SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
authoritarianism
You Will Cry Out Because of Your King
When we eventually become aware of what we have given up, what it really means to surrender participation, voice, and responsibility, it will be too late.
Mar 14, 2025
As a clergy person who has served congregations in the Black and of-color communities in Chicago, Boston, and Washington, D.C. for over 45 years I am acutely aware of the traumas and anxieties that are encountered because of changing political administrations nationally, regionally, and locally, and how they impact families and lives.
Politicians and even the media often speak in broad generalities of what a change means statistically, according to the latest poll, and its implications for government and how it may set a precedent or not. But those of us serving pastorally in local communities are called upon to allay fears, to bind the wounds, make meaning out of the meaninglessness, find silver linings amid the dark clouds, and to identify hope in the despair and confusion. We have done this many times, but at no time has the impact been as stark, devastating, or as frightening as it is now.
With U.S. President Trump, Elon Musk, DOGE, and their radical approach to government there are many lives traumatized by the fears who are suffering from the emotional abuse inflicted on those who have worked for the federal government and their families. There are also many contractors and vendors associated with government work experiencing the same high anxieties that come with the uncertainty and worries associated with the political battering of uncertainty and threats inflicted on families and their sense of stability and security.
Now is the time to stir from our shock and catatonic state and begin to act, demonstrate, drown out town hall and community gatherings wherever they occur before we completely lose all memory of participatory debate, discourse, dialogue, or what the compromise and tensions of democracy look and feel like.
Living in Washington, D.C., I along with my colleagues feel that we are in the epicenter of this upheaval and must deal with this psychological tsunami. But by no means does this affect only Washington, D.C., because 80% of government employees are outside of the Washington, D.C. area. However, the perception is government equals Washington, D.C. and the message telegraphed by the Trump-Musk-DOGE fraternity is that they are dismantling The District of Columbia, its "deep state," putting Blacks and people of color in "their place" (as D.C. serves as a symbol of a Black and diverse town with a "woke" population, and where DEI abounds). They are stridently trying to demonstrate that they are reestablishing the good ole days of white supremacy and Manifest Destiny by taking the country back and making it Great Again in terms of absolute control both at home and abroad.
The imperialistic whim is expressed in changing the name of the Native American-associated Alaskan mountain peak, Denali, to Mount McKinley. The name Denali is largely used by Alaskans and Native people and translated to mean "The High One," referring to the more-than-20,000-foot mountain peak that dominates the landscape. The royal decree is amplified in the assertion that the Gulf of Mexico is now the Gulf of America and in punishing The Associated Press by banning them from the White House press corps for not acquiescing to the imperialistic name change. The list of royal decrees has suggested that Canada be annexed along with Greenland, and insinuated that Panama come under the control of the U.S. again. These are all imperialistic assertions and fantasy.
These assertions should be stridently questioned and analyzed by various media. However, in January 6 fashion the media forums historically entrusted to be defenders of democracy by maintaining a free and non-government controlled press have been bullied and overrun by a royally inspired overtaking that has usurped democratic order. Diverse and robust political discussion have been taken over by an imperialistic demand to assert the order of a feudalistic system of oligarchs, dukes, duchesses, billionaires, and courtiers seeking lands and fortunes by supporting the royal order. This is evident in Jeffery Bezos' nullification of The Washington Post's editorial board's endorsement of former Vice President Kamala Harris for president in 2024. It has been reported that more than 250,000 Washington Post subscribers have cancelled their subscriptions in protest since owner Bezos interfered in the endorsement and recently demanded that the paper's opinion pages reflect libertarian priorities excluding opposing points of view.
Bezos wrote in a March 2025 memo to the paper's staff, "We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets..." In other words, the opinion page will be slanted toward less or no criticism of the Trump dynasty, its policies, or its encroachment on democratic order. The Post's former Executive Editor Marty Baron called the new direction "craven" and suggested that Bezos is "basically fearful" of Trump. Whether it is fear or greed motivating these oligarchs only they know. But we cannot overlook the lucrative government contracts awarded Bezos, Musk, and many others currently feeding at, or hoping to feed at, the royal trough.
