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How will we know when the frog has boiled?
From “How to Know When the Frog Has Boiled” by Damon Linker:
The point I want to make is a simple one: We tend to assume that a break from liberal democracy will take place in one blatantly illegal or unconstitutional act. When it happens, it will be obvious; if it never does, everything is fine.
But it’s also possible for a president to act in a way that is technically legal, for the Supreme Court to pronounce such acts constitutional, and for Congress to register no objection to them—while the acts themselves break substantively with principles that were once taken for granted and freely extended and applied to all. That is a circumstance in which the political system and public opinion would have evolved to the point where they are compatible with (and even mandate) blatantly illiberal governance.
To those inclined to defer to “the rule of law” and liberal proceduralism, this may look like business as usual. But it isn’t. It’s a country becoming at once something new and something worse—its outward forms remaining intact while its soul is hollowed out and degraded.
How will we know when we’ve gotten there? Perhaps only when we come to realize the extent to which our laws—and the Constitution—have already been reinterpreted to be compatible with formerly unthinkable acts.