I think sir that democracy is not perfect, but it has been proved that it is the best political system had ever known.

So arising some persons like Trump is a justifiable price to keep this system without changing, we all sow the ugly extremist behavior of twitter against Trump, it was very dangerous to stop a democratic behavior whatever the price will be payed for it, why? because once these changes begins it will never stop.

I am from the middle east and I strongly appreciate democracy may be more than the wests people who didn't try dictatorship, and I hope not to.

Trumps experience should teach us a lesson which is that democracy can match even persons like Trump, it is a very very solid system.

Dear Ashraf, thank you for taking the time to comment. You did not try to answer the question.

I asked the question because people think, perhaps you too, that democracy is strong enough to survive popular changes that come from within, but they may be a wrong assumption as it depends on the type of popular movement behind that change..... When you say democracy can math even people like trump, it say yes, when you are lucky and so lucky that trumpism did not reach the point of permanent authoritarianism this time....

Keep in mind, trumpism this time 2016-2020 stayed only at the temporary authoritarianism state....

had Trumpism won one reelection or two, it may have moved towards the period of permanent authoritarianims and then it would persist in power even if it loses re-elections....Once permanent authoritarianism from within in majority rule based liberal democracies takes place, democracy is dead... so the liberal democracy structure can survive all forms of normal populism movements in the long term, but they can not survive long term POPULISM WITH A MASK...as all exism movements like traumpism are....

That is why I asked the question, What is the sufficient condition for extreme democratic outcomes like Trumpism to win re-elections or persist in power at all cost?

Do you have an ideal what that sufficient condition is?

Respectfully yours

Yes dear dr. Lucio Muñoz

Thanks alot for your time

Happy to get this descussion with you.

Dear Ashraf, thank you for your time.

The answer to this question is related to the ideas shared in the following two papers that you may find rich in food for thoughts, have a nice day!

Sustainability thoughts 132: How a general majority rule based liberal democracy model can be stated step by step and how it can be linked to normal democratic outcome and extreme democratic outcome existing and persisting dynamics?

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/348295828_Sustainability_thoughts_132_How_a_general_majority_rule_based_liberal_democracy_model_can_be_stated_step_by_step_and_how_it_can_be_linked_to_normal_democratic_outcome_and_extreme_democratic_outcome_ex

Sustainability thoughts 131: How can the shift from normal liberal democracies to extreme liberal democracies be use to extract the democratic structure that leads to the rise of temporary and permanent authoritarianism from within?

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/348607163_Sustainability_thoughts_131_How_can_the_shift_from_normal_liberal_democracies_to_extreme_liberal_democracies_be_use_to_extract_the_democratic_structure_that_leads_to_the_rise_of_temporary_and_permanen

Core to any answer is the rule of law. On that basis, Trump's efforts to remain in power ended with the new President-elected certified by Congress. Any action beyond that dismisses the law.

Groups may then see themselves justified for non legal action. The United States of American was created by a group of English colonies deciding to end their governmental existence as part of the British Empire. In the 1860's, a group of US states attempted to end their governmental existence as part of the US.

To raise an armed insurrection in order to retain a leader in power outside the law is to terminate the current government structure as defined by the US Constitution.

For an authoritarian to win re-election, they must follow the law, obtaining support by getting sufficient votes from the right set of voters. Any effort beyond the law to persist in power, is simply an insurrection or a coup, and cannot ever be justified as part of the democratic process in America.

Milton Thank you for your comment.

You are right in all what you said so the sufficient condition would be the existence or creation of a non-independent legal system that puts loyalty to movement/party/individual over loyalty to democracy/country/the common good.... this would be the structure of permanent authoritarianism from within and the death of democracy/constitution.... only under reelections under an independent rule of law then authoritarianism is temporary as if it loses reelection it can not persist no matter what they do as the fall of trumpism shows....

But if Trumpism would have been reelected and given more time to corrupt political and legal loyalty it would have led to permanent authoritarianism in the USA under trump, yet even the political class in the USA both Democrat and Republican take authoritarianism based presidency as a consequential presidency instead of as "a direct attack to democracy from within"

Milton, when you have time take look at the articles I shared in this discussion, they detail a way to go beyond traditional democratic thinking to capture what happens when normal democratic outcomes compete with extreme democratic outcomes and what outcome to expect from winners and losers under independent or non-independent rule of law systems, something that is different than when two normal democratic outcomes compete for their right or chance to manage the common good.