The contraction and absence of media that are independent and distant from the Trump royalty pose an immediate and imminent danger to the freedom of political debate and moral discernment. Columbia University has been penalized $400 million by the Trump dynasty for not shutting down the protests and encampment on Columbia's campus last Spring that educated the public of the genocide and war crimes in Gaza. Mahmoud Khalil, who is a green-card holder, a graduate of Columbia, and married to a U.S. citizen, having led some of the demonstrations and protests at Columbia, was arrested by ICE because his political expressions ran counter to the proclivities of the Trump dynasty. The Trump monarchy is weighted toward imperialistic initiatives that are expressed through Israel's occupation of Palestinian lands; ethnic cleansing; the attempted annexation of Ukraine by Russia; or by its own fantasies of seizing Canada, Greenland, and Panama.
People are perplexed by how quickly and radically these changes could have occurred in the United States. The national narrative has been that fascist takeovers, and the emergence of tyrants and dictators, happen other places but not in the U.S. But now we are confronted with what we believed was commonplace elsewhere having happened here. I find myself turning to tools of my trade trying to explain to people this current moment and why and how this could have happened.
In the scriptures that I use, First Samuel, chapter 8 offers a hauntingly accurate explanation for this historical moment. The words in this text describe people who felt let down by government, troubled by the state of the economy, fearful of an uncertain future, scared of changes, living where one set of political leaders was perceived as ill-equipped to serve the interest of some people, and where apparently a few had grown richer at the expense of the poor becoming poorer. Whether this was true or only perceived to be true we do not know.
The 2024 elections appears to have similarities with the text, where the framing of the issues were the ruinous effects of inflation; immigrants taking jobs and criminally violating communities; and where Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) policies forced the hiring of incompetence and overlooked those who were more deserving and were white, male, and straight. A significant portion of the population wanted a leader who would address their fears and resolve their anxieties of an inclusive world. The political ideologies of the campaigns either cited an increasingly diverse population or the dangerous nature of democracy as it strived to include diversity and create equal opportunities. The ideologies were on a collision course. One ideology warned of the threat to democracy, and the other offered the protection of the American way of life through a strongman that would protect the country by reclaiming and protecting its past. When talking about the things that were seen or felt as wrong with the nation, the strongman pledged, "I alone can fix it." Some people clamored for this strongman—this king, the restoration of the past, and the good ole days.
It was just like the people in 1 Samuel 8, who demanded, "Give us a king" so that they could go back to the familiar; the fears of the future could be tamed; and they would not have to wrestle with or agonize over anything that was unfamiliar, frightening, or defined as "woke." "Give us a king" that will solve all our problems, navigate us through a frightening world, and ensure we don't have to deal with the messier things of democracy. And this is what we got. In 2024 we have unconsciously or consciously given up a president for a king.
But this scriptural text goes further by warning what a king will do, and it is not pretty but so relevant to today. It warns that by giving up discourse and participation we will become victims of the wants and desires of a king. The king will reward his patrons and supporters and harm his detractors. The billionaires who lust after more billions as well as those fearful of the loss of billions fall into line and tout the monarch's political framing of issues. He will take a portion of all that we have worked for and earned, and he will give it in tax breaks and lucrative contracts to his patrons and supporters. He will press us into his service, and likewise our children. We will parrot the fears of diversity and inclusion. We will turn in those who we suspect of being undocumented and accept it as natural when people are stopped and arrested for driving while Hispanic or Black. And when we eventually become aware of what we have given up, what it really means to surrender participation, voice, and responsibility, it will be too late.
The damage will have been done and will be revealed in disasters because the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), that predicts atmospheric and weather changes, has been dismantled. There will be an increase in diseases such as measles that was declared eliminated in the U.S. in 2000. Unemployment will increase because of firings and layoffs in the governmental sector that will spread into the private sector because of protectionism, tariffs, and the interconnection of one economic sector to another. And there will be fewer places to challenge the royal decrees as the courts, informational platforms, and people are silenced out of fear of retribution and punishment. In all, democratic order will disappear, become extinct in practice, and eventually fade from memory. All of this will occur because we have chosen the dictates of a king over the messier and cumbersome discourse of the democratic process. The scriptural text warns, "In that day you will cry out because of your king." So many of us are crying out now because of this wannabe king.
