“On Tyranny” - Chapter 18: “Be calm when the unthinkable arises”
As I’ve been writing this commentary on Snyder’s work, it’s become obvious how much he has written is happening in real time. The actuality of the crumbling of the United States as a democracy is playing out in conformity to standard authoritarian playbook rules.
In short order, we’ve witnessed the suppression of free speech on university campuses and threats to remove federal funding; a law firm targeted by the occupier in the White House that had led the prosecution against him for his crimes; and most recently, not one but two flights carrying alleged members of a Venezuelan gang to be deported without due process to a prison in El Salvador by invoking the 1798 Alien Enemies Act. Judge James E. Boasberg of the DC district court agreed with the ACLU that the act only applies to “enemy nations” and ordered the planes to return to the U.S.
The administration has admitted that it was ignoring both due process and the court’s order. The regime might posture that the “Democrats want to house gang members” or some such nonsense, but it’s clear that this is the first major test by the regime to bend the rule of law to its will. The administration wants this to go to the Supreme Court where that court will rule in the regime’s favor.
The “unthinkable” is happening.
About that word, “unthinkable”; personally, I have often thought about it at different times in my life, beginning with the Nixon era when it was plain that the FBI had been weaponized to spy on people, including someone as beloved as John Lennon (we knew by then about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X., and others). By the time Ronald Reagan assumed office, the CIA’s employment in toppling democratic governments around the world was clear, and at any given moment, I began to suspect that the surveillance state was more in effect than it was merely in its nascent stages. With the arrival fo the twenty-first century, this became obvious.
That we might have a person elected president who would take advantage of the tools at his disposal was, for me, a given. Having seen the impunity with which less malevolent leaders bent the law here and there, I was convinced that sooner or later, someone would come along who would try to shred the rule of law for personal gain and to the detriment of the rest of us.
I would not claim to be a historian or scholar, but I have been aware of how, historically, oppressive regimes come into power. Snyder has documented this in the volume at hand and I’ve added my two cents where I felt it might be helpful.
Additionally, Mahmoud Khalil, a green card resident whose wife is an American citizen, was arrested by ICE, after being targeted as a leader of Pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University, a university threatened with defunding if it did not clamp down on such demonstrations. The video of Khalil’s abduction - because ICE issued no arrest and seized him without warrant - is chilling. He has been moved to a detention facility in Louisiana. The ICE agents were acting on orders from the US Department of State that Khalil’s “student visa" had been revoked. When they were told that he has a green card and is a legal permanent resident, the agents said that status would be revoked.
District Judge Jesse Furman ordered the administration to not deport Khalil until review of the arrest. “Arrest” is difficult here: no charges were or have been filed against him. The removal procedures were begun under a section of the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act which made provisions for people whose presence in the country could lead to “potentially serious foreign policy consequences”.
Fabian Schmidt, a German national who is a US citizen, was detained and interrogate at Logan Airport upon returning from Luxembourg. He is currently being held at an ICE detention facility in Rhode Island. According to his mother, he was “violently interrogated” at Logan, stripped naked, and forced into a cold shower. He was denied his anti-anxiety medication and collapsed. He also had the flu. After being treated at Massachusetts General Hospital, he was taken to the detention facility. No reason for his detention has been given, though it appears he had a misdemeanor marijuana possession charge from 2015 in California that was dismissed owing to changes in the law. However, he missed a 2022 hearing about the case because notification was not forwarded to his new home address.
His mother has said that he has been recovered from alcoholism successfully and the only blemish on his record is a DUI from ten years ago that he worked through and paid off.
US Customs and Border Protection issued a statement that any claims against the CPB are “blatantly false” and that anyone re-entering the country with drug charges on their record are liable to be addressed by officers.
Again, as in Khalil’s case, no charges have been filed in Schmidt’s case.
In both circumstances, ICE has detained citizens absent due process and without warrant. It is easier to see Khalil’s detention as a transparent example to force the issue of what the government can get away with in disappearing citizens. It is less clear if Fabian Schmidt’s case is specifically used to test similar waters or if it is “merely” one of juridical oversight/official abuse, based on his flagged green c card.
Nevertheless, both instances are examples of the mechanism the state wants to deploy to remove unwanted actors from civil life.
Everything covered thus far is an example of constitutional violation and runs counter to the rule of law, intentionally. The unthinkable is happening.
When Snyder writes that “Modern tyranny is terror management”, it is difficult to not take that in a couple of ways. The state manufactures “terrorist attacks” to quell the populace and use that as an excuse to do away with due process, the rule of law, suppression of freedom of expression, and so on. Another way to interpret it is that the state is the terror that needs to be managed.
Snyder points to the Reichstag fire of 1933 as the terrorist attack that consolidated Hitler’s ability to do away with checks and balances and declare martial law. The current US regime may not need a single event to solidify its approach. The rhetoric being used is repeatedly that there are enemies within that need to be rooted out and dealt with. The old administration was the corrupt one and it’s only just that all bad actors be punished.
In this case, the last major hurdle is to see how the Supreme Court rules in the Khalil case. If he is deported (and his family, one assumes), then the regime has more legitimacy and can pursue other similar cases without fear of obstruction.
The recent capitulation of the Senate Democrats to the Republicans under Senator Chuck Schumer’s leadership was nothing less than appeasement. Whatever the motives, Schumer and his team handed the regime a massive win. If SCOTUS follow suit, expect to read about more detentions of communists, antisemites, socialists, etc., etc.
The template has shifted somewhat, from Hitler to Senator Eugen McCarthy, in terms of a weaponized House commission working in tandem with the FBI. We have a weaponized Department of Justice working in tandem with a corrupt White House regime.
This is not to say the the regime may not resort to concocted “terrorist attacks”. As Snyder pointed out, “Vladimir Putin not only came to power in an incident that striking resembled the Reichstag fire, he then used a series of terrorist attacks — real, questionable, and fake — to remove obstacles to total power in Russia and to assault democratic neighbors.”
After Putin’s taking over from Boris Yeltsin as prime minister, he had a negative rating in the polls. Then came a series of bombings supposedly by the secret police who were then arrested by their colleagues. Later, “in another case the speaker of the Russian parliament announced an explosion a few days before it took place.” Putin then used that to invade Chechnya, promising to capture the perpetrators and “rub them out in the shithouse.” “Putin’s approval ratings skyrocketed.”
Snyder adds that Putin exploited a genuine terrorist attack where Russian forces fired on Russian civilians to seize control of state media. Two years later, he removed regional governors after a school was seized by terrorists in Beslan. Thus, Putin got rid of private television and elected regional governorships, eliminating two forms of likely opposition.
After his return to power in 2012, Putin began the foray into cyber-war in earnest. I won’t recap Snyder’s review of the succession and successes Russia had in spreading disinformation and media manipulation in France and Germany resulting in promoting anti-Muslim sentiment and driving the masses to support right-wing candidates and drive both countries into fascism. Hence, the shift to the right in those countries that struck many in the US as shocking.
But then, Russia made the United States its next project and this is worth quoting at length as a reminder that absent critical thinking and a free press willing to address these issues, any nation can fall. Even this one.
“After 2016, the United States became a country of staged crises, such as supposed refugee “invasions.” A real plague that killed became an opportunity for those who opposed health measures to “liberate” their states. A real murder of an African American became an imagined wave of violence against the suburbs. A secure election became the occasion for a big lie about its results. This took the form of the “stab in the back.,” a betrayal by internal enemies: the founding myth of the Nazis.”
I think it worth adding that other factors ensured the occupier’s rise to power. The media manipulation and narratives that drove the current occupier and his enablers to power the first time received an immense assist from a hostile actor. Despite everything everyone knew about him, he made it into the office the first time. This, despite losing the popular vote; the Electoral College was the assist needed to promote him to the Oval Office.
Russian interference in the election was suspected but not proven until later; by then, the occupier was in office and the Mueller Report’s conclusions were summarily interpreted by the occupier as his “exoneration.” To be sure, when Nikita Khrushchev said we would fall from within, he wasn’t wrong.
Snyder ends the chapter with an observation that has proven prescient. “One coup has been attempted. A failed coup is usually practice for a successful one.” This is being born out daily.
I haven’t said anything about remaining calm in the midst of all this and yet that is part of the chapter title. If I have a criticism of this chapter, it is that Snyder really does not amplify or emphasize this. He does mention that the lesson of an event like the Reichstag fire “is that our natural fear and grief must not enable the destruction of our institutions. Courage does not mean not fearing, or not grieving. It does mean recognizing and resisting terror management right away, from the moment of the attack, precisely when it seems most difficult to do so.”
Sadly, while people have shown courage and continue to do so, at issue is that the damage has been done. The tyrant is on the throne. It’s been a little over two months and while many of do grieve the loss of the country, many of us are also organizing, protesting and demonstrating. Attorneys are suing and judges are taking stands against the massive illegality of the regime’s actions. However, it’s far too early to claim these except as provisional victories.
My sense of remaining calm in the face of all this is to keep the eyes open and scrutinize everything you read. Check sources. I am now actively telling people to rely less on US legacy media like The New York Times or The Washington Post. As I write this, 40 people have died as a result of severe weather in the heartland. Little is actually being reported on the fatalities and destruction and the occupier has said that the national guard has been deployed to Arkansas, though the BBC reports that Missouri has born the brunt, and to pray for the victims.
With FEMA and NOAA both knee-capped, one wonders just how the bad response will be and just how much of state’s budgets this is going to eat up. Again, this is part of the playbook. Let Mother Nature take the role of a nationwide disaster and then see what other maneuvers come into play.
Given all this, how is one to “stay calm”? In addition to being aware and as present as possible, recognize that whatever happens, you don’t know what the outcome is going to be. There is always room for hope as long as we are alive and there’s more room in direct proportion to how informed we are.
I don’t recommend doom-scrolling or getting worked up so much that you lose your equanimity. Take a break, take several. If you’re an organizer, continue doing what you’re doing; if you’re a writer, continue writing; if you are an artist, a doctor, a teacher, continue, continue, continue. Continue on with love in your heart and awareness that, as Laozi says, a gust of wind cannot last all day.
Bibliography
Snyder, Timothy. On Tyranny - Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century. Crown Publishing. New York. 2017..
I don’t have to add a lot here in terms of what we will likely be called on to do. You will read, again and again, how important it is to contact your reps, to volunteer your time, to march in protest, and to help where you can/as you can.
Two places to start with:
Mobilize at https://www.mobilize.us/. I have the landing page set to my area; populated with events, petitions, and volunteer opportunities, it’s practically one-stop shopping.
Indivisible at https://indivisible.org/ is another comprehensive hub. You can sign up for updates, download their guide to organizaing, find candidates to support, and more.
If you don't have a copy of "On Tyranny", you can purchase one here:
"On Tyranny" at Timothy Snyder's website where he lists several options. Support local bookstores and buy local or check it out from your local library.
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