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American Democracy Will Die in 150 Days
It’s Time to Think the Unthinkable. America is Having an Authoritarian Collapse.
eand.co
American Democracy Will Die in 150 Days
It’s Time to Think the Unthinkable. America is Having an Authoritarian Collapse.
umair haque
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Jun 10 · 9 min read
Imagine any number of scenarios that come to pass over the next five months or so, just before the next American Presidential election.
Another black man’s killed by the police, triggering an ever bigger wave of protest and riots. Trump uses it as a pretext to declare the martial law he’s already threatened. The election goes on — but scores of minorities don’t get to vote. Trump coasts to an easy victory.
Or maybe Trump loses the election, by a narrow margin. He decides to contest it, mounting every kind of legal challenge he can muster. The nation’s plunged into nail-biting anxiety. The case goes before the Supreme Court — which leans heavily Republican. Who do you think they’ll decide it for?
Or maybe Trump loses the election by a wide margin. But he simply refuses to accede to a peaceful transfer of power. What happens then? The military has to decide whether to throw him out of office. But, as it turns out, Trump still has a loyal enough following amongst generals that the country plunged into the condition so many failed states have been in: the military decides its destiny — and after a period of infighting, its leaders choose Trump, who offers them the most funding, resources, and power.
Or maybe, thanks to a little help from his friends in the Kremlin, Trump “wins,” by a wide margin. One so wide that its flatly implausible. And while pundits debate and the opposition is flabbergasted, everyone sane person knows what’s gone on. The voting machines were hacked, the election quietly taken. The Kremlin really now does run America, in one of history’s grand ironic twists.
Or maybe…Trump just gets re-elected. White Americans still — still — support Trump by a wide enough margin over Biden to make the election a thing of nail-biting uncertainty. They talk a good game — haven’t they always? — but when it comes time to cast their votes, they vote the same way the have they tend to: for their own tribe. Trump gloats and preens. He’s pulled it off. White America’s backed him — maybe with a little disgust, maybe holding their noses — but what does it matter?
How many ways does America get to four more years of the lunatic known as Donald Trump? There are too many to count.
And that brings me a certain conclusion.
America has 150 days left to save its democracy.
Yes, really.
Now, on the one hand, that might be obvious to some of you. On the other hand, it might strike some of you with just the opposite beliefs as implausible.
Let me assure you, then. As someone who’s both lived through social collapses, studied them, and written about them extensively, nothing could be truer than this: America has 150 days.
If Trump gets four more years, American democracy as we know it is dead. Not just American democracy, by the way. But the hope of America ever becoming a modern, functioning society. The idea that America could be a society of free equals. Peace, prosperity, progress, freedom. All these die if Trump gets four more years. They already have, during the last four, haven’t they? What else do soldiers on the streets of American cities tell you?
It did happen here. The first stage — an authoritarian hoping to seize power. He did. The next stage is whether he keeps it. If he does, it usually lasts for life. Control is then transferred to his kids, via his flunkies and cronies. That’s the pattern that authoritarianism almost always follows. Kim Jong Un became Kim Jong Il. Saddam installed Uday and Qusay — Trump has his idiot kids.
America is now becoming an authoritarian state. Camps, bans, raids, cages, purges, soldiers on the streets. That’s been the last four years, up to now. Sadly, most Americans didn’t care very much until that last part — when they saw soldiers in their own streets with machine guns. Wait — shouldn’t literal concentration camps have been a warning that something was wrong? That one day, soon — the bad men would come for you, too, if you refused to join their insane quest for authoritarian power? That’s the problem: America cared too little too late. Now it has just 150 days left.
Let me drive that point home.
Trump has already told you what he wants to do. He’s told you his plan. That plan couldn’t be any clearer.
He threatened to declare martial law, from the steps of a church, no less. That is one thing he hopes to do in the next 150 days. Martial law.
He’s joked about a third term, or never giving up power at all. That is another thing he hopes to do: to cling to power as long as he can.
He’s talked about challenging the election legally, no matter the outcome. That’s another thing he’s going to do: use every legal tactic and maneuver he can to influence, sway, and manipulate whatever results the election comes back with.
He’s talked about who should have the right to vote. That’s another thing he’s going to do. Try to control the patterns of voting in America, restrict the rights of minorities to cast ballots, deter them from voting with every trick in the book.
He’s joked about his kids being in power. That’s another thing he hopes for: the dynastic control of a nation that’s so typical of failed authoritarian states.
I could go on endlessly, but I want you to see the point. America’s not getting this point yet, and it needs to, now if it’s to save its democracy.
This is what authoritarians do. They tell you exactly what they hope to achieve, and how they hope to do it. The problem is that nations don’t often take them seriously, because they can’t imagine the unthinkable. My friends: it’s time to imagine the unthinkable.
Trump has told you exactly what he wants, and how he’s planning to get it. Power for life, for himself and his kids, using any means necessary, right down to martial law.
He’s told you that. The question is why you don’t believe him.
Let’s go back a step in history.
The whole time, America’s problem hasn’t just been Trump, but also America. Trump’s been telling America exactly what he’s going to do. The problem is that either America didn’t take him seriously enough, or didn’t care enough. He said he was going to put bans in place. He did. He said he was going to build his stupid wall. He did. He talked of immigrants and refugees as animals and vermin — his words, not mine — and then he built camps.
Like any good aspiring dictator, Trump’s been telling you exactly what he was going to do.
So why didn’t Americans believe him? They couldn’t think the unthinkable. America, a country of camps, cages, bans, raids, purges…in just four short years? Come on, don’t be ridiculous. I understand that it’s hard to imagine such things. But if you can’t the unthinkable, then the authoritarians win. You must — must — believe them when they promise to do terrible things.
That is the one things authoritarians don’t lie about. They lie about everything else — who’s to blame for the people’s woes (the hated minorities), what kind of leaders they themselves are (perfect and strong, not the kind who pay pr0n stars hush money), what kind of economy there is (always strong, never broken), and so on. So there’s a kind of paradox that results, a haze that leaves bewildered. Should we believe him when he says he wants to do these absurd, terrible things?
That’s the one truth you must hold on to: authoritarians hope to do what they proclaim, from ethnic cleansing, to having total control of a society, to handing it to their kids. The rest is a Big Lie (those are Hitler’s words, by the way, and one of the things that clued people like me onto the fact that Trump was a real fascist was his love for…Mein Kampf.)
The second thing that authoritarians do is never give up. Trump was defeated in his first attempt at passing a ban — and then, when America had stopped caring, he passed them on his second try. He never gave up on putting kids in camps — they’re still there. He’s never given an inch on any issue, really. Why is that? Because authoritarians have an authoritarian psychology. They don’t give up — they double down. Right on into the abyss.
So when Trump threatens to declare martial law, don’t think that just because he seems to have backed down, he’s not serious. He is, because that is who he is. He will try and try again until he can and does. Think the unthinkable, and think it now.
America’s been in deep, profound denial about what authoritarianism is — and therefore, how to fight it, too. (The link above, by the way, is a piece I wrote about this — almost two years ago.) Authoritarianism isn’t really just one man. It’s a structure of power. The one at the top is the most hateful and violent one. He commands the respect of people like him because he is the one willing to transgress boundaries the most. They’re a little more fearful, a little more hesitant. He’s their “alpha,” the one willing to do what they won’t. Trump still commands an army of people like this, from the peroxide blondes with the crazy eyes to the men in suits with the dead eyes. They are willing to do exactly what he says — and to sacrifice everything for him, too, whether their careers, dignity, future, or families.
Americans don’t understand the grimmest truth of all about authoritarianism. A tiny number of committed enough fanatics can indeed control a whole society. They just have to be violent, loud, and threatening enough. It doesn’t take a huge number of people to control a nation — it never has. A small gang committed to enough violence can rule a whole city. So it is with authoritarians. Saddam, Gadhafi, Kim — needed a few torturers, and a secret police, and a few administrators — a whole society fell under their thumb. Terrorizing a society into submission isn’t a job of large numbers. A relatively small number can do it.
That is what America faces now. Trump and his authoritarian army — terrorizing it into submission. Who are those dudes in riot gear that won’t answer any questions, anyways? What about the Supreme Court — do they really care about democracy? How about the GOP — why don’t they ever seem to rein in this lunatic? How on earth do white voters still prefer Trump? What the? But that is what Trump’s army of authoritarians is made of.
It may not be a big army. And its numbers may be declining. But that is very much besides the point. The question is: is this army violent, loud, and fanatical enough to do the job of trying to terrorize, intimidate, and threaten the rest of America into submission?
And is America now cowed enough to be frightened into giving up its democracy?
On the other side, against Trump’s authoritarian army, we have a last few remaining institutions. Generals who won’t obey Trump. A media that barely functions. An intellectual class that seems bewildered. An opposition who’s barely opposed Trump’s worst abuses of power. The American people, who’ve emerged from their shock for the first time in years, to protest en masse.
All these parties must work together if American democracy is to be saved. They must come together, put their differences aside temporarily, and prepare for the worst. The challenges to the election. The hacking of an election. The martial law. The voter suppression. The incitement of violence. The endless misdirection. All that has to be anticipated, and worked against, together, now. In these next 150 days.
They are going to decide whether America stays a democracy, or becomes something more like, in the best case, Russia, or in the worst, Nazi Germany. A society made of hate, with a dictator, where secret police forces, militarized violence, institutionalized hate, and a grand ideological crusade of brutality led by a madman controls every last aspect of life.
Deep down, you already know what I’m about to tell you next. You’ve thought it a hundred times by now — and then you’ve doubted yourself. Doubt it no longer.
This is America’s last chance.
Umair
June 2020