So, what can be done? Now is the time to stir from our shock and catatonic state and begin to act, demonstrate, drown out town hall and community gatherings wherever they occur before we completely lose all memory of participatory debate, discourse, dialogue, or what the compromise and tensions of democracy look and feel like. The Trump-Musk-DOGE fraternity has been rattling off dictates of firings, downsizing, policy, and name changes so rapidly that it is hard to pivot fast enough in response, let alone being able to act instead of reacting. This is a tactic to keep us off balance. But our challenge is to engage, question, and resist and not be wearied by the avalanche of the various decrees, Executive Orders, or the whiplash of on and off again policies.
In the 1960s and 70s many of us wore buttons that read "Question Authority." It was a statement of independent thinking, not falling into line simply to fall into line, and to remind ourselves and governments that we are only governed by our consent. We sought to remind ourselves of the authority of average citizens and not the absolute power of government. This mentality needs to be reborn. We need to question, act, and challenge all things and everything that comes from this royal fiefdom.
They may not be wrong in everything they do, but we know that unless we exercise the discipline of questioning authority, challenging policies, and making the administration prove every single assertion we will certainly lose all forms of democratic order. After all we really don't want or need a king, but we truly want a government that is of, for, and by the people. This however will require that we exercise the muscles of messy democracy before they completely atrophy.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Make No Mistake, Trump Is Turning the US Into a Police State
The arrest and detention of Mahmoud Khalil is a blatant attack on the civil liberties without which there can be no meaningful democracy for anyone. Our dark days are getting darker by the moment.
Mar 12, 2025
“America, this republic, this democracy in which we are, is a living thing which cannot be contemplated or categorized, like the image of a thing I can make . . . . It is not and never will be perfect because the standard of perfection does not apply here. Dissent belongs to this living matter as much as consent does. The limitations on dissent are the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and no one else. If you ‘try to make America more American’ . . . you can only destroy it. Your methods, finally, are the justified methods of the police, and only the police.” —Hannah Arendt, “The Ex-Communists,” Commonweal (March 20, 1953).
Hannah Arendt, a German-Jewish immigrant, wrote the above words at the high point of McCarthyism in 1950’s America. It took courage for her to publish these words. For, as her biographer, Elizabeth Young-Bruehl, reports: “The attorney general of the democracy in which she was living had made a speech three days earlier in which he announced that 10,000 citizens were being investigated for denaturalization and 12,000 aliens for deportation as ‘subversives.”
Indeed Arendt’s husband, Heinrich Blucher, was a former communist who was especially vulnerable to the threats of the Attorney General, Albert Brownell. As Blucher himself had written in a letter to Arendt about Brownell’s revival of the harsh McCarran-Walters Act: “The acceptance without opposition of the dreadful new immigration bill has demoralized the best people here, so much so that the forces of the Left, which never really were put in motion, are stunned . . . It seems that one can now deprive someone of citizenship with a simple denunciation . . . And how soon these ‘Born American’ people could become a Master Race.”
That was then, and this is now.
Last weekend, U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement (ICE) arrested Khalil Mahmoud, a Columbia University graduate student, living in campus housing, who has been one of the leaders of the pro-Palestinian movement on campus. Mahmoud is a Palestinian who was born in Syria, who has been in the U.S. on a student visa, is currently holding a green card, and is married to a U.S. citizen. There is no evidence that he has ever engaged in a violent act. He was apparently arrested in accordance with the Trump Executive Order, “Additional Measures to Combat Anti-Semitism,” signed on January 29, 2025, and also in connection with the recently announced State Department “catch and revoke” policy, which employs AI tools to locate, detain, and deport international students considered to be pro-Palestinian and thus, by definition, “anti-Semitic.”
This is not about Hamas or Palestine or Israel or antisemitism. It is about the crackdown on dissent. Period.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio quickly acknowledged the action, announcing that “we will be revoking the visas and/or green cards of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported.” [It must be noted that a U.S. federal judge has just ordered a temporary halt to Mahmoud’s deportation. But it must be noted only parenthetically, because the halt is only temporary, and Mahmoud remains in ICE custody, and if there is any domain where the Trump administration can be relied upon to stick to its metaphorical—and actual—guns, it is this one.]
The arrest of Khalil is a major escalation in a “New Campus McCarthyism” that has beset U.S. higher education for at least the past two years. It follows hard on the Trump administration’s cancellation of over $400 million in Columbia University grants and contracts, and preceded by one day Tuesday’s announcement that the U.S. Department of Education has sent letters to 60 universities “under investigation for antisemitic discrimination and harassment.”