Sufficient condition is a presidential system. That means a system where the chief executive is directly elected by the people. Such systems generally fail completely - i.e., become an authoritarian shambles. For example all of South America many times, Philippines, Indonesia, the former Soviet states that went presidential (but the parliamentary ones are mostly okay). The big exception that hasn't actually failed (yet) is the US but pathologies like Trump have occurred in the past and are bound to occur every now and then. They almost never occur in parliamentary systems.

That's it; sufficient condition for Trumpism is a presidential system.

Mike, I appreciate your comment, but keep in mind Trumpism failed to persist which means that the conditions under it went into re-election were not sufficient for it to persist at all cost.... Keep in mind, trumpism is not a normal democratic outcome, hence it is not consistent with traditional democracy theory expectations....

To understand exism movements like trumpism, how it come to exist, how it can be temporary authoritarianism, and how it can become permanent authoritarianism you need to think in terms of competition between normal populism(normal democratic outcomes) versus populism with a mask(extreme democratic outcomes); and about the legal loyalty conditions under which re-elections take place....

Keep also in mind: a) A normal democratic outcome is the one where the majority view wins the democratic contest and b) An extreme democratic outcome is the one where the minority view somehow wins the democratic contest.... the key word here is "somehow"

Trumpism is an extreme democratic outcome, where loyalty is not to country, but to movement, the goal is not the common good, but the individual good/the minority good....

Trumpism come to exist within a normal liberal democracy system, like an antidemocratic baby born from a normal democracy mother; and in order to survive it needs to eat its mother from inside out little by little until it can persist at all costs like some type of scorpion behavior,,,,

So the presidential system explanation you indicate doe not hold here as when trumpism came to exist the chief executive was directly elected by the people under "Effective targeted chaos|

I am right now working on the paper which will make it easier to see these issues related to trumpism/exism movements from the point of view of necessary and sufficient conditions so we can have a clear idea of how to protect normal liberal democracies long term by seeing what can be done to make it more difficult from them to come to exist in the first place, and to make sure that if they come to exist, they are temporary, not permanent' as if they become permanent there is no way back peacefully to the normal democratic world

Have a nice day

Lucio, I think you are mistaken.

“Trumpism come to exist within a normal liberal democracy system”

Oh no. The US is not normal democratic—unless you call Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, Peru, Chile, etc, “normal.”

The US is an exceptional democracy. But Trump is entirely normal in presidential systems. There have been Trumps before in the US (Buchanan, Johnson) along with several presidents who were useless. Trumps are common, even usual, in presidential systems.

Normal democracy is parliamentary, not presidential. All the stable democracies are parliamentary (France is a partial exception). The practice of direct election of the chief executive is generally deadly to democracy. All of them (except the US) have failed.

The new democracy of South Korea is worth watching; it has already had one corrupt “democratic” president and if it follows the South American pattern it will go in and out of democracy. Indonesia (also new) is now well on downward slope. I think all the other presidential countries are thoroughly authoritarian. Note particularly that the former Soviet countries that are parliamentary are managing but all the presidential ones are a corrupt, authoritarian shambles. Time will tell whether they will have democratic interludes as the South American countries do. (During such interludes government is a corrupt, democratic shambles and soon fails again.)

In recent decades democracy in the US has become faulty—gerrymanders are common (unknown in parliamentary systems), minorities are marginalised, and big money buys policy. The mystery is how the US has survived so long. Others fail within a decade or two. I think that mystery deserves close political science attention. My best answer is: strong federalism—the states are so jealous of their powers that this inhibits the centre’s tendency to increase its power.

Parliamentary systems (Canada, UK, Germany, Australia…) need fear no Trumps. Measures taken to protect presidential systems from them (term limits—unknown in parliamentary systems) are next to worthless.

Maybe revise your paper in the light of the above.

