America At A Tipping Point: Autocracy

"Autocracy cannot do without its twin agents: a hangman and a priest, the first to suppress popular resistance by force, the second to sweeten and embellish the lot of the oppressed with empty promises of a heavenly kingdom." ~ Vladimir Lenin

"I would have to point out in the strongest terms the autocracy of the Liberal structure and the cowardice of its members. I have never seen in all my examination of politics so degrading a spectacle as that of all these Liberals turning their coats in unison with their Chief, when they saw the chance to take power." ~ Pierre Trudeau

"Watching both the health care and climate/energy debates in Congress, it is hard not to draw the following conclusion: There is only one thing worse than one-party autocracy, and that is one-party democracy, which is what we have in America today. One-party autocracy certainly has its drawbacks. But when it is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people, as China is today, it can also have great advantages." ~ Thomas Friedman

Power is a fragile thing. It must be reinforced constantly, a balancing act between control and persuasion. When the balancing act is lost, power either collapses under its own contradictions into something else. The world is watching this transition in the making in real time as the greatest power, the strongest military and the largest free-market economy balances on the edge of autocracy. It clings to its global dominance dearly, but in doing so risks becoming quite different from the ideals it once represented.

Earlier, the most powerful autocrats did not seize power overnight but undermined institutions piece by piece. The Trump presidency, with steps once deemed unthinkable, abolishing birthright citizenship, halting federal spending, cutting whole federal departments down to size, prepared the ground for such a shift. This is not an isolated phenomenon. Russia, Poland, India, and Turkey have done so in comparable fashion, eroding democratic institutions in the interest of national security, economic efficiency, or cultural reassertion. The American case is merely the most shocking because of the size and strength of the nation.

A power grabber must first control the flow of knowledge. The moves of the Trump administration, trying to strike at the universities and colleges through threatening money, chastising the institutions like Columbia University, and threatening ideological non-compliance, contribute to achieving that. The educational system that encouraged debate and critical thinking beforehand can easily be turned into an indoctrination machine. The more the youth's minds are molded, the less they will oppose the regime in the years to come.

Dissent is the second obstacle. Throughout history, tyrannical governments criminalize dissent before it ever becomes a genuine threat. By legal methods or more sinister types of intimidation, those who would speak out must be silenced. The warning signs in America were there, attacks on judges, even death threats, came from within the government itself. The Justice Department, rather than upholding the rule of law, selectively ignored court rulings. The legislative branch, which was created to serve as a check on the executive's overreach, was too divided and weak to make its presence known. The system of checks and balances, the backbone of democracy, started to break.

When power moves from the people and into the control of one leader, institutions that previously defied start to comply. Universities, the judiciary, the press, all can either defy or succumb. But resistance is expensive, and most choose self-preservation. In the technological era, where the state is reinforced by it, an authoritarian shift can arrive faster than ever. Surveillance, propaganda, and repression do not require clandestine police anymore, they are inherent to the tools used every day technology social media and state surveillance techniques.

The ultimate flaw of a dominant power is believing its superiority is perpetual. America's global power at some point in time seemed invincible, but hegemony cannot sustain decay. The moment of transformation is not far in the future, it is here. The world holds its breath to see whether America will return to its original ideals or complete the transition to an empire that has lost sight of how it came into being.