Dimensionally Barrett

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...

This might seem obvious, but Snyder’s points are subtler. Would we know when a paramilitary or a troop of assembled paramilitaries has decided to secure a neighborhood, town, region? We think so, of course. Even absent Trumpian direct support, there’s a good likelihood that in some parts of the United States, people would actually be supportive of an occupying force to enforce the rampant scourges of liberals, LGBTQ+ people, immigrants, and BIPOC people.  With   government support? Then we’d be very much in SS territory.  Is this and the following chapter alarmist? It’s difficult to say. We live in a country where guns outnumber people, where the Second Amendment is enshrined as a religious text and where we have grown inured to mass shootings. In areas where gun owning and open carry or even concealed carry without a license is a sign of vigilance and damn near a moral duty, is it really such a stretch to imagine seeing a militarized “neighborhood watch”? Snyder opens th...