Terrible things are happening outside - Anne Frank

Make no mistake—these are dark times. As Anne Frank wrote, “Terrible things are happening outside. At any time of night and day, poor helpless people are being dragged out of their homes.”

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One of the methods of autocratic government is to strike terror in the minds of the population in order to control and subdue it. This is now happening in cities across America from Los Angeles, to Chicago, to Memphis. It is coming to a city near you if you live in a Blue State. The Republicans have stated that Democrats are the enemy, Is this the America we want to live in?

Autocracy: Shitting in our own bed

The Trump campaign ran on disdain: for immigrants, for women, for disabled people, for people of color, for Muslims—for anyone, in other words, who isn’t an able-bodied white straight American-born male—and for the elites who have coddled the Other. Contempt for the government and its work is a component of the disdain for elites, and a rhetorical trope shared by the current crop of the world’s antipolitical leaders, from Vladimir Putin to Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro. They campaign on voters’ resentment of elites for ruining their lives, and they continue to traffic in this resentment even after they take office—as though someone else, someone sinister and apparently all-powerful, were still in charge, as though they were still insurgents. The very institutions of government—their own government now—are the enemy. As president, Trump went on to denigrate the intelligence services, rage against the Justice Department, and issue humiliating tweets about officials in his own administration.

Gessen, Masha. Surviving Autocracy (pp. 17-18). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

What do citizens do when they elect a chief executive of a government that that chief executive holds in contempt and disdain and takes steps to destroy?

Most Americans don’t comprehend what their government does for them. If life has not been good to them, they have to blame somebody just as people tend to blame their parents for their unhappiness.

When people are unhappy their first instinct is to feel like a victim of forces difficult to identify and so they tend to blame the institutions they were told would take care of them. Like parents, these governmental institutions are not able to meet all the needs of the people they attempt to serve. When there is a disconnect between the person desiring help and the hoped for helper, contempt, disdain, and resentment arise and the wish for retribution and revenge are very powerful feelings which unfortunately all too often get acted out.

Did you ever want to hurt or destroy someone that disappointed you and let you down? Would you side with someone who offered to inflict  harm on the offender? Would you vote to give power to a leader who promised you revenge and retribution? “Lock her up!” Would you vote for protection from further disappointment and perceived attack by building walls? Would you want to destroy the very institutions who have the expertise and competence to help but which frustrated and disappointed you?

The American voter is like a puppy or a kitten shitting in their own bed and now they have to lie in it. Where’s the CNA when you need one to clean you up?

"State of exception" used to justify power grab

 

The Reichstag Fire was used to create a “state of exception,” as Carl Schmitt, Hitler’s favorite legal scholar, called it. In Schmitt’s terms, a state of exception arises when an emergency, a singular event, shakes up the accepted order of things. This is when the sovereign steps forward and institutes new, extralegal rules. The emergency enables a quantum leap: Having amassed enough power to declare a state of exception, the sovereign then, by that declaration, acquires far greater, unchecked power. That is what makes the change irreversible, and the state of exception permanent.

Gessen, Masha. Surviving Autocracy (pp. 10-11). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

47 has declared war on American cities governed by Democrats asserting that they are unsafe, out of control, and in need of the military to restore order. He is declaring a “state of exception” which gives him extraordinary powers to take control of major American cities such as Washington, DC, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Memphis.. To what extent do you agree with this assertion? Could the US military be coming to establish military control over a city near you any time soon?

This declaration of a state of exception to usurp power is a standard play in the autocratic governance playbook

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Autocracy - We got what we voted for.

One of Trump’s three rallying cries on the campaign trail—one of the three apparent components of making America great again—was “Drain the swamp” (the other two were “Lock her up” and “Build that wall”). It may have sounded like a call to battle against corruption, but it was in fact a declaration of war against the American system of government as currently constituted.

Gessen, Masha. Surviving Autocracy (p. 17). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

45 and 47 didn’t campaign to be the chief executive of a democratic government but to change the government from a democracy to an autocracy. 

He promised to destroy the democratic institutions of government because “I alone can fix it.” He promised to eradicate the rule of law for the rule of fiat when he insisted that his political opponent should be locked up. He promised to withdraw the nation from international relationships on the planet Earth by building walls and policies of exclusion to achieve solitary autonomy. The American voters voted not once but twice for this new form of government with all governmental power and authority vested in the unitary of the presidency.

We got what we voted for. How is it working out for us, for you and yours?

Soft succession - What is it?

Over the next few weeks, Trump would shirk responsibility for the crisis, at one point saying literally, “No, I don’t take responsibility at all,” when he was asked about a lack of access to testing. He would tell governors to figure out their own ways of procuring supplies, and he would offer no guidance on policy.

