A Ticking Clock on American Freedom

[Nevilledog]

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/04/america-trump-authoritarianism-global/682528/

No paywall link
https://archive.li/o5pVQ

Look around, take stock of where you are, and know this: Today, right now—and I mean right this second—you have the most power you’ll ever have in the current fight against authoritarianism in America. If this sounds dramatic to you, it should. Over the past five months, in many hours of many conversations with multiple people who have lived under dictators and autocrats, one message came through loud and clear: America, you are running out of time.

People sometimes call the descent into authoritarianism a “slide,” but that makes it sound gradual and gentle. Maria Ressa, the journalist who earned the Nobel Peace Prize for her attempts to save freedom of expression in the Philippines, told me that what she experienced during the presidency of Rodrigo Duterte is now, with startling speed and remarkable similarity, playing out in the United States under Donald Trump. Her country’s democratic struggles are highly instructive. And her message to me was this: Authoritarian leaders topple democracy faster than you can imagine. If you wait to speak out against them, you have already lost.

Shortly after Trump was reelected last fall, I called Ressa to ask her how she thought Americans should prepare for his return. She told me then that she worried about a failure of imagination. She knew that the speed of the destruction of institutions—one of the first steps an authoritarian takes to solidify and centralize power—would surprise people here, even those paying the closest attention. Ressa splits her time between Manila and New York, and she repeatedly warned me to be ready for everything to happen quickly. When we spoke again weeks after his inauguration, Ressa was shaken. President Trump was moving faster than even she had anticipated.
Jonathan Rauch: One word describes Trump

I heard something similar recently from Garry Kasparov, the Russian dissident and chess grand master. To him, the situation was obvious. America is running out of time, he told me. As Kasparov wrote recently in this magazine, “If this sounds alarmist, forgive me for not caring. Exactly 20 years ago, I retired from professional chess to help Russia resist Putin’s budding dictatorship. People were slow to grasp what was happening there too.”

*snip*

[Solly Mack]

1. I've found that even some of the people who think it can happen here, still can't quite believe it is happening here.

[Nevilledog]

2. That's because it's so fucking insane.

[Solly Mack]

4. History is chock full of the insane but reading about it is different from experiencing it.

Also, the urge is strong to fight against believing it. Reasons vary as people vary.

[Nevilledog]

6. We also have a nation with millions of very stupid people.

[Solly Mack]

7. There is that.

[Dawson Leery]

3. Same here.

[Solly Mack]

5. Self-soothing can have benefits and drawbacks.