Totalitarian Democracy and Political Messianism

Day 6,091, 13:08 • Published in USA USA • by PlasticAlley



Around 2.500 years ago Athenians invented what people call Democracy.

Eligibility of citizens for public positions was decided with
a combination of public perception of the candidates and a random
final selection by the roll of dice using the Kleroterion.





Many philosophers (especially PLATO) were strongly against Democracy
mainly because of the inadequacy of the citizens (As reliable and rightful
judges) who were taking part in the decision making processes of the State.

Greed for money and power, the influence of financial moguls and
the power of populists, were among the main issues of their inadequacy.

Fast forward to today, where you vote for someone whose profile
and adequacy for that role is solely portrayed and promoted by the media,
with the United States presidential elections being probably the most
representative and best known democratic elections of this kind around
the world.





If you ask any politically engaged American citizen to describe the elections,
he/she will probably say that we elect one of those parties' presidents,
on the perception that this and only this person is the right one for that position
and who's views, promises and actions will give the best possible result for the country.

However, almost every time (especially in the recent years) the elected POTUS
with his ministers and entourage, act together roughly as a dictatorship
by imposing whatever THEY want on the people and the country,
regardless of what they have promised to do before the elections..





During this time, any citizens that go against what the government
is planning to do, are called rebels, anarchists, terrorists, racists,
right wing or left wing extremists, etc. unfortunately usually with
the approval of their voters..



There is a term for the current political system.

It's called Totalitarian Democracy.






Israeli historian Jacob Leib popularized this term
in his 1952 book "The Origins of Totalitarian Democracy".

In that book Talmon argued that totalitarian democracy arose in three
stages, all of which were incubated during the French revolution:

1.The collapse of feudal and ecclesiastical authority, out of which
spurred the intellectual developments in eighteenth century France.

2.The development (during the Reign of Terror) of single-party dictatorship
and the use of terror as a political instrument, based on a doctrine of
total sovereignty of the people.
(Jacobin improvisation)

3.The extension of totalitarian logic to property, leading to Communism.
(Babouvist crystalisation)

Talmon studied the genealogy of totalitarianism, arguing that political Messianism stemmed
from the French Revolution and stressed the similarities between Jacobinism and Stalinism.

He coined the terms "Totalitarian Democracy" and "Messianic Democracy/Political Messianism"



How does all this relate to US politics and elections ?




F. William Engdahl (In his 2009 book "Full Spectrum Dominance: Totalitarian Democracy and the New World Order"), portrays America as driving to achieve global hegemony through military and economic means.

According to him, U.S. state objectives have led to internal conditions that resemble totalitarianism:
"[It is] a power establishment that over the course of the Cold War has spun out of control and now threatens not only the fundamental institutions of democracy but even of life on the planet through the growing risk of nuclear war by miscalculation".



What is the relation between party donors, corporate America and the US government ?





Sheldon Wolin cites (In a 2003 article entitled "Inverted Totalitarianism") phenomena such as the lack of involvement of citizens in a narrow political framework (due to the influence of money), the privatization
of social security, massive increases in military spending and spending on surveillance, as examples
of the push away from public and towards private-controlled government.

He argues that corporate influence, is explicit through the media and implicit through the privatization
of the university. Furthermore, he contends that many political think-tanks have abetted this process by spreading conservative ideology.

Wolin states: "[With] the elements all in place...what is at stake, then, is nothing less than the attempted transformation of a tolerably free society into a variant of the extreme regimes of the past century."



Even if all this is true, why should the citizens be worried and how are their lives affected by this ?





Slavoj Žižek, in his 2002 book of essays "Welcome to the Desert of the Real", comes to similar conclusions.

Here he argues, that the war on terror served as a justification for the suspension of civil liberties in the US, while the promise of democracy and freedom was spread abroad, as the justification for invading Iraq and Afghanistan.


Since Western democracies are always justifying states of exception, people have been asked to surrender
their personal freedoms to the government in exchange for security.





In US you have the border crisis, in EU you have social unrest mostly caused by the illegal immigration issue. Your social media is monitored, your public voice can be censored and you can face criminal charges.
Cameras are being installed almost everywhere..





Big brother is watching us more and more and in countries like China, a social credit scoring system determines things that you can and cannot do.

Sooner than later, your assets and your ID will only be available in a digital form and with the push of a button you and your assets will no longer exist...


It seems that we have come full circle back to totalitarian regimes, where the political "Messiah"
(Who is ALWAYS right), will come to save the country from all foreign and domestic dangers..


All that you need to do is vote and give up a few measly personal freedoms,
in exchange for security and justice...


Especially now with the digitization of everything, our "Messiah" and his government can "kill" the bad guys within our country, without even shedding their blood..



They will just delete them..








PS. There are many countries around the world that are being governed in the same way
but the US elections are the most well known, most representative and most important
kind of elections that falls under Totalitarian/Messianic Democracy.

I don't even bother mentioning regimes like Russia, China, N.Korea etc. for obvious reasons..





-NEWPAPER DISCLAIMER-

The articles are meant to be food for thought and causes for reflection, that will hopefully
engage the reader's personal critical thinking and ultimately change, enhance and/or help
create a perspective on the matters described and on the opinions stated in those articles.