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I could definitely see that. Brazil seems like the natural evolution of what's happening in America where both parties are more focused on managing who votes rather than trying to convince people to change their minds. Sadly, this is probably a dominant strategy in a diverse, socialist country given what we know about patronage systems.
It's the dominant strategy in any sufficiently non-homogenous country that has voting. It's divergence and democracy that creates and enables the redistributive pressure often expressed as 'socialism'. In fact one could say that the concepts of capitalism and socialism as they exists in the minds of many are only really consistent with the notion of the 'have nots' taking from those who 'have' or vice versa.
With that in mind, there's a lot to be said for the lack of 'socialism' in homogenous Scandinavia. Despite the large welfare state and high taxes, that model looks dramatically more appealing and feels completely different from anything referred to as socialism in America since most people in Scandinavia are in some form a 'haver'. With personal dignity and private life that, when all is said and done, is pretty nice. Contrast that with Brazil or increasingly large parts of America where the number of 'havers' is proportionally decreasing. What on earth would the 'not havers' do with their vote and work other than to vote and work themselves into the pockets of those who 'have'?
It's an interesting refutation of the conservative conception of America and its freedom, democracy and free market capitalism as a whole. The American conservative does not believe that the state should be used as a tool to reach into the pockets of its citizenry to redistribute their wealth. That should be done through market forces. But when the 'have nots' mobilize within the market, exert enormous pressure on companies and bend them, sometimes literally, to their ideological will, suddenly that's not allowed either!
It need not be said that conservatives are getting their asses handed to them. The mainstream of society is dominated by liberal/leftist/progressive voices. To be normal is to not be a conservative.
The conservative then, out of necessity, increasingly argues in favor of an ideological socialism of sorts. Every idea should be treated equally. Everyone should have freedom of speech, thought and the capacity to express themselves in any educational institution they want without fear or reprisals. And if any company wants to censor one viewpoint, they should then necessarily have to censor any other. It's either all politics allowed or no politics allowed! And so forth. It can't be that their ideas are getting outcompeted, no. It's corruption in our media and universities, collusions and ideological monopolies.
This entire predicament is an indictment of the neoliberal class of elites that proposed that these conditions of diversity could be managed, and the conservatives who greedily accepted the neoliberal proposition since they believed it would make them money and, ultimately, that there was no way that they would lose in the free market. Hell, maybe the neoliberals were banking on that as well.
But no, modern society is not ignoring the new underclass of berry pickers and cleaning ladies. Who don't want your smiles and thank you-s or 30 minutes off on the occasional Friday. They want your money, they want your power, they want your life. And within a free market capitalist enterprise they are under no obligation to play by anyone's rules but the markets. And the market is responding to their actions and demands.
Americans are greedy even now, to act as if they are heading for 'Brazilification' and not something worse.
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Ridiculous from either end.
Brazil didn’t get here from a stereotypical American democracy. Its current government only dates back to the early 90s, and I’m not sure it’s had an uncontroversial election since 2006. Police putting a thumb on the scale is more like a throwback to its junta days.
Nor does American partisanship drag us in that direction. The current squabbles over voter protections have more to do with putting a particular sort of strongman in office, and the ones over nativism and immigration are what happens when a big chunk of the population feels economically insecure. No patronage required.
The current squabbles over voter suppression have to do with the role of ethnic machine politics. They date back to before Trump, after all.
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Of course America is headed this direction. Non-European immigrants vote D by supermajority numbers which is why Democrats want to open the borders and give them amnesty. This does not require some outrageous leap. Biden let in something like 15 million illegals. It isn't some prediction for the future. It already happened. And it's already the stated position of most leading Democrats to give illegal immigrants amnesty and a path to citizenship. Please don't pretend this is some crazy conspiracy theory.
If only the Rs would stop pursuing policies detrimental to Non-European immigrants, they might end up voting more R, like how Latinos now do. No party is entitled to the vote of anybody.
The fact that immigrants don't assimilate, but instead demand assimilation of the native population to them is all the more reason to slam the door shut and keep it that way forever.
Non-European immigrants are fundamentally more liberal, and it's not because they were treated poorly by Republicans. They were that way the second they landed.
Too bad that there are plenty of others already in your country that disagree, and they'll vote against you and your policies for very justifiable reasons from their side.
The R's offer is basically "the beatings will continue until morale improves", and then they act shocked when voters completely rationally vote D instead.
And who says immigrants don't assimilate. Imagine they all assimilated fully into D subcultures and values and voted D even harder. Something tells me you wouldn't like that eithe.
As they say, the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. Second best time is today.
We should have halted immigration long ago. But we didn't. So we'll have to cater to the demands of voters who are already here. But the point of winning elections needs to be to halt all future immigration so we won't have to make even more concessions to even more future leftists.
Your example of the Tories being a successful party (likely a troll comment, we get it) is perfect. If you only survive by losing on literally ever issue and floating with the wind, nothing of value was conserved. The Tories are a nothing party, just a hollow shell.
Likewise, no one cares about the Republican Party in itself. They care about America.
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Whenever I reflect on that it always rings in my mind as a throwback to Caesar giving Gauls citizenship in Rome (one of the things he was actually unpopular for), and the ensuing impact this liberalization had on native Roman’s negative attitudes towards them. Over a long enough timespan, we see where it leads. Odoacer (though he was German, not Gallic) served and was integrated into the Roman army himself. That still wasn’t enough for him to see himself as Roman.
I actually think more relevant is the change in power, first with the Antonines, then decisively with the third century crisis and Diocletian where the Italians lost control of their empire. Rome itself ceased to control things well before the state collapsed.
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Yeah, the patronage model was important in ancient Rome just like it is becoming today in America. Although back then, the patron-client relationship was personal and today it is based on ethnic groups, unions, and political parties.
Controlling citizenship was a BIG deal back then too.
For example, way back in 91 BC, Drusus tried to get Rome's Italian allies admitted as citizens. The Senate hated this because it would mean that these new citizens would view Drusus, already one of the richest men in Rome, as their personal patron. He would have so many clients that he would be unquestionably the most powerful man in Rome. And so naturally he was assassinated.
Today's Democratic Party is also seeking new clients, while the Republican party tries to block it.
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Not all sectors of society in the US vote in equal proportion. This has been a thing forever. It’s why both parties struggle mightily with voter turnout. Fucking with public bussing and the transport system is kind of funny, but even that kind of thing has happened here.
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