Yes, but the scary thing about dictators taking over is that they tend to have supporters. Lots of them. Often the military are among the supporters. It’s true that if a leader threatens people (as Dub has done since 9-11) with big narsty bogeymens from outside, people will allow shocking things to happen when they’re told the shocking things are being done to ‘protect’ them. Don’t underestimate fear as a motivator.
Enough rabid enthusiasts supporting a nutjob will keep that nutjob in power a long time and those who dare to try to rebel get neutralized quickly.
You think you know people who would leap into the fray? Get involved in a dispute at work sometime on someone’s behalf and you’ll see right quick how many scared little rabbits are far more willing to scurry back to their safe warrens than to stick their heads out and be seen.
Look at what happened under McCarthyism and there weren’t even soldiers in the streets. Start threatening people’s livelihoods and reputations and that’s enough to cow many regular mortals.
I can see people are still buying Democratic propaganda from over 70 years ago. Hoover did not believe in laissez faire capitalism, and in his political experience prior to becoming President he took many actions which were clearly regulatory in regards to business and commerce.
Not only did he directly state he did not support the idea of laissez faire, he also did not “do nothing.” What he did not do was give direct aid from the federal government to the people. It was his opinion, one which cost him an election and earned him (misplaced) vilification for over 70 years that direct aid from the government was not the way to solve the problems of the depression.
Prior to Hoover no President has ever done so much during an economic downturn to try and turn the situation around. For most of the 19th century the Federal government did not have the size or power to seriously attempt such a thing. After the Civil War, it did, but the ideology still wasn’t there, it was still considered extremely inappropriate for the Federal government to do anything remotely like the stuff Roosevelt did with the New Deal. The Great Depression was a watershed event, nothing like it has come before or since and it changed the way the entire country thought about the proper role of the Federal government.
To a degree Roosevelt can be praised because he did something that went against over 140 years of convention; I’m not sure Hoover deserves to be vilified because he did not do things which, up until the time of FDR would have seemed totally out of place for a President to do (and to be honest aside from the restructuring of banking and the establishment of further regulation of the stock markets and the SEC and et cetera I don’t think much of the New Deal had desirable effects on the country in the long term.)
What Hoover did, in response to the crisis was contact all 48 state governors and urge them to increase public works to foster economic growth and provide employment. This was unprecedented. Furthermore, he met with the leading industrialists of the day and secured from them assurances that they would not reduce wages, he secured promises from labor unions that they would withdraw many of their wage demands. He secured almost $2bn in new construction from the country’s public utilities companies and railroads and passed a $130m tax cut while doubling allocation of Federal resources for new dam, highway, and public building construction.
Many of the things Roosevelt did to alleviate the effects of the Great Depression were just extensions of stuff Hoover was already doing, increases in public works and spending at the state and federal level. Hoover acted as an organizer, rallying various interests across the country to try and combat the depression. In the first half of 1930 it appeared it was working. Where Roosevelt and Hoover differed was Hoover did not believe direct federal aid was the answer, he believed rallying industry, state governments and injecting money into the economy through the Federal budget was the answer. This wasn’t an unreasonable position, it had long been the position of many that it was not appropriate for the Federal government to be issuing handouts to its people, for a wide range of reasons.
Hoover did a lot to try and turn the Depression around, and in the absence of two other things, I think Hoover would have been successful and the Great Depression never would have happened. The severe drought in the summer of 1930 could not have come at a worse time, the first half of 1930 was showing promising economic indicators. I think the drought was bad, but I think the Smoot-Hawley Tariff was worse by several orders of magnitude. While Hoover signed the tariff, he did not support its passage. This is probably the biggest failure of his Presidency, I think he had a strong responsibility to not only veto the tariff but to campaign heavily against it, he knew how disastrous it would be and had even asked for a reduction in tariff rates prior to passage of the act. While, politically, he may not have been able to stop the act once it had been passed by Congress, I think if he had taken a stronger role advocating against it in the public discussion of the issue, he may have changed the political realities on the ground. Either way, considering he publicly opposed the tariff I think he had a much large responsibility than he did in regards to opposing its passage, and he certainly had a responsibility to veto it (regardless of whether or not it’d be overridden, which it very well may have been.)
I don’t blame Smoot-Hawley for the depression of the 1930s, I think it would have been a long recession, the worst America has ever seen if Smoot-Hawley hadn’t passed. I think, however, that it would never have gotten near as bad as it did (to the point where I don’t think it’d be known as the “Great Depression”), unemployment jumped from 9% to 16% to 25% following passage of the tariff and imports and exports fell by a measure much larger than the decrease of GDP.
