Homer-Dixon on the Second Amendment under a possible US dictatorship

Complexity researcher Thomas Homer-Dixon, director of Royal Roads’ Cascade Institute, discusses how a possible 2024 Trump election win could lead to the failure of democracy in the Unites States – and what role civilian owned guns might play – in an interview on the David Pakman Show.

Here’s some of what he had to say:

“What we have is the development of an arms race and a weapons race between different ideological camps in this highly polarized society and a disintegration of what social scientists call social capital, which is the trust, the bonds of trust and reciprocity that help bind societies together. Societies with high social capital tend to prosper, solve their problems effectively – and those without don’t. And we're seeing that it's a terrible degenerative process,” says Homer-Dixon.

“The irony is that the Second Amendment and the gun culture in the United States is ideologically justified on the right by the fear of a tyrant. That we need to maintain our capacity to rebel against an authoritarian state because that's part of almost the civic religion of the United States.

“What will happen now that you have all these heavily armed people around and the implementation of an authoritarian regime, which would have elements of a plutocracy, probably because it would be supported by wealthy certain elements, wealthy elites in the United States? What's going to happen to all these folks who are heavily armed who suddenly find that they actually are living within a dictatorship?”

Watch the full interview on the David Pakman Show