The key is to understand DPP is in some ways like the Nazi party in Germany in the late 1920s and early 1930s. It is a party that works in a Democratic system, because initially it did not have the ability to seize and the secure the control or all the levers or government power by means outside the system.
But once it believes it has secured enough control over levers of government power, it will undoubtedly engineer a crisis that can be used to justify giving itself extraordinary powers. In nazi germany that was the Reichstag fire of 1934. Here It would undoubted be some sharpening of armed confrontation with mainland, perhaps involving some Taiwanese aircraft shot down, or maybe some perhaps fictional CCP cells discovered high up in government echelon. Once it has created the legal frame work of such extraordinary powers, of which the Nazi german counterpart was the enabling laws, the Democratic system would technically still be in place, but it would no longer have any influence, and the DPP will be ensconced in power without realistic prospect of being removed from power by Democratic means. Then it will be able to use the lever of government power to expunge the entire regional and national administrative bureaucracy and legislature of people who did not share DDP’s outlook and build a one party state inside the hollow shell of a Democratic system. It will then be free to revise all the education system to indoctrinate separation of Taiwanese and Chinese cultural identity, the closeness of Japanese and Taiwanese identity, or the closeness of Taiwanese and American political outlook. It will then be free to censor news and media, and shape internal debate, etc.
Path to dictatorships can go through democracy just as well as it can through military coup, internal rebellion and civil war, or imposition by external power. The path through democracy is the path the Nazi party had trodden in Germany, the GOP is attempting to tread in the US, and DDP is clearly attempting also to tread in Taiwan, and somewhat further along.
But once it believes it has secured enough control over levers of government power, it will undoubtedly engineer a crisis that can be used to justify giving itself extraordinary powers. In nazi germany that was the Reichstag fire of 1934. Here It would undoubted be some sharpening of armed confrontation with mainland, perhaps involving some Taiwanese aircraft shot down, or maybe some perhaps fictional CCP cells discovered high up in government echelon. Once it has created the legal frame work of such extraordinary powers, of which the Nazi german counterpart was the enabling laws, the Democratic system would technically still be in place, but it would no longer have any influence, and the DPP will be ensconced in power without realistic prospect of being removed from power by Democratic means. Then it will be able to use the lever of government power to expunge the entire regional and national administrative bureaucracy and legislature of people who did not share DDP’s outlook and build a one party state inside the hollow shell of a Democratic system. It will then be free to revise all the education system to indoctrinate separation of Taiwanese and Chinese cultural identity, the closeness of Japanese and Taiwanese identity, or the closeness of Taiwanese and American political outlook. It will then be free to censor news and media, and shape internal debate, etc.
Path to dictatorships can go through democracy just as well as it can through military coup, internal rebellion and civil war, or imposition by external power. The path through democracy is the path the Nazi party had trodden in Germany, the GOP is attempting to tread in the US, and DDP is clearly attempting also to tread in Taiwan, and somewhat further along.
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