American Democracy Will Not Die in Darkness
Which means that it might — might — survive
Broad daylight, actually
The Washington Post adopted the slogan “Democracy dies in darkness” in February 2017. Some found it pompous, but it reflected a widespread theory about how authoritarianism could come to America. This theory, based on the experience of democratic erosion in nations like Hungary and the work of scholars like Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, argued that autocracy wouldn’t be imposed by armed men beating and killing the regime’s opponents.
Authoritarian rule, would, instead, be installed through a gradual process of subversion. Key institutions, especially the news media, would be coopted or deprived of financing. Businesses would knuckle under so as not to be shut out of crony capitalism. Dissenters would be marginalized rather than sent to gulags.
The trajectory of the Post itself shows how that could work. The newspaper that broke the story of Watergate and brought down Richard Nixon has been Bezosified, its editorial independence destroyed and its newsroom increasingly eviscerated. Many other institutions, from other media organizations to some universities to law firms, have also become enablers of the regime. Big business has caved almost completely.
But it turns out that predictions of creeping authoritarianism both underestimated and overestimated MAGA. Almost everyone, myself included, underestimated how far MAGA would go in engaging in open violence and abuse of power against those it considers enemies. On the other hand, we overestimated the movement’s impulse control, its ability to mask its tyrannical goals until its power was fully consolidated.
As Steven Levitsky said in a recent interview, comparing Donald Trump with Hungarian strongman Viktor Orban,
Orbán doesn’t arrest journalists. And in Hungary if you walk the streets of Budapest or other Hungarian cities, you will not find heavily armed masked men abducting people. That doesn’t happen in Hungary.
The startling extremism of the Trump regime, even compared with other modern wannabe dictatorships, is obvious to the naked eye. But I always find quantification useful. So I was very pleased to see that the estimable John Burn-Murdoch of the Financial Times has risen to the occasion, producing an index of democratic backsliding that lets us compare the trajectory of the United States under Trump with those of other nations we used to view as cautionary tales. (I’ve looked at how the index is constructed, and it’s reasonable.) We’re on a uniquely steep descent, at least for modern times:
It’s a horrifying picture. Yet the flip side of the naked extremism of the MAGA power grab is that it has produced a remarkably strong backlash. The size and determination of civil resistance to ICE has been incredible and inspiring, like nothing we’ve seen since the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s. Republicans are being punished at the polls: On Saturday a deep-red Texas Senate district that went Trump +17 in 2024 voted in a Democrat with a 15-point margin.
I keep asking two questions as ICE runs wild. First, what is the strategy here? How do Trump, Stephen Miller, etc. think this is going to work for them? Maybe their initial belief was that a display of force would shock and awe their opponents into submission. It’s not happening, yet they just keep ramping up the threats and violence, apparently not knowing how to do anything else.
The obvious answer is that there isn’t any strategy. These people aren’t evil masterminds — evil, yes, but masterminds, no. They’re just thugs too crude and undisciplined to control their own thuggishness. They were caught off guard by the strength of the resistance because the very concept of citizens standing up for their principles is alien to them, and they still can’t believe it’s real.
The second question is, how does this end? Most immediately, what will happen during and after the midterm elections? Everything points to a blue wave in November. Yet many people in MAGA simply can’t accept losing power — among other things, their actions over the past year mean that if they lose power, many of them will go to jail.
Trump is now calling for “nationalizing” the midterms, meaning to put voting and the counting of votes under his administration’s control. He can’t do that, but his demand is a clear sign that he will not accept the public’ s verdict in November.
So it’s just being realistic to say that MAGA will try, somehow, to prevent voters from having their say. Will ICE try to prevent blue districts from voting? If that fails, will they reject the results, in a midterm version of Jan. 6? Call me alarmist, but remember: The alarmists have been right, and the people telling us to calm down have been wrong, every step of the way.
MUSICAL CODA
A few commenters on this video called it “woke propaganda.” And it’s true that it offers a vision of multi-cultural, multiracial harmony (literally.) I think it’s beautiful.
The Peaceful Solution-Part 1
How much do you want to stop His Royal Heinous and the fascist takeover of the country?
Enough that you’re willing to make a small sacrifice? Like altering your spending habits for a month or two or three? That could be all it would take to get the attention of the oligarchs (formerly known as The Robber Barons in the first Gilded Age, also The Fat Cats, The Greedy Bastards).
A brief demonstration of We, the People’s, power of the purse could persuade them to quit supporting HRH and the politicians who enable him.
We quit spending, except on essentials, businesses lose money, stock market goes down, Greedy Bastards pay attention to our demands.
Greedy Bastards own most of the politicians of both major parties. GBs start losing money, tell politicians to change course and do what We, the People want.
We are running out of peaceful options. The legislature and Supreme Court are controlled by HRH. He controls the executive branch, including the Military, Justice Department, FBI, ICE, the IRS. He controls all levers of power.
We, the people, still have the power of the purse. No one can control our spending, or lack of spending. When all else fails we can go on a spending strike until the business community stops supporting HRH and the politicians who enable him.
Economic warfare is the only thing the oligarchs, the business community will understand and act on. Call it a Surreptitious General Strike (Quiet Quitting). Go to work, do as little as possible. Stop spending money except on essentials. Quit feeding the corporate beast that supports the HRH.
Stop participating. Nearly 70% of the U.S. economy is driven by consumer spending. All of us. Hobble the economy and the stock market. Mahatma Gandhi drove the British from India by peaceful civil disobedience. We can stop the fascist takeover in the same way.
We can keep rehashing past and present atrocities until our access to the internet is taken away by the regime, or we can DO something!
Now is the time for this Peaceful Solution.
We're living in different worlds. While Democrats prepare for electoral victories, Republicans are preparing to seize the election. I don't think we can put all our hopes in November.