A lot of this was because of the political maneuvering of King Roosevelt. He successfully shaped the public in such a way (through unimaginable amounts of propaganda) to suggest that Hoover did absolutely nothing to deal with the Depression (interesting since the New York Times in 1930 praised Hoover for his extensive work combating the economic downturn) and that he was the lone and sole savior of America, that only he could raise the spirits of the people and lead them out of the Depression. This is something that has survived Roosevelt himself as many people still buy into his cult of personality in this regard. I think to a degree Roosevelt’s legacy was saved somewhat by WWII, a lot of what I’ve read to me suggests Americans were tiring of Roosevelt–only the looming specter of war saved him in 1938, because of the strong impression he had set in the minds of Americans that he was their savior and could not be replaced (this is very similar to the sort of personality cults you’ll see dictators establish throughout history.)
It’s always fun watching someone try to explain away a historical event that doesn’t confirm their ideology. “Everything Roosevelt did was wrong and everything Hoover did was right. Unless Roosevelt was right, in which case Hoover did the same things Roosevelt did and did it first. Except Roosevelt was wrong when he did all the things that Hoover did right.”
The point I was trying to make is that I think an economic collapse could result in a revolt against the government which is the subject the OP. The depression had only lasted for a year or two and the mood of the country was ugly and getting uglier.
It may be more accurate to say that what Hoover did was not perceived by the average individual as being of any help and as doing nothing to change the national mood.
Of course the depression wasn’t something that could be tackled on a state-by-state basis. Asking the governors to spur economic activity wasn’t something that would give people hope that things would improve.
Business promises not to cut wages were empty of any meaningful content. What good is it to the 25% unemployed that wages won’t be cut?
It’s interesting that you cite an example of “trickle down” from so long ago in the $130 million tax cut. Virtually no one paid federal income taxes. I suspect that many working people didn’t even know there was one. And those who received the $130 million kept it because money was so valuable at that time that trading it for other assets was a bad investment.
In any case, the thread isn’t about what measures were most successful in alleviating the depression. I believe that a revolt could most likely occur as a result of economic collapse. I think things were heading in that direction in the early 1930’s and that FDR’s actions were perceived by the public as action being taken to help as opposed to the perceived previous inaction.
That perception when FDR came in changed the national mood and if anyone wants to give Hoover credit, at this remove in time I don’t see that as being crucial. Go ahead and do it.
The thing that really worries me is that whoever comes out in charge after the revolution will be worse than the original
Those are the other 98%. Don’t you know anyone at work that regularly shoots their career in the foot rather than budge an inch on some trivial thing? One of the fella’s I know quit his (medium to high paying) job to move to a place built on shield bedrock. If you get a few people like that together, pretty soon you have a movement (yes, I know how that sounds. Too bad)
But start taking them away and some people will fight back. Not many, but a few.
I suspect that most people in the 13 colonies did not arm and fight, but enough of them did.
Right now no one will get behind a revolution - Our current government is the way out, and if they go quietly then we will expect the next one to be better. It won’t be, but that’s another thread.
I tend to hold the “rising expectations” view of revolutions. If the U.S. was caught in a severe depression or some crisis that involved stripping our rights, the populace at large would tend to go along, not because they are sheep, but because it is the nature of people in groups to accept gradual calamities as irresistible forces that sap their strength and will to resist. (This might have some bearing on the poorest inner city situations, as well.) On the other hand, following such an oppressive event, if things began to improve somewhat, then there is generally more incentive to push the improvements at a faster rate. To the extent that the government at that time resisted, it would open itself to revolutionary though and, perhaps, action.
The OP imagines a revolt against the “American government”. But for that to happen, the nature of American society would have to have changed so much that it would no longer be recognizable to us today as “American”.
So we end up speculating about how some sort of unrecognizable future society would take up guns against some sort or unrecognizable future government.
(but gee whiz, this kind of thread is fun… )
I’m so tired of hearing people say that the president is making it up and spreading fear. I’ve been to the war and back again…why do Americans continue to think that there is no enemy?! “Oh, I’m sure” liberals say, “Middle-Easterners don’t want to kill us just because we’re Americans. I mean, come on…surely they’ve been taught in their schools that diversity is a good thing and it’s not right to pick on someone just because they’re of a certain country or relgion, just like American schools teach!” In fact, there ARE people that hate you because you’re American…they are hardly imaginary “bogeymen”.
Secondly, people always mention these “sheeple” in some nebulous reference to the masses, yet I never find anyone that says “I let others think for me”. Sheeple don’t exist any more than unicorns.
Revolt? We already have that. Ever drive 40mph in a 35? Does anyone care that you’re breaking the law? No, because the police are on your side, not the state’s, in this situation.
This shows that the people have the power to reject any law they don’t (en masse) want. As Richard Neustadt emphases in his texts on the presidency, even the president needs to beg his staff and the executive brankch to do things they should be doing on order.
In order to revolt against the “American Government”, you’d need to pick who the person is that’s screwing you over. If it’s the prez, then impeachment will fix that. The courts? Same thing. The legislature? Vote them out in 2 years.
Sum all that up and I can’t imagine a situation where a large populace would get pissed enough at the ENTIRE US GOVERNMENT, without SOMEONE in it being pissed as well.
What “historical event” am I trying to explain away? Am I saying the Great Depression didn’t happen? No, I’m not. Furthermore, what ideology of mine has “not been confirmed?” Most economists feel the New Deal helped alleviate some of the effects of the Great Depression but not significantly, a small minority think it exacerbated the Great Depression–believe it or not the New Deal and its effects on the Great Depression have not been studied and analyzed as significantly by economists as one might expect. My ideology is no more laissez-faire than Hoover’s was, I believe in a free market with government regulation–and I think had there been appropriate regulation of said market the stock market crash (and following bank collapses) as we know it would not have happened. I’m also a big proponent of Free Trade and thus think the Smoot-Hawley Tariff was one of the most ill-conceived legislative acts in United States history.
What I said was, it is not historical fact that Hoover did nothing. After that, it’s a genuine debate as whether or not the New Deal of FDR significantly alleviated the economic effects of the Depression or not.
In my opinion the New Deal did little to “fix” the Depression, furthermore I think some of its actions set a horrible precedent of big government and federal spending that has continued to this very day.
I don’t view the entire New Deal negatively, however. I think FDR took essential steps to insure that something like the Great Depression would never happen again, he greatly strengthened banking in the United States something we have sorely been needing since the Civil War (and to be honest, since Jackson dissolved the Second Bank of the United States.) The FDIC effectively ended the historical and disastrous “bank runs” by insuring deposits up to a fairly hefty amount, he created the SEC, these were all essential reforms that had been long over due and combined they very much have made it so a situation like the Great Depression will never happen again (not that a huge economic depression isn’t possible, but it wouldn’t happen the same way the Great Depression was because Roosevelt’s reforms directly put into effect mechanisms to prevent that.)
What I get tired is people like you who still insists the liberals ignore that, many on the left, including me approved the attack and invasion of Afghanistan, because the ones that actually did attack us and not only “talk about it” were there.
Even in the last presidential election more than 44% of the eligible voters did “let others think for me”, and just by taking the Plame scandal into account, the mainstream media failed the American people and a good number of Americans did follow the propaganda on the way to the “not related to 9/11” Iraq war.
Well, too bad for you. Sometimes the truth hurts. He lied, his followers/puppetmasters lied, and they spread plenty of fear.
Who says that ? We have enemies, in no small part because we do things like invade Iraq and kill tens of thousands of people. What opponents to the war accurately believed was that Iraq was not much of a threat to us, enemy or not.
And many, probably most of the people there who hated you, hated you because you participated in the mass murder of tens of thousands of their fellow Iraqis and devastated the country. When you engage in massive evils like the Iraq war, people will hate you, and they should.
Of course you do. Plenty of people told us evil unAmerican liberals to shut up and trust the President, and I hear the same exact thing about Iran. And, of course, there are far more who let others think for them without ever saying so.
Some revolutions are made by people who are doing all right but think they would be doing even better if not frustrated by the current regime. E.g., Thailand in 1992. Or, for that matter, France in 1789. The peasants were hungry, but it was the bourgeoisie of the Third Estate who really made things happen.
Read my post again, I never said it was a dictatorship. I’m pointing out that being able to choose between the Democrats and the Republicans is little more of a “choice” than being able to vote for either Person A or Person B from the Communist party.
You can talk about democracy and freedom all you want, but it’s obvious that no one but the most wealthy elites have any power to change the system from the status quo.
The government has nuclear bombs, tanks, fighter jets, etc. How the fuck could rebels possibly win? The only way is if the military joined in the rebellion.
I think most Americans know that they would never be able to win. So they wouldn’t try.
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