Mike, with all my respect, read my comment again and think more carefully before replying...start with what is a normal democratic outcome and what is not according to majority rule based voting systems and we go from there. Best if you can read any of my papers shared here, at least the operational concepts, and show me analytically wrong.

Dear Mike:

The question of this thread is: “What is the sufficient condition for extreme democratic outcomes like Trumpism to win re-elections or persist in power at all cost?”

Your reply started with the answer “Sufficient condition is a presidential system. That means a system where the chief executive is directly elected by the people.”

Can you show me analytically how that sufficient condition in that system you state applies to the rise, fall or persistence of Trumpism at all cost?

Saying “I think you are wrong” is not enough at this level, we have to show why we think the other is wrong so the other can have the opportunity to expand.

After your reply I will expand.

Respectfully yours;

Lucio

Perhaps you are right but I was just responding to what you said:

“Trumpism come to exist within a normal liberal democracy system”

which is simply incorrect - as I think I showed in sufficient detail.

You also said you want "to protect normal liberal democracies" from Trumpism. I responded that the normal ones don't need protection. Only abnormal (presidential) ones do but, as I suggested, such protection doesn't seem to work.

Dear Mike, to avoid going in circles:

Your reply to this question started with the answer “Sufficient condition is a presidential system. That means a system where the chief executive is directly elected by the people.”

Can you show me analytically how that sufficient condition in that system you state applies to the rise, fall or persistence of Trumpism at all cost?

And we go from there as I am here to share ideas in a positive environment, not to impose my ideas

Respectfully yours;

“Can you show me analytically how that sufficient condition in that system you state [national election of the president] applies to the rise, fall or persistence of Trumpism at all cost?”

I get the feeling this may not be possible. Still, I’ll give it a go.

I stated that all such systems have turned to Trumpism. Every single one with the partial exception of France. That’s a correlation approaching 1 which is unheard of in social analysis. I gave numerous examples.

But of course I am not saying it is just a statistical phenomenon or that it merely “applies” to Trumpism. I was implying that that the presidential system CAUSES Trumpism. Inevitably.

Why it happens is not hard to discern: the personality of someone who can go around the whole country saying, “Elect me!” is bound to be unusually egotistic. Sooner or later it will be a Trump. In presidential countries other than the US this has resulted in the collapse of the democracy, such as it was, with the consequent inevitable persecution and corruption.

At a slightly deeper level the funding of a national campaign requires wealthy donors, which makes corruption practically inevitable. At the same time, trying to appeal to voters of all stripes makes populism practically inevitable. Such an environment is bound to turn up Trumps.

At a yet deeper level, direct election of the chief executive attracts opportunist personalities who see a path to power by stirring up division; they do this by appealing to base impulses and by picking scabs off old wounds. Issues like abortion, religious fundamentalism, and financial regulation keep churning. These matters are settled or non-existent in normal democracies because such personalities get quashed by their colleagues.

Over the long term, as presidents come and go, nothing gets healed, no matter is resolved, reforms get reversed, old mistakes are repeated, corruption pervades, and in the US, where the democracy never quite fails, some kind of national madness occurs every generation or so. Think of civil war, Jim Crow, depression, mass sterilisation, prohibition, McCarthyism, Vietnam, Iraq, imprisonment without trial, torture, gross inequality, gerrymandering—all kinds of craziness which do not occur in the established parliamentary democracies.

Is that enough analysis to convince you?

I see you have no clue how to link your statement analytcally trumpism in particular and all exism movements in general... The democracy thinking being used before 2016 Brexit(Brexism) and 2016 Usexit(trumpism) needs to be updated as it can not explain them. You have and need to think in terms of paradigm shifts and effective targeted chaos to understand exism movements, to undertand and state the conditions needed for them to come to exist, the conditions needed for them to be temporary; and the conditions needed for them to persist at all cost. To do that you need a simple democracy model, a model that can be used to show what is normal and what is not normal under majority rule, a model that can be used to show the shift from normal to no normal under spefcific set of conditions....that way you advance a consistent understating of issues in a logical manner.... Sorry, you sufficient conditions is not explained by all the supposedly facts you listed....