Gessen, Masha. Surviving Autocracy (p. xv). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

The idea that the states were on their own in a crisis was born in Trump 45 with the Covid-19 pandemic. There are many other examples of the federal government abdicating responsibility and assistance to states such as with the withdrawal of FEMA funds and assistance with weather damage.

The fact is that Blue states manage much better for their citizens than Red states even though Blue states contribute much more in federal taxes than they receive back.  Would Blue states be better off if they kept more of their federal tax money to provide services to their state citizens?

There are many indicators that are measured that demonstrate the observation that the quality of life is better in Blue states and has a higher quality of life than Red states. For example New York, my state has the lowest DWI mortality rate in the nation as well as suicide rate and the fifth lowest in gun mortalities. New York was also ranked the best in mental health by the recent Mental Health American rankings. States that have the worst rankings on these indicators are Red states with Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama usually at the bottom of the list. The lowest ranking for mental health interestingly was Alabama, Arizona, and Nevada.

The state you live in will be increasingly important for quality of life as autocracy further infects the federal government. Can you name other quality indicators that are useful in determining the quality of life in the various states? What quality indicator are you most proud of in your state and what quality indicator in your state is most in need of improvement?

To move beyond the quality of life in states in the US to quality of life in other countries, the US often ranks in the lowest 2/3s of developed countries. For example, the US has the most expensive and one of the lowest performing health care systems in first world countries. Why? In the US the healthcare system is about profit rather than people. The US values which have led to the development of its health care system are immoral and lead to very poor results only to get worse if Republican policies at the Federal level come into play with Medicaid cuts.

Again, health care systems vary greatly between states with Massachusetts, Hawaii, and New Hampshire having the best and Mississippi, Alabama, and West Virginia having the worst. New York is #6. Where does your state rank and why?

If Trump and the autocrats implementing Project 2025 get their way, which state would a person be better off living in?

Newspeak in 2025

In other words, the United States will respond to this crisis the way it has responded to other crises: with securitization and the curtailment of political rights. The grave term “domestic terrorist,” which gathered much traction in the days after January 6, paved the way for just such a response. But the insurrectionists were not terrorists. Their primary purpose was not to inspire terror in the general population; their purpose was to prevent the elected president from taking office. Unlike most terrorists, they acted directly upon their target, going to the seat of political power in the United States and attempting to seize power, following what they perceived as orders from the president of the United States.

Gessen, Masha. Surviving Autocracy (p. xii). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

One of the key elements in autocratic governance systems is the disinformation perpetrated by what in George Orwell’s novel, 1984, is called “newspeak” and “doublethink.” In Trump’s first term Kellyanne Conway labeled this practice as “alternative facts.”

Can you think of other words or jargon that are used to spread disinformation as autocracy infects the US in 2025?

One of the key factors that operate in the autocratic form of government is the degradation of truth and the denial of objective reality. Without agreement on the truth how can human beings survive? 

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Who are the good guys and the bad guys?

 People may tell what they did and what was done to them, they may tell their stories repeatedly in specific settings and formats, and they may produce a record of the telling. This approach accomplishes several goals. By creating new rituals, it gives voice to people who have not been heard in public. By focusing on the acts of telling and listening, it may challenge assumptions about justice as the act of meting out punishment. By involving a larger public, some of the people who work on collective trauma seek to address the issue of moral injury. In the framework of collective trauma, moral injury has been inflicted on society as a whole, not only on the victims but also on the perpetrators and the bystanders—not in the same way, to be sure, and not in equal measure, but it is all of society that has been injured. The goal of reckoning is moral restoration. 

Public rituals of telling the stories of the Trump era would be healing because they would ensure that people are heard. They would create accountability and transparency, not necessarily by handing out criminal punishment but by exacting a reputational cost that might keep people who lied for Trump away from prestigious fellowships, and people who worked with Trump and broke the law out of government and think tanks. Most important, they would force us to ask the question, What made the Trump presidency possible?

Gessen, Masha. Surviving Autocracy (p. xii). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

The stories being told about what is happening in the United States in 2025 as it moves from a democracy to an autocracy often get labeled as “political” stories when they just as easily could be labeled as moral stories.

In the moral stories told about this time, who are the good guys doing good things and the bad guys doing bad things? What behaviors are constructive and engaged in for positive benefits of all, and what behaviors are destructive and engaged in for the reasons of special interest?

In Buddhism one of the elements of the noble eightfold path is right action. In following this element of the eightfold path of right action one needs to know the difference between right actions and wrong actions. In autocracies the right actions are determined by the accumulation of power and control rather than the well being of the whole.

