Democracy Versus Autocracy
Are You Ready for Politics 2024? No, You’re Not, And Don’t Lie That You Are
So, how do we navigate what will be a history-making (possibly apocalyptic) year for America?
There was something that Nikki Haley said in a debate that sums up the coming year in American politics. She was speaking in reference to Vivek Ramaswamy. However, I think this quote has very broad applicability.
She said, “Honestly, every time I hear you, I feel a little bit dumber…”
That is basically what we have to look forward to from the GOP through the entirety of 2024 leading up to the election of November 2024, which will be one of the most consequential elections in modern American history.
In November 2024, we will be voting to decide whether we remain a democracy or instead just say F it, let’s give fascism and autocracy a try.
Do you think I’m exaggerating and hyperventilating and being overly dramatic? Well, here are two pretty simple facts to consider:
- Trump has the absolute kiss-the-ring loyalty of most of the GOP leadership (and I’m using that word “leadership” in the loosest sense), despite being proven to be an utterly despicable and amoral man (found guilty of sexual assault, found guilty of business fraud, and found by at least one judge so far based on facts presented in court to have committed an insurrection against our government).
- Among other things, the GOP 2025 plan includes invoking the “Insurrection Act” on day one of the Trump Presidency so that the President can promptly use the military against American citizens as he sees fit.
I am not a math genius, but I do know that two plus two equals four, and I likewise know those two items alone add up to autocracy (a cultish devotion to an amoral leader) and fascism (violence against your political enemies as a means of establishing and maintaining power).
So don’t tell me I’m being overly dramatic. If anything, I think I’m being surprisingly calm and sedate.
Politics in America in 2024 is not going to be a matter of debating whether or not we face the possible rise of fascism. It is already here. It has boldly, openly, and unapologetically been declared by the GOP and its leader.
In case you missed it, Trump said people like me (people who disagree with MAGA Republicans) are “vermin” infesting this nation.
“We pledge to you that we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists, and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country.”
Take particular note that he used the word “fascists.” There is a lot that is wrong, weird, and perverse in that sentence besides the Hitler and Mussolini homage with the word “vermin.” That rightly got all the media attention, but it is the whole sentence and in particular the use of the word “fascist” that is really important here.
It gets to the crux of the question of how we navigate this coming year where everything we will hear from the GOP will make us feel a little bit dumber.
That brings me back to Nikki, and her noting how she feels a little bit dumber every time she hears…
Uh-huh. Amen to that. See, I can agree with a Republican sometimes, once in a while, on a very rare occasion. I also had to agree with Nikki calling Vivek “scum.” Yeah, honey, there actually is a lot of scum floating around in the GOP. Which begs the question, why are you still floating alongside it all?
That, boys and girls, is the million-dollar question. Why are so many people going along for the ride to autocracy and fascism?
And how do we combat this? Do you think you are ready? No, you’re not. None of us are. I’m certainly not.
We are living through a once-in-a-generation moment of history. The year 2024 is going to be a very, very difficult year. If things go a certain way in the election, it will mean several more very, very difficult years.
We have to get ready, hunker down, and figure out how to survive this without losing our minds in the process.
Mental health, if you can keep it
On the last day of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, a woman by the name of Elizabeth Powell asked Benjamin Franklin, “What have we got, a Republic or a Monarchy?” To which Franklin famously replied, “A Republic, if you can keep it.”
That is what will make 2024 historical. Can we keep it?
I will be writing future pieces, of course, on all manner of topics related to this question. I will delve much deeper into the GOP’s alarming “Project 2025.” I will keep you informed of any of the shenanigans or assorted circus sideshow events that might slip through the cracks of your awareness as you are bombarded with a veritable firehose of “breaking news” throughout the year.
I suspect I am going to be very busy on Medium over the next 12 months.
However, today I wanted to talk about mental health, if you can keep it.
When I ask the question “are you ready?” I’m not asking about the brass-tacks of your civic awareness or civic engagement. If you are reading politics on Medium, clearly you are someone already deeply civically engaged and informed. You probably have attended protests. You may even be a volunteer for somebody’s campaign, and if so, good for you.
However, our mental health is at risk due, in fact, to that very civic engagement.
There are plenty of people out there merrily engaged in their merry lives paying little to no attention to politics. Their mental health is fine compared to us, as we regularly have our hair catching on fire. Of course, those people are also partly to blame for the rise of authoritarianism and fascism, since the rise of both of those paradigms rely ultimately on the disengagement of the populace. However, as much as I resent their inattention to what is going on, they are at least smart enough to have a life outside politics.
So, what do we do? Those of us who are aware — painfully so — of just how high the stakes are in the coming year?
Well, I already gave you the answer: Have a life outside of politics. Most particularly, find ways to have face-to-face human connection and interaction in your community.
Join a book club or start a book club. Volunteer. Maybe volunteer for Meals on Wheels. Or volunteer with your local Humane Society to work with animals. Volunteer at a local VA Hospital or volunteer at a nursing home. See if there is a local advocacy group for LGBTQ and ask how you can help; our local group did a clothing drive for trans kids which was great, and totally not political.
Reconnect with family members you have lost touch with. If you haven’t connected with your neighbors, reach out and say hi, maybe bake them some cookies.
Mental health, if you can keep it, depends on recognizing one another as human beings and treating each other that way. And making those connections without asking anything about their political views.
That is the only real way to hold the line against the rise of fascism and autocracy because they depend on dehumanization.
So, taking care of your mental health, and the mental health of those around you, has a political benefit too, you see. It is a win-win.
Fascism wins when fear and hate win
The most fundamental tool of the fascist is to dehumanize “the other.” It serves two key purposes.
First, you tell your followers that “the others” are monstrous and terrible foes who are coming to destroy everything you love and take away everything you hold dear. That drums up fear. People drowning in fear will turn to a fascist leader who says “I alone can fix it.”
Second, you dehumanize anyone who stands in the way of your autocratic plans. If they are “vermin,” well, why not stomp them out, literally, with violence if need be?
However, the Trump quote about vermin also spoke about his enemies as “communists, Marxists, fascists.” This is becoming very trendy in GOP circles. If you visit the politics section of your local bookstore, you are greeted with lots of books by GOP propagandists speaking of “cultural Marxism” (Ted Cruz’s latest book) or there is the book by Jesse Kelly coyly titled “The Anti-Communist Manifesto.” Levin just bluntly titled his book “The Democrat Party Hates America.”
Marxist, fascist. Marxist, fascist. The GOP just keeps throwing these terms around like candy being tossed from a parade float on the 4th of July.
Of course, it is triggering to you and me, to hear this nonsense and mischaracterization of everything we are about, but there is a more fundamental purpose here, and I do think it is by design.
They are robbing certain words of their actual force and meaning. Trump is a fascist — actually, literally, by academic definition and by historic antecedent example — but his reply to the accusation is the child on the playground: “No, you’re the fascists!” You could almost picture him sticking out his tongue.
These words get casually tossed around by the radical right to the point that their followers — or even just people not particularly engaged in politics — stop recognizing them as real words with real and serious meaning, not to be used so casually, untethered from any honest discussion about actual facts.
Worse, though, they thereby take away our vocabulary and thus diminish our ability to communicate to the public an imminent, very serious, and very real threat on the horizon.
The GOP propagandists trivialize language, warp it, and use it in frivolous ways. Soon, to the public at large, nothing really means anything anymore, and thus… disengagement, and the fascist says “thank you very much” and seizes power.
That is what we have to figure out how to fight, all the Republican NOISE.
I don’t have the answer on how to do that. I don’t think the Biden campaign has the answer to that either, which is very concerning. (Hint: bragging about “Bidenomics” does not help.)
The GOP propagandists are really damn clever in their damn inanity and banality of fear-mongering.
If any of you readers have a suggestion on how to combat that, do please comment here, as I would love to hear some ideas.
In the meantime, however, I will do what I have always done: I will write about facts and history, and I will use words carefully and only where they are truly merited, never just for a hyperbolic emotional effect.
I will not play by their playbook.
When I call someone a fascist, I mean it, and I will have a whole host of historians, professors, and academics to quote to back me up.
So, cheers to 2024, I’ll be here on Medium with bells on. And I will also establish some human contact to help keep me sane, as I watch history in the making right before my eyes.