any democracy other than the US. (Instead, it misunderstood the question and included countries like Kenya, Venezuela and Belarus, which obviously don’t count).”
I was using the categorization of the Economist Group as a reference. Kenya is listed as a hybrid regime
Well, the main asymmetry here is that the Left-leaning ‘mainstream’ press doesn’t understand or report the Right’s concerns about Leftist authoritarianism, but it generates and amplifies the Left’s concerns about ‘far Right authoritarianism’.
So, any EAs who follow ‘mainstream’ journalism (e.g. CNN, MSNBC, NY Times, WaPo) will tend to repeat their talking points, their analyses, and their biases.
Most reasonable observers, IMHO, understand that the US ‘mainstream’ press has become very left-leaning and highly biased over the last few decades, especially since 2015, and it is functioning largely as a propaganda wing of the Democratic Party. (Consider, for example, the ‘mainstream’ media’s systematic denial of Biden’s dementia for the last several years, until the symptoms became too painfully obvious, to everyone, to ignore. Such journalists would never have run cover for Trump, if he’d been developing dementia; they would have been demanding his resignation years ago.)
In any case, the partisan polarization on such issues is, perhaps, precisely why EAs should be very careful not to wade into these debates unless they have a very good reason for doing so, a lot of political knowledge and wisdom, an ability to understand both sides, and a recognition that these political differences are probably neither neglected nor tractable.
If we really want to make a difference in politics, I think we should be nudging the relevant decision-makers, policy wonks, staffers, and pundits into developing a better understanding of the global catastrophic risks that we face from nuclear war, bioweapons, and AI.
It’s unclear what your specific disagreements with my comment are.
Take what I think is the most crucial point I made: that there doesn’t seem to be a democratic country in which a major candidate refused to accept defeat in a national election.
Which of these 4 best represents your position?
Trump won the 2020 election
Trump did not refuse to accept the results of the 2020 election or try to subvert it, that’s just a leftist media narrative. If you talk to him, he’ll say he accepts that Biden won fair and square.
Trump did try to subvert the election or refuse to accept defeat, but it’s not a big deal (despite the lack of precedent in democratic countries)
Trump did do those things and they are a big deal, but things that similarly powerful Democrats have done are just as bad or worse.
If it’s the latter, can you show that those actions from powerful Democrats are unprecedented in democratic countries?
While I agree that the post suffers from an unfortunate left-wing bias, I don’t think this bias weakens its conclusions. Most of the discussed anti-polarization interventions are applicable to both right-wing and left-wing autocracy and extremism, so, for the sake of depolarization efforts, it matters relatively little how much authoritarianism is coming from each side of the aisle. The fact that you can also identify anti-democratic tendencies on the left strengthens the case for depolarization.