I’m still trying to understand why the United States has taken such a hard, apparently sudden turn towards authoritarianism.

It’s not a new concern for anyone who’s been paying attention. Back in 2011, during Obama’s first term, I wrote about the rise of fascism in the United States. The context was Occupy Wall Street, a major protest against extreme wealth inequality. At the time I hypothesized that a right-wing reactionary movement was much more likely than any kind of leftist revolution. I pointed to trends like increased secret surveillance of private citizens, war profiteering, the use of prison camps and torture, scapegoating immigrants, and ever-increasing wealth inequality.

And shit, I was right.

The same year, I wrote a blog post entitled Four Types of Power. The idea was simple: divide the use of power according to two axes, creating four quadrants:

  • coercive power (threat or use of violence or other harm, force, “power over”) vs. non-coercive power (creative/attractive/persuasive power, “power to”)
  • zero-sum contexts (closed systems) vs. non-zero-sum contexts (open systems)

The model describes four quadrants of power. In a societal/geopolitical context, the four quadrants could be described as:

  • Authoritative (coercive, closed systems)
  • Extractive (coercive, open systems)
  • Competitive (non-coercive, closed systems)
  • Innovative (non-coercive, open systems)

My thinking has evolved since 2011. When I first conceived of this model, I had strong negative value judgements about the authoritative and extractive power quadrants. The most egregious abuses of power (like slavery and environmental destruction) certainly exist within these quadrants. But I’ve come to accept that any functioning society needs some use of authoritative and extractive power in order to survive. Like any liberal person with a decent amount of empathy, I’ve tried to consider if and how a society could function without the threat of violence against its own citizens. In 2013 I imagined something like a “citizenship score” could be an alternative to tossing people in jail. I was slightly horrified when the Chinese government implemented the Social Credit System the following year, not as an alternative to incarceration, but as more of a Black Mirror-like dystopian citizen surveillance program. But not totally dissimilar to my own idea, which made me question my own judgment.

Liberals and progressives (and many conservatives) generally abhor the use of violence, often because it’s used unevenly, with poor and brown-skinned people getting the worst treatment. Thus the brief popularity among the Left of initiatives like Defund the Police. Some supported reallocating a portion of police funding to emergency mental health services, which is potentially effective. But more extreme police abolitionists wanted to get rid of police departments altogether, arguing that police do more harm than good. In the end, reality trumped idealism, and most cities that discussed or experimented with reduced police funding have backtracked. We (U.S. citizens) still have a major problem with police brutality and “us vs. them” culture in police departments, but eschewing all authoritative use of force is a dead end. Better training, culture change, and more accountability is a better (if imperfect) answer.

Power can be overused/abused (or underutilized) in any of the four quadrants (see the graphic below). Authoritarianism isn’t the only kind of overreach. But in unstable times, many people advocate for more authoritarian governance because they think it will bring them safety and stability. And that desire can be perverted by all kinds of bad actors who want to wield power for the wrong reasons.

Here’s a simple chart that illustrates some benefits and drawbacks from within each power quadrant. Please keep in mind that I’m a just a science fiction writer spitballing ideas and models, not a political scientist or economist.

Four types of power in governance (click to expand)

As a liberal who lives in San Francisco (and generally loves this city), this model has been particularly helpful in understanding not only the excesses of the innovative quadrant (which is generally liberal, but not always–see below), but also how the rest of the country is being manipulated to react to these excesses (as Elon puts it, “the woke mind virus”).

Societal/Cultural Evolution

Societal evolution or cultural progress can be described as societies moving from an emphasis on authoritative and extractive power to an emphasis on competitive and innovative power. Non-coercive systems of competition and innovation ultimately create the most wealth and prosperity, but you need security and access to food and resources to build a civilization in the first place.

