General Stanley McChrystal: “It Could Happen Here”

General Stanley McChrystal is a retired four-star general and former commander of the Joint Special Operations Command who led counter-insurgency operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In this episode, General McChrystal discusses the weaknesses in American democracy, and how insurgents within our country are using them to erode democracy. He also warns against dismissing these threats:

“There is an idea that it can't happen here, that our society can't break down, that we can't have an autocratic dictator. We sure could. And we'd have a lot of Americans who would fall behind that and do things that we've criticized other countries for, we've been shocked by. It could happen here. We could have a civil war. We could break down and kill our neighbors. We say we couldn't, but everywhere around the world that we see, the Balkans, you know, now Ukraine and Russia, just almost everywhere you go where you think it's unthinkable. It's thinkable. It's possible. It can happen, and it can happen here. Because while we think we're exceptional, we're not enough different that we're not subject to the same weaknesses that can happen elsewhere. And if we stare into the abyss and we say, ‘Wow, that could actually occur.’ Then we've got to step back and say, ‘That's why the founding fathers spent so much time and effort to try to create a republic that could survive the wins. It could survive the ups and downs. It could survive internal discord, but it wouldn't lose sight of the fact there are things we have to hold on to.’ And that's what I would tell people.”

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