In my classes on authoritarian regimes, I used to lecture my students on how modern authoritarians have abandoned the openly repressive tactics of their predecessors. Today’s authoritarians frequently come to power by democratic elections and then erode democracy through seemingly legitimate means. They have adopted a new playbook that borrows the trappings of democracy without its functionality.
Although I would warn my students that no country is immune to these stealth authoritarian threats, these lectures, I could tell, never really resonated. My students assumed that authoritarian takeovers happen only in backward, faraway lands, in countries riddled with corruption and incompetence, and in nations that end with -stan.
So I decided to go rogue.
I threw away my lecture notes and instead asked my students to do something they had never done before: Play the role of an aspiring dictator and come up with ways to decimate democracy in the United States. The students studied the playbook of modern authoritarian governments and adapted it to the United States. They then switched roles and devised measures to guard against the most serious threats.
https://qz.com/1201360/im-a-law-prof...can-democracy/
Interesting read, however I'd say he is outnumbered by the professors who teach anti American rhetoric as rule of course, without the warning about the consequences.
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Originally Posted by davepool
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