Ben-Ghiat: Autocrats Want to Traumatize Us, But We Know Their Playbook and We Know Our Value

https://lucid.substack.com/p/autocrats-want-to-traumatize-us-but


I’ll be writing a separate post about the logic that unites many of the actions and announcements of the new Trump administration. Here I want to address the discouragement and fear that many who care about democracy and peace and human rights are feeling in America and around the world right now.

The purpose of the Blitzkrieg of executive orders and other actions by the Trump administration is to overwhelm you, make it difficult to prioritize, and demoralize and terrify you. It’s no accident that Trump has twinned the surge of domestic measures with outrageous and belligerent proclamations about international affairs, whether it is his talk about United States taking Greenland, annexing Canada, or his plan to “clean out” the Gaza Strip.

Let’s take some of the domestic actions. The removal of oversight and reporting mechanisms in government regarding corruption and other forms of abuse (the firing of Inspector-Generals being one example), the pardons of violent January 6 participants, and the selection of individuals who have been accused of sexual assault for Cabinet appointments have the collective aim of making us feel that the brutes have triumphed and there is nothing we can do about it without endangering our safety.

As I wrote in Strongmen, every authoritarian state seeks to create states of hypervigilance and fear among the public, so that people will self-censor, and comply with whatever the leader asks them to do.

*snip*