Let's agree to disagree then, but think about your statement carefully, if you make your statement a definition of democracy Di and the leader a democratic outcome DOi you could state a model that can be used to show in simple terms under majority rule what is a normal democratic outcome and what is not, but it can not explain exism unless you bring in effective targeted chaos.

Let's leave it here Mike so others can share their views if they would like. You can keept thinking the way you think, that is fine with me.

Respectfully yours;

Lucio

Come on, dear colleagues!

I am afraid, (in my view that is), we will not be able to find a single factor that could be held responsible or could help explain things in a more or less easy way. I am afraid many factors are at work at the same time. In our discussion, we have touched on quite a few already. Perhaps we have to structure our common knowledge along a few lines. Some contributions seem to me to be more from a politicological perspective, others from a sociological one, and still others seem to contribute factors from a psychological perspective.

I cannot see a comprehensive total view yet and I must say it starts to dazzle me a bit. I might try to stitch the various contributions together into something going into the direction of a total view (which might help a little). But I will need some time to do that. I feel stimulated, however, to give it a try. If something comes out I will rejoin your interesting and important discussion.

Keep thinking!

Laurens

Agreed Lauren's, new ideas are needed to fill in the knowledge gap created when exism movements like brexism and Trumpism came along.

Respectfully yours

Laurens, I look forward to seeing what you pull together from the various contributions. Meanwhile let me comment on the following:

“we will not be able to find a single factor that could be held responsible or could help explain things in a more or less easy way. I am afraid many factors are at work at the same time.”

Yes and no. In a democracy, direct election of the chief executive is poison. Pretty much guaranteed. That’s a single factor and, as an explanation, it could hardly be easier.

There are dozens of failed presidential democracies. Are there other factors in those failures? Surely there are but just as surely those extra factors were exacerbated by the presidential structure. In those countries it is usual to have a term limit and it is common, even usual, for the president to try to evade the limit—and often enough he (never she) can count on the mass of the people to support the power-grab.

The parliamentary democracies also face all sorts of factors but they are able to cope with them. That is to say, the single factor of direct election suffices to explain and all else stems from that. The fates of the former Soviet countries are a real world comparative experiment here.

Or consider how parliamentary Canada, Australia and New Zealand have been prosperous and stable for over a century yet all those equally old, equally resource-rich, presidential South American countries are a perpetual shambles. Poverty, corruption, drugs, official murder, gangsterism—we explain this by saying it is their culture. The real explanation is one simple, single factor.

A parliamentary system is not a guarantee of stable democracy but once a parliamentary system is established it does seem to be able to withstand every factor that is thrown at it. The presidential system can’t.

Dear Mike, I believe you deserve an apology from me.

My last reply to your comment I can see now was unprofessional regardless of the nature of your comments and I would like to sincerely apologize to you.

Reacting like this defeats the idea of sharing ideas in a positive environment and goes against the growth of knowledge. And accepting mistakes is very important to me.

Please accept my apology.

Respectfully yours;

Lucio

Dear friends, here sharing a few more ideas and 5 figures related to the dynamics behind exism movements

I am about to finish writing the following article titled “Sustainability thoughts 133: Stating the expected step by step road from majority rule based liberal democracies to permanent authoritarianism: The case of the 2016-2020 rise and fall of Trumpism”

In it I expand the ideas in my previous article to state a general re-election model that captures the dynamics when leaders championing the common good/normal democratic outcomes in a liberal democracy peacefully transfer power when they lose re-election under an independent legal loyalty rule of law system as well as when leaders championing the private good/extreme democratic outcomes will challenge the results of elections whey they lose re-election under an incompatible independent legal loyalty rule of law system, to later link it to the structure of the 2016 rise of Trumpism when Trump won over Clinton and link it to the fall of Trumpism in 2020 when Trump lost to Biden.

Sharing here 5 key figures:

Figure 1 The conditions that are needed for specific democratic outcomes DOi to come to exist and persist;

Figure 2 The general re-election model based on those conditions needed for DOi to come to exist and persist;

That framework can be used to show step by step how extreme democratic outcomes should be expected to behave from when the unique conditions needed for them to come to exist bring them into play, to temporary authoritarianism to permanent authoritarianism. Then the framework can be applied to show the structure of for example when competition between normal democratic outcomes leads to alternating power to handle the common good as indicated in Figure 3 and peaceful transfers of power as well as to show for example the 2016 rise of Trumpism and the structure of the 2020 fall of Trumpism, which are in Figure 11 and Figure 12 respectively.