At the same time, what we are now experiencing is more than an attack on academic freedom and university autonomy. It is nothing less than a wholesale assault on constitutional democracy itself, by an authoritarian administration determined to “Make America Great Again,” the Constitution, and democracy, be damned. The arrest and detention of Mahmoud Khalil is a blatant attack on the civil liberties without which there can be no meaningful democracy for anyone. As columnist Michelle Goldberg put it in the New York Times, “This is The Greatest Threat to Free Speech Since the Red Scare.”
That this arrest and the policy behind it is being justified by this administration–with its Nazi-saluting “DOGE” head and neo-Nazi supporting Vice President and “fine people on both sides” President–as a defense of Jews is beyond cynical. And that many Jewish leaders apparently support this arrest is simply deplorable. For Trump clearly has no real interest in either Jews or Arabs, and is quite content to disrespect the former while trolling the latter, as he did on Elon Musk’s X, posting “Shalom, Mahmoud” above a caption that read: “ICE proudly apprehended and detained Mahmoud Khalil, a Radical Foreign Pro-Hamas Student on the campus of @Columbia University. This is the first arrest of many to come.” Trump followed up with an even more threatening Truth Social post:
We know there are more students at Columbia and other Universities across the Country who have engaged in pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity, and the Trump Administration will not tolerate it. Many are not students, they are paid agitators. We will find, apprehend, and deport these terrorist sympathizers from our country – never to return again. If you support terrorism, including the slaughtering of innocent men, women, and children, your presence is contrary to our national and foreign policy interests, and you are not welcome here. We expect every one of America’s Colleges and Universities to comply.
But even more ominous was a statement Trump posted last week:
All Federal Funding will STOP for any College, School, or University that allows illegal protests. Agitators will be imprisoned/or permanently sent back to the country from which they came. American students will be permanently expelled or, depending on the crime, arrested. NO MASKS! Thank you for your attention to this matter.
This is not about Hamas or Palestine or Israel or antisemitism.
It is about the crackdown on dissent. Period. Foreign “agitators,” American “agitators,” it makes no difference.
And while it involves the Education Department’s financial intimidation and punishment of universities, it also involves the coercive power of the federal government—through Homeland Security, Justice, and even Defense—to arrest those among us, regardless of their citizenship status, who engage in “anti-American” behavior as defined by Donald Trump, in other words, those who oppose what Trump is doing.
This should surprise no one. For Trump promised exactly this, in pretty much every speech he gave on the 2023-24 campaign trail, but never more directly that in his too-easily forgotten 2023 Veteran’s Day Speech:
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 that lie and steal and cheat on elections. They’ll do anything, whether legally or illegally, to destroy America and to destroy the American Dream. . . the threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous and grave than the threat from within. Our threat is from within.
Trump is now doing what he promised. And all too many Americans are either excited that he is doing so or merely blasé about their president’s proud decision to literally take a torch to the U.S. Constitution.
Martin Niemöller’s famous saying has been quoted so many times that it is a veritable cliché. All the same, the sentiment it expressed is as true now as it ever was, and it is especially appropriate to note that it is featured on the website of the U.S. Holocaust Museum:
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
The arrest of Khalil Mahmoud is an offense to every citizen of the United States, and it sets a precedent that endangers us all.
Trump is turning the United States into a police state.
Are the tattered and tarnished instrumentalities of democracy still at our disposal sufficient to prevent him from succeeding? And if we do not exercise them now, how much longer will they even persist?
Our dark time is getting darker by the day.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Practicing Civility in the Face of Fascism Is Like Signing One's Own Death Warrant
One confronts fascism head-on and based on solidarity and from a position of strength.
Mar 11, 2025
The United States is a country with a long history of violence and oppression against poor people, women and minorities. And by extension, with authoritarianism. The fact that the Trump presidency poses today a fundamental threat to democracy and social progress is not an unprecedented phenomenon in U.S. history. There have been many other U.S. presidents with anti-democratic approaches while a strong case can be made that minority rule has been the rule rather than the exception in the governing of the nation.
