Slippery Slopes

An article covering a gathering of political scientists and theorists sounds fun, right?

I meant to link to this Vox bit before, but instead just went on living my life without thinking of posting something for you...

Basically, this poli-sci convention was kind of a downer.
Lots of scholarly types thinking total bummer stuff about the state of democracy in America...

Stuff like this-

Nancy Bermeo, a politics professor at Princeton and Harvard, began her talk with a jarring reminder: Democracies don’t merely collapse, as that “implies a process devoid of will.” Democracies die because of deliberate decisions made by human beings. 

Usually, it’s because the people in power take democratic institutions for granted. They become disconnected from the citizenry. They develop interests separate and apart from the voters. They push policies that benefit themselves and harm the broader population. Do that long enough, Bermeo says, and you’ll cultivate an angry, divided society that pulls apart at the seams.

I do think the story is worth a few minutes, if you have a few to spare.

There is a particularly interesting bit about the function of time in the language of campaigning/politics...
If you go for that sort of thing.


Link, again.