Respectfully yours

Lucio

If the majority of the American people were persuaded by a populist politician, Trump would had been reelected. This happened in Germany when Hitler was elected by the German people. Always , there are circumstances that make populist politicians popular to win elections. There is nothing to guarantee that the majority of the voters of any country always will act rationally to elect the politician(S) that will pursue their long-term interest.

George, that is true, but keep in mind that trumpism is not based on normal populism, but on populism with a mask that can only take place if there is efficient targeted chaos aimed at the true majority group to induce full complacency through ongoing targeted misinformation to induced confusion/division/voting roadblocks so there is voting collapse so that then the minority view somehow wins the electoral contest....leading to a big surprise when the results are announced as what appears to be impossible has actually happened....similar big surprise was shown when the 2016 Brexit result was announced in the UK just before the USEXIT took place.

Normal populism has the best interest of the majority/the common good/the country/Democracy in mind, normal populism with a mask reflects the best interest of the minority/the private good/the party/the antidemocratic movement. Legal and political loyalty in normal populism is to democracy, not to party or movement while the opposite is required under exism movements like trumpism…..

Not surprising after exism movements like Trumpism come to exist they must behave systematically antidemocratic from the beginning to the end if under temporary authoritarianism period or permanently anti democratic if while in power it manages to corrupt the independent legal loyalty system that makes up the DNA of the US constitution and democratic system.

That is why to understand movements like Trumpism, how they come to exist, how they can persist when they come to exist, and how they should be expected to behave from the get go is by paradigm shift thinking, a shift from normal democratic outcome thinking(the true majority view) to extreme democratic outcome thinking(the true minority view) as they have inverse structure, and trumpism needs to systematically target chaos to undermine and if possible replace democratic values and institutions locally and internationally in order to flourish, propagate and persist.

Thank you for your comment George!

George as shown in my pictures, under an independent rule of law system and without effective targeted chaos that induces full true majority complacency, exism movements like Trumpism cannot come to exist, and if they come to exist and when they go into re-election the targeted chaos that once worked is ineffective, they will lose re-election and nothing they can do, but to fade away, as independent courts without proof or evidence of electoral fraud will validate the winner of the contest…..

In 2016 against Hillary Clinton, systematic targeted chaos was effective, trumpism won; in 2020 against Biden, systematic targeted chaos was ineffective, trumpism lost. The dilemma the Trump party has now is how to make targeted chaos be effective again…otherwise; they cannot come into power again as long as there is no full true majority complacency….

"There is nothing to guarantee that the majority of the voters of any country always will act rationally"

Sure - one reason why national election of the chief executive leads to the collapse of democracy.

But that does not apply to Hitler who did not win on a personal vote; he was the leader of his party. His party also did not win a majority - it just got more votes than any other party. Later, after he had taken over and had jailed or murdered the members of other parties and had taken over the media, he claimed majorities.

Mike, with all my respect, I will make the following points:

i) You will not be able to understand Trumpism, the coming or going or the permanently staying from that point of view of yours, Thomas Kuhn(1962) in the structure of scientific revolutions told us that when paradigms shifts take place, any science based paradigm shift, including the shift from traditional democratic thinking to non-traditional democratic thinking, those in the previous paradigm will resist shift in knowledge first as they cannot see what has happened or explaining using the thinking relevant before the shift takes place. Someone will come from outside the box that can see what is going on, Kuhn said. So your reaction is normal to me.

ii) The knowledge gap created by the shift make it easy to try to compare orange and apples or to see apples as oranges as if they are the same when they are not. I shared some ideas about how the knowledge gaps are created:

Sustainability thoughts 120: How are paradigm shift knowledge gaps created? In which ways can they lead to the mishandling of expected paradigm shifts?

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/342654767_Sustainability_thoughts_120_How_are_paradigm_shift_knowledge_gaps_created_In_which_ways_can_they_lead_to_the_mishandling_of_expected_paradigm_shifts

iii) Your comment: “There is nothing to guarantee that the majority of the voters of any country always will act rationally. Sure-one reason why national election of the chief executive leads to the collapse of democracy”.