In a fractal sense, we can see the same evolutionary dynamic in all kinds of microcosms. Successful parenting, for example, starts with an emphasis on authoritative power (telling your little kids what to do so they stay alive) and ideally ends up primarily in the innovative quadrant (working together with your children, as equals, towards common goals). But there are no absolutes; sometimes it’s healthy and appropriate to let your little kids explore and learn about the world without restrictions or strict limits, and sometimes you might need a more authoritative approach with an adult child who is deep in a hole and still digging.

There’s also the question of good governance–the judicious and intelligent use of power. Any kind of power can be abused or underused, and/or ineffectively used. A society can have a lot of prisons and punishments, but still have a major problem with crime. The use of power doesn’t guarantee results–power has to be used thoughtfully and effectively. Corruption and stupidity both undermine the effective use of power.

The Factions

Why is the United States turning into a dumpster fire? Who’s pulling the strings, and just as importantly, why are they pulling those strings? Here’s a brief analysis of current and recent factions involved in US politics and culture wars (in no particular order) according to the four power quadrants:

U.S.-relevant factions, power quadrant analysis (click to expand)

It’s complicated, and many currently allied groups (like MAGA and the techno-autocrats) have diverging motivations and ideologies.

Personally I align most with the Economic Progressives and the New Greens. To me, it’s common sense that we dig our way out of the hole dug by the excesses of capitalism (the abuses of extractive and competitive power) by improving standards of living with basic measures like public healthcare and high quality pre-K through university state-funded schools, paid for with slightly higher on the extremely rich. That, combined with reasonable, non-draconian immigration restrictions (like those exercised by Denmark), and some common-sense regulations re: how quickly we allow new technologies to put people out of work, combined with a sensible, gradual rebuilding of U.S. manufacturing capacity, would make for good governance.

So why the hell doesn’t everyone agree with me?

Geopolitical Context

The U.S. governmental crisis is not happening in some kind of political vacuum, but in the context of larger geopolitical trends, including:

  • climate crisis, which leads to increased immigration
  • globalization, which has led to increased immigration, decreased domestic production/manufacturing, and downward pressure on U.S. wages
  • frustration and resentment of United States global reserve currency status, which could lead to the end of money printing as an economic option
  • rise of other superpowers including China, India, and the EU
  • rise of information technology (of which the internet and AI are both quantum leaps) which has led to downward pressure on wages, and more recently, increased unemployment among professionals and knowledge workers
  • etc.

Vlax Vexler puts it well–the Trump/Musk unholy alliance feels like a freak storm, but in fact the choppy waters we’re experiencing are the boat leaving the bay, entering the open ocean.

That said, the future is not written, and the U.S. voter still has agency. We can still try to understand what’s happening in our country and takes steps towards a better future.

What Happened? Power Excesses and Culture Wars

Leading up to the 2024 election, the billionaire class formed an uneasy alliance with white Christian nationalists, techno-autocrats, and neoreactionaries, wrote down their shared goals (Project 2025), and successfully wooed a large potion of U.S. voters by appealing to both legitimate concerns:

  • poorly controlled immigration
  • a serious erosion of U.S. manufacturing capacity
  • inflation
  • downward pressure on U.S. wages due to globalization

as well as to mostly hysterical concerns:

  • an immigrant “crime wave”
  • concerns about the hundred or so trans women competing in women’s sports
  • DEI programs as a threat to meritocracy

This weak alliance of conservative elites, led by the convicted felon and well-known grifter Donald Trump, with the queasy support of the trad Republicans who fear what Democratic rule might bring (universal healthcare, voting rights, higher taxes for the extremely rich, etc.), currently controls all three branches of government, and is wreaking havoc. With the illegal deportation of non-violent immigrants to CECOT, and the explicit threat of the same fate for “disloyal” citizens, the United States has moved into full-blown fascist territory.

There’s also a simpler, equally true narrative. Quality of life and standard of living has been declining in the United States, for most people, for decades, due to globalization, tax breaks for the rich, and corporations getting their way. As Peter Turchin put it in a recent blog post, “a counter-elite gaining power by channeling discontