We asked GREENMARK 101 our proprietary algorithm two additional inquiries to ensure the primary question has a significant statistical “best guess” answer.
Would society give up basic civil liberties to the federal government for employment and peace of mind?
What does it mean to discard gloves and masks on the street?
Indeed, the unintended consequence of COVID-19 makes the answers jaw-dropping. Granted, the death totals, the collective hardship of all Americans, the epidemiology or the economics of possibility 70 million claims for unemployment insurance, human suffering and trillions of dollars spent by the federal government to make whole the privileged at the expenses of society is only the beginning of the wild ride down the rabbit hole. COVID-19 will be defeated, a vaccine will be available in less than 18 months, worldwide inoculation scrubs the surge clean. Meanwhile, modern democracy in the United States may become a historical footnote unless we keep our eyes and ears open and not be victims of consequence.
Dwight D. Eisenhower said, “A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.” As an American military general and politician who led the Allied Forces to victory in World War II and served as the 34th President of the United State, Eisenhower recognized that democracy was always on fragile ground. “Here in America, we are descended in blood and in spirit from revolutionists and rebels - men and women who dare to dissent from accepted doctrine. As their heirs, may we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion.”
Sure, the economy will recover, the pandemic ends, but democracy once lost, may never come back in America. From the analytics supplied by Greenmark 101 algorithm and other recognized sources, losing our democracy is moving to the tipping point. Specific data and predictable trends are profoundly and precisely contiguous to infer that fact. Authoritarian rule maybe just three years away.
History has presented a means to understand the conclusions of this event. We merely need to look at consequences in Europe, especially Hungary, over the past decade. What happened in Hungary, beginning in 211, was that Fidesz, the nation’s white nationalists ruling party, took advantage of its position to rig the electoral system to effectively make its rule permanent. Then it further consolidated its power to reward friendly businesses while punishing critics and moved to suppress independent news media. Until recently, it seemed as if Viktor Orban, Hungary’s de facto dictator, might stop with soft authoritarianism, presiding over a regime that preserved some outward forms of democracy, neutralizing and punishing opposition without actually making criticism illegal. But now his government has used the coronavirus as an excuse to abandon even the pretense of constitutional government, giving Orban the power to rule by decree.
If you say that something similar can’t happen here, you’re hopelessly naïve.
It’s already happening here, especially at the state level. Wisconsin, in particular, is well on its way toward becoming Hungary on Lake Michigan, as Republicans seek a permanent lock on power.
Today is yesterday’s pupil.
Back in 2018, Wisconsin’s electorate voted strongly for Democratic control. Voters chose a Democratic governor and gave 53 percent of their support to Democratic candidates for the State Assembly. But the state is so heavily gerrymandered that despite this popular-vote majority, Democrats got only 36 percent of the Assembly’s seats. And far from trying to reach some accommodation with the governor-elect, Republicans moved to effectively emasculate him, drastically reducing the powers of this office.
Then came Tuesday’s election.
In normal times most attention would have been focused on the Democratic primary --- although that became a moot point when Bernie Sanders suspended his campaign. But a seat on the State Supreme Court was also at stake. Yet Wisconsin, like most of the country, is under a stay-at-home order.
So why did Republican legislators, eventually backed by the Republican appointees to the U.S. Supreme Court, insist on holding an election as if the situation were normal?
The answer is that the state shutdown had a much more severe impact on voting in Democratic-leaning urban areas, where a great majority of polling places were closed than in rural or suburban areas. So the G.O.P. was nakedly exploiting a pandemic to disenfranchise those likely to vote against it.
What happened Wisconsin, in short, was a state party doing whatever it takes to cling to power even if a majority of voters want it out – and a partisan bloc on the Supreme Court, ordered by denying voting by mail. What the Court meant: “If we expand early voting and voting by mail, we’ll never have a Republican elected in this country again.”
Does anyone seriously doubt that something similar could happen, very soon, at a national level?
This November, it’s all too possible that Trump will eke out an Electoral College win thanks to widespread voter suppression. If he does --- or even if he wins cleanly --- everything we’re seen suggests that he will use a second term to punish everyone he sees as a domestic enemy and that his party will back him all the way.
What if Trump loses?
You know what he’ll do: He’ll claim that Joe Biden’s victory was based on voter fraud, that millions of illegal immigrants cast ballots or something like that. Misinformation will rule. Would the Republican Party and perhaps more importantly, would Trump step aside? Greenmark 101 doesn’t think so. The consequences will be devastating to democratic rule.
Back to Wisconsin
What just happened in Wisconsin appears to be a greater threat than disease or depression. Maybe that’s the way it should be when our resolve has been compromised?
Why should we care who’s going to rule us in the future?
A simple fact is on the table: If one of the two major parties doesn’t believe in democracy, the authoritarian rule would be the standard operating procedure in the United States.
Would society give up basic civil liberties to the federal government for employment and peace of mind?
Yes. COVID-19 has created fear on a level never seen in modern America. We are not far removed for our police force being compromised by the virus and supermarkets run out of food, fear, and panic will cause the worst of us to rob stores and even homes. The best of us will be ready to protect our families and homes by allowing the federal government to usurp our civil rights. Authoritarian rule maybe just three years away.
What does it mean to discard gloves and masks on the street?
The term 'human nature' is much more than a reference to human behavior; it refers to our species' less-than-ideally-behaved, seemingly-imperfect, even 'good and evil'-afflicted, so-called human condition—as in 'it's only human nature for people to be competitive, selfish and aggressive'. The definition is a primary factor of our “Opinion Protocol” and a key component in the subjective probability model subset.
Take a look at the sidewalks than run through our communities, the parks where we relax, the curbs where we park our car, the parking lots of grocery stores, post office and pharmacies. Many are now littered with surgical gloves and masks, tossed after being used as protection from the strain of Covod-19. No town or place seems to be off-limits in the days when our world has essentially shut down. Our research shows that litter affects people's feelings of wellbeing and safety. Littered streets feel abandoned, consequently, their inhabitants do too. But the current onslaught of surgical gloves and masks --- all worn by presumably smart, socially aware people to stop the spread of COVID-19 – is new. And to make things even more disturbing, those allegedly smart people who wear gloves and masks may be carrying the virus. So, if they discard their contaminated gloves and masks, what happens to the people who have to pick them up? Have we reached a point in our social digression where we need to be reminded to put our trash in the garbage can?
The “best guess” signals received from the Greenmark 101 algorithm and what reported in the media are disturbing. Relying on a robot to distill the evidence seems irresponsible and the conclusions are difficult to be taken seriously. Common sense and personal experience are more accurate. After reflection, the reckoning is incontestable we are in the rabbit hole.
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