-If we bring targeted chaos, the blood of exism movements, into the picture then there is something to guarantee that the rationality of the majority of the voters of any country can sometimes be tricked or contaminated, and lead to electing a leader or an action that works against the best interest of the majority. Since your view above does not include the possible role of targeted chaos so relevant since 2016, it cannot explain exism movements like trumpism movements that can bring the collapse of democracy step by step from within the democratic system leading to permanent authoritarianism.

iv) Your comment: “Sufficient condition is a presidential system. That means a system where the chief executive is directly elected by the people.”

-As the election of the chief executive is done under stability as there is no chaos, then that is an example where normal democratic theory works as if the majority of the people elects that chief executive then he or she wins the leadership race, that is how normal populism works as that chief executive is supposedly elected because he or she runs for election with the best interest of the majority or the majority view in mind; and therefore, the majority supported him or her. That cannot explain exism movements like Trumpism

-Let’s make that the chief executive leader above is leader L1 , and now let’s assume that when re-election of leader L1 takes place, another leader L2 competes for power, and now the people have two choices for chief executive,,,,

-Then the people can be divided into two groups of voters V1 and V2, where the voters in group V1 are the voters that voted for leader L1 and the voters in group V2 are all the voters that voted for leader L2.

-Then the the leader voting competition(V) during the re-election under NO CHAOS, one person one vote, everybody votes, can be stated as follows:

V = V1.V2

a) If V1 > V2--------> L1 wins re-election, there is a peaceful transfer of power

b) If V1 < V2--------> L1 loses re-election, L2 wins, a peaceful transfer of power

c) if we make L1 = NDOi and L2 = NDOj, the dynamics above can be summarized as in Figure 3 shared above, which cannot explain how trumpism come to exist as minority views cannot win without effective targeted chaos.

-A normal democratic outcome(NDO) is the one who has the best interest of the majority that elected him/the common good/democracy in mind. Both L1 and L2 are normal democratic outcomes when they win here as each of them reflects the best interest of the majority who elected them. Trumpism is not a normal democratic outcome, it is an extreme democratic outcome(EDO) with opposite interest and loyalties as the normal democratic outcome so it cannot be explained by the dynamics in Figure 3 above.

I am expanding my ideas in good faith and as I am not here to impose my views I think Mike that we should agree to disagree.

Respectfully yours;

The discovery of any financial power driven false democracy as the one of Biden, Harris and Pelosi is more than enough to justify the persistence of any form of active rexistance, such as "Trumpism".

Stephano, thank you for commenting

Is permanent authoritarianism/dictatorship better for you than democracy? That is what you get if Trumpism keeps power even if it loses re-elections

Sharing here final draft of paper about the 2016-2020 rise and fall of Trumpism using the thinking of the road from normal liberal democracies to permanent authoritarianism from within, it has some good food for thoughts:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/349682410_Sustainability_thoughts_133_Stating_the_expected_step_by_step_road_from_majority_rule_based_liberal_democracies_to_permanent_authoritarianism_The_case_of_the_2016-2020_rise_and_fall_of_Trumpism?_sg=WRLVUYeypvysJFhtKYCbTTZZP7O9byOn7XMxcfHvhrh-NFEsTBYvQTi_OSzyu4EjF5qsJJa4rJWqNiH-XC5sGUAvg0ahoVF8cEW51XPI.-QBPNHf6ly3k8MUbygftWvjTwkQ62j8UUBniL8dmWVMuWuwnpCXBda_pBVskEJJlmzZGb0KfxanQmJcXHHu6ww

Trump could not fully manipulate the art of populism. Also, Trump could not completely follow the principles of some historical leaders in Asia, Africa and Latin America in keeping power for the welfare of the people by manipulating election, election engineering, postponing the election results and declaring himself elected, arranging a judicial coup or, by declaring election is unconstitutional.

Dear Kazi, all what you said is true, but there is a necessary condition that needs to exist for keeping power at all cost, can you think about it?

Dear Lucio Muñoz, I will try to reply soon.