Living with Integrity Part 1 - Don't do the oppressor's work for them

This is a time for frank talk about the ascendency of an authoritarian and abusive political culture in the United States of America. While Donald Trump is seen as the point person for this movement, and as President-elect is poised to implement these as U.S. government policy, these ideas are not new, and are not unique to a single leader, political party, demographic group or location.

This is not a time for quiet acceptance, private complaints, and trying to ignore, work around, or accommodate to harmful acts and beliefs. Nearly two thousand years ago, the Roman empire dominated Europe and the Mediterranean by military force and oppression. The early Christian movement was by necessity a resistance movement, proclaiming a different kind of rule, governed by a God of mercy, where people shared so that all would have enough. Writing to the small community in Rome, at the seat of Caesar’s empire, the Apostle Paul counseled that these goals could not be achieved by domination and control, and advised his new community “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (Romans 12:21).

I am going to start with practical wisdom from Timothy Snyder, a respected historian specializing in the history of Central and Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, and the Holocaust. These can be found in his 2017 book On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century. While many in the U.S. underestimated the power of Trump’s MAGA-style ideology of domination as a populist response to oppression, those who knew the 20th century regimes of fascism and state-imposed communism could better see the dangers and counter-strategies.Prof. Snyder's first, and perhaps most important comes straight from the experiences of those who have lived under authoritarian systems.

Lesson 1. Do not obey in advance. Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then offer themselves without being asked. A citizen who adapts in this way is teaching power what it can do (Snyder 2017).

Do not be deceived on this point. Oppressive authorities do not have unlimited power.

They depend on your cooperation. While some will cooperate because they are on-board with the oppresive ideologies, by far the greater number cooperate because of fear.

Fear is a natural and expected response. The authoritarian regime wants you to fear going against them. And there may well be consequences for non-cooperation or opposition. The regime and its agents selectively punish opposition. Additionally, there is the real fear of "social death," a loss of social identity and connectedness from your group. Extreme examples would be shunning, ostracism, and institutionalized separation through segregation and apartheid.

Lesson 1 teaches to not do the oppressor's work for them. You may at some point be faced with the choice between cooperation or surrender on the one hand, and resistance or opposition on the other. But why give that cooperation until the demand is made directly to you?

Saturday Night Live provided a very clear example of this pre-capitulation. In its opening segment the Saturday after the 2024 election (SNL for Trump Cold Open), cast members one after another swore fealty to the new regime - before it had made a demand to them. I appreciate satire but this is all too real a response that many people will have. You heard it in 2016 and still hear it again in 2024, people expressing vain hopes that the new regime will not be as bad as it has promised, that it's in all our interest for the new Administration to be successful, that

There is a defense against this fear and against some of the effects, and that is connectedness. The authoritarian regime works by division and isolation. It wants you to believe your security and salvation is in following the leader. Stick together. Solidarity is a practical defense.

While the insights here are not personal to Donald Trump, they are about authoritarian systems, we would do well to take an important lesson from him as well. On his Apprentice shows, when he brought contestants into the Boardroom prior to firing one, there were one cardinal sin the people in the hot seats could commit. And that was self-firing. He would accept a pretense of responsibility, but he would react strongly against anyone who nominated themselves to be fired. So he would let the others off the hook and fire anyone who was self-defeating enough to volunteer for elimination.

You can see this in Trump's personal history to never accept any adverse consequence until it is forced upon him and inescapable. Deny any adverse fact. Delay the legal cases, because they might go away. Appeal, appeal, appeal and never take no as the final answer. Restructure debt rather than pay the bills. Without going deeply into his personal psychology, one can easily see this as his personal defense what he evidently perceives as aa hostile world. His own strategy against adversity is to never do anything to make his enemies' job easier.

Frederick Douglass famously said "Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress."

Power concedes nothing without a demand. Why should we? Why should you?


Credits:
Artist unknown. Solidarity. <
Frederick Douglass. (1857). “If there is no struggle, there is no progress.”
Saturday Night Live. (9 November, 2024). SNL for Trump Cold Open.
Timothy Snyder. (2017). On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century.

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