Indeed, for the most part, oligarchy has always had the upper hand in U.S. politics and the economy. After all, this is a nation that was founded on settler colonialism and the elimination of the native and relied on slavery as an engine of economic growth while it never managed to get rid of its racist roots. By the same token, resistance by enslaved people and struggles for emancipation and movements fighting for civil and social rights have also shaped the course of U.S. history. But history is not a linear progression. Every time social progress was made, the forces of reaction plotted to turn back the clock. This is the most obvious underlying intent of the Trump phenomenon and of the far-right movements and parties surging all over the world, now with the support of the world’s richest person, Trump’s Nazi-buddy Elon Musk.
At this point, the key question is this: what can be done to defeat right-wing extremism? In the U.S., defending democratic values and the rights of people from Trump’s neo-fascist politics, especially with the return of white supremacy to mainstream politics, a philosophy of resistance and rebellion needs to operate mainly outside the confines of the liberal political establishment. It is crystal clear that the Democratic Party is incapable of fighting Trump. The sight of Congressional Democrats to Trump’s joint address to Congress holding pathetic little signs and appearing in pink as signs of protest should speak volumes of the devastating failure of the Democratic Party to stop the rise of Trumpism, let alone of coming up now with a fight back strategy against the Führer.
The key question is this: what can be done to defeat right-wing extremism?
It is obvious that a new style of political action is needed in the United States today. The balance of de jure power has shifted dramatically toward an elite characterized by the fusion of wealth and power in the political system that plain resistance alone is not enough. What is needed, even beyond anti-fascism strategies and tactics, is the adoption of new ways to democracy and citizenship.
Indeed, anti-fascist organizing is only useful if it carries within it a vision of a post-capitalist alternative order since fascism has always been a reaction to capitalist crises. After all, fascism does not oppose the logic or the principles of capitalism. In fact, fascism has always been a particular way of “managing capitalism,” as the late Marxist theoretician Samir Amin correctly pointed out.
First, in the fight against fascism, the concept of democracy needs to be reimagined beyond elections and identified, in turn, with self-government and bold ideas to restructure the economy. The Democratic Party of the past 30 years has shown that it is simply incapable of undertaking this mission as it is itself a byproduct of a system in which the few set the terms under which the economy and society operate at large. The notion that a few progressive elected officials can tilt the party to the left in a radical way is a democratic fantasy.
The left needs to make a clean break with the mindset of political compromise that characterizes the Democratic Party.
We need economic democracy—institutions, organizations and practices that break away from the destructive and oligarchical tendencies of the current system and are geared in turn towards meeting workers’ needs, who are the backbone of the economy. Economic democracy starts with dismantling corporate power and extends to nearly every part of the economy—from the workplace to housing and from health to education. Public ownership is key to the idea of economic democracy as a way of transforming economic practices. Hence, we’re talking about forging a radical economic democracy project that can challenge the economic rationality of capital and private appropriation of labor, land and nature.Working with the liberal political establishment to accomplish this mission is yet another democratic fantasy. In fact, progressives keen not only on anti-Trump resistance but also willing to embrace a postcapitalist alternative to oligarchy should make their voices heard in every way possible by letting their elected representatives know that while they despise the Republican Party for what it stands for and what it is doing to the country under Trump-Musk, they do not trust the Democrats when it comes to fighting back and making the right choices for a more humane and just socio-economic order. They should let them know that democracy is much more than elections and surely not about serving special interests. It is about giving political power to ordinary citizens.
Likewise, the project of economic democracy mandates the reconceptualization of citizenship. The notion of confrontational citizenship is of particular import in these dark times as it emphasizes that political change is the result of confrontation, not of compromise. Al Green, a democratic congressman from Texas, practiced confrontational citizenship as an elected official with his outburst during Trump’s speech to Congress. For that, he was forcefully removed from the House Chamber while his Democratic colleagues opted to display “civility” toward the Führer. Eventually, Rep. Green was censured by his colleagues for his lack of "civility," with 10 Democrats joining all Republicans.
Democracy is much more than elections and surely not about serving special interests. It is about giving political power to ordinary citizens.
One does not fight fascism with props as a form of protest. Or unjust wars and invasions by releasing doves. Practicing civility towards fascism is like signing one’s own death. One confronts fascism head-on and based on solidarity and from a position of strength. Yes, confronting fascism requires also courage and not concerns with whether someone’s name is going to end up on a list of “radical leftists” by some reactionary watchdog.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular