Dehumanization, as a psychological and socio-political process, represents one of the most destructive phenomena in human history. It involves the denial of attributes that define individuals or social groups as human, thereby devaluing their moral status and legitimizing violence and cruelty against them.
The first out transgender member of the U.S. Congress took the world stage in Germany last week, warning that attacks on people like her and on LGBTQ+ rights more broadly are being weaponized in the current political climate, as she joined former first lady and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on a high-profile panel at the Munich Security Conference.
They are looking to withdraw the United States from the entire world so that we can turn into an age of authoritarianism, of authoritarians, that can carve out the world where Donald Trump can command the Western Hemisphere and Latin America as his personal sandbox, where Putin can saber-rattle around Europe and try to bully around our own allies there, and for essentially authoritarians to have their own geographic domains.
Highly Respected Prime Minister of Hungary, Viktor Orban, is a truly strong and powerful Leader, with a proven track record of delivering phenomenal results. He fights tirelessly for, and loves, his Great Country and People, just like I do for the United States of America. Orban has served as Hungary's prime minister since 2010, and previously held the post from 1998 to 2002.
Then came Minneapolis. The massive ICE crackdown there - with its stories of federal law enforcement shooting U.S. citizens, separating families and deporting undocumented people, even those trying to go through legal channels - led Leigh to feel called in a new way, to go to Minnesota and join the opposition. He didn't end up doing it. But some of his congregants began pushing: What are we doing? How are we defending democratic norms?
Fifteen years ago, Egyptians from all walks of life took to the street to demand "bread, freedom, social justice." They were protesting the oppressive 30-year rule of Hosni Mubarak. Egypt had been under martial law for 31 years. This meant that political opposition was silenced, and opponents were often imprisoned and tortured. Police brutality was the norm. Egypt's economy was also weak and relied heavily on foreign aid and loans from the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.
"Freedom from fear" was the fourth of four freedoms defining democracy President Franklin D. Roosevelt framed in his rally cry to fight fascist conquest from without. It is openly debated whether America is now fighting a fascist takeover from within. It may be debated, but only because the would-be dictators of the world will always disguise their plays for power in the mock forms of democratic legality-by declaring a fake emergency, attacking political rivals through trumped-up legal charges or holding rigged elections.
The change in the administration's tactics in Minneapolis is not a retreat. Instead, they are regrouping and planning another mode of attack, with the hopes that their repression might be met with resistance that is easier to control and contain. People who garner their relevancy and power through the dehumanization and oppression of others will do whatever it takes to cling to their soulless sense of self.
I lived in Argentina in the mid-1980s, just after the fall of the brutal military dictatorship that ruled from 1976 to 1983. The country was taking its first, shaky steps back toward democracy. It was a time of great hope, but also of grave uncertainty - because while the generals were gone, the political culture that enabled them remained. Like most of the nation, I was captivated by the pioneering trials of the military generals that promised to restore justice.
One might ask why an epidemiologist like me would be interested in Latin American history at this moment. What drew me to that era was the key role that clinicians and public health workers played in the resistance against the dictatorship; their simultaneous push for a national healthcare program; and the ways in which this sector organized, even as more conservative physicians sided with the putschists, happy to see their more progressive colleagues jailed and persecuted.
As authoritarianism accelerates - as government-sanctioned violence becomes more overt in immigration enforcement, in policing, in the open deployment of federal force against civilians, and in the steady erosion of civil rights - people are scrambling for reference points. But instead of reckoning with the long and violent architecture of U.S. history, much of this searching collapses into racialized tropes and xenophobic reassurance: This isn't Afghanistan. This isn't Iran or China. This is America. We have rights. This is a democracy. This isn't who we are.
The killings in Minneapolis of Renee Good and Alex Pretti have been compared to the murder of George Floyd, because they all happened within a few miles of one another, and because of the outrage they inspired. There's an important difference, though: In 2020 the United States was in turmoil, but it was still a state of law. Floyd's death was followed by investigation, trial, and verdict-by justice. The Minneapolis Police Department was held accountable and ultimately made to reform.
"We're not going to have one magic solution to the problem that ails us," Raskin said on Sunday. "It's not going to be the courts, or the House, or the Senate, or the people in the movements. It's going to be all of it together."
For one thing, there were too many elements of classical fascism that didn't seem to fit. For another, the term has been overused to the point of meaninglessness, especially by left-leaning types who call you a fascist if you oppose abortion or affirmative action. For yet another, the term is hazily defined, even by its adherents. From the beginning, fascism has been an incoherent doctrine, and even today scholars can't agree on its definition. Italy's original version differed from Germany's, which differed from Spain's.
A group of researchers from Berkeley, Harvard, Oxford, Cambridge, and Yale warn that the rise of AI bots and AI agents could pose a serious threat to democracy. For example, power-hungry politicians around the world can relatively easily create swarms of AI bots that flood social media and messaging services with propaganda and disinformation. In this way, they can not only influence election results but also persuade parts of the population to replace parliamentary democracy with an authoritarian regime.
"Canada cannot solve all the world's problems, but we can show that another way is possible: that the arc of history isn't destined to be warped towards authoritarianism and exclusion, it can still bend towards progress and justice, he said."
Before I get to the dialogue and the book, I wanna open with some preliminary thoughts about a domestic subject. And that is this extraordinary moment where Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins informed a TV interviewer that her department had run thousands of simulations, and good news, it was possible to feed an American person for less than $3 if that person ate a piece of chicken, a piece of broccoli, a corn tortilla, and one other thing.
Hit me like, as my high school English teacher liked to say, "like a MAC truck." The episode starts with the tale of Icarus. You know, the kid who flew too close to the sun with his wax wings and plummeted into the sea. Or the little cherub NES character. Either way. And I'm sitting there thinking: has anyone in Washington actually read this story? Played the game?
Share your views about the impact of the Trump administration's first year at this live community discussion led by KALW's Rose Aguilar. Join KALW for a live and in-person edition of The Authoritarian Playbook, discussing the federal administration's authoritarian actions and policies. We'll summarize the latest news, put it in historical context, and find out how people are responding. Your RSVP includes admission to Mission Grafica: The Public's Voice, a collaborative art exhibition produced with the Mission Cultual Center for Latino Arts.
Almost 20 years ago, Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced the iPhone as "an iPod, a phone, an internet communicator." The world swooned at the time because that one device was all those things, and more. Today it is our wallet, our identity, our social media, our likes, dislikes, fitness levels, bank accounts, as well as our personal, sexual, and political identity.