For peace it is very important to do the right thing even when it is hard.

What made the Trump presidency possible in answer to Gessen’s question is that many people chose to do the wrong thing. What were the factors that contributed to this bad decision? Name one or two.

Are Autocratic forms of government good or bad for society?

What do you know about autocratic governance systems? Do you know what their main characteristics are and how they operate? Do you think they are good or bad for a society in contributing to a quality of life for the population participating in an autocratically governed society?

This month the book selected for discussion  is Surviving Autocracy by Masha Gessen.

The United States in 2025 has been turned into an autocratic state with a chief executive, the President, who according to the US Supreme Court, functions outside the law as long as he is engaged in his official duties. The current President has functioned in increasingly autocratic and lawless ways. Today, October 1, 2025, the Federal government as we have enjoyed for 250 years has been shut down at the President’s urging and with his party enables cooperation.

What, at this point in history, is likely to happen in the governance of the United States? Where are we likely to be 6 months and 1 year from now? Will the United States ever return to a democratic form of government and if so, how?

The incompetence in the executive branch of the US federal government.

One of the most significant books I have read in the last ten years is The Fifth Risk by Michael Lewis. His thesis in this book is that of all the things that could be very disruptive to our society like atomic war, economic collapse, collapse of the electrical grid, climate change, the biggest is governmental incompetence at the federal level. 

This collapse of competence in our Federal government is occurring right now. The services that people have depended on are being significantly disrupted by bad decision making and executive practices. These disruptions due to federal incompetence are occurring in every sector. 

Michael Lewis was very prescient.

One of the things I have observed over the last few months in global trade is that former trading partners with the US are dealing the US bullying and lack of dependability by bypassing the US and forming trading relationships with non US partners.

One way to deal with unreasonable partners is rather than engage - bypass. The US is being left behind as the world moves on not wanting to deal with a country that is unstable, unreliable, and lacks credibility which is the death knell for business planning and other reliable, cooperative, collaborative partnerships.

The lack of integrity, credibility, dependability will have very negative consequences for American society in coming months and years.

Mother Nature and the moral compass

We are but a minuscule part of an interdependent multitude. The web of life is vast. And really, really cool. This innate sensibility tends to get muted as we “mature,” making it all the more important to revisit and rekindle those early sparks. That feeling of awe that rushes through us when we get up close to the natural world is a signal. Like all strong feelings in the heart and gut, it is telling us something about what matters—about where we can find joy and connection, about what is valuable and sacred, about how to orient a moral compass in a decaying world. In other words, it is telling us how to survive. As humans, it is maladaptive to lose touch with these feelings.

Johnson, Ayana Elizabeth. What If We Get It Right?: Visions of Climate Futures (p. xviii). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

No person is an island. We are part of something much more vast than our individual ego. That “something much more” goes by many names. For this article, I am calling it “Mother Nature.”

In Unitarian Universalism one of its seven principles is to covenant together to affirm and promote the respect for the interdependent web of which we are a part.

Humanity has lost respect for the interdependent web and we have fouled our nest which now puts us in peril for survival and already has killed millions of other species of life forms on this planet.

When people are discouraged they play the game of “Ain’t it awful.” We tsk tsk and blame others or circumstances and then in a depressed state give up and tell apocalyptic stories to entertain and profit as we submit to circling the drain.

Others deny the human impact on Mother Nature and say that the climate changes we are observing are the result of natural processes outside of our control. These climate change deniers usually have a hidden agenda which is to profit from business as usual no matter the longer term destructive consequences which destroy the very businesses they are lying to protect and they don’t care about the death and destruction their products are wreaking on the interdependent web.

The Noble eightfold path in Buddhism teaches that we should strive for wisdom which is right understanding, and right action which is abstaining from harming living beings.

Ayanna Elizabeth Johnson the author of What If We Get It Right? repeatedly reminds us that we, as humans, have choices. We are not doomed. There are things we can do and are doing already to be more respectful of the interdependent web and treat Mother Nature with the worth and dignity she deserves.

What are the most important things we can do to improve our caring for Mother Nature?

1. Inform ourselves to become more self aware.

2. Engage with others to work to create better environments for all things on earth.

3. Implement positive practices to nurture and facilitate healthy nurturing ecologies.

4. Evaluate the outcomes of our practices

5. Go back to step one and repeat the cycle.

If you are reading this post, you are already doing step one. Come along with us on Markhams Slow News as we study further the mitigation of negative human practices on climate change and learn to adapt in the most just  and equitable ways possible to the changes that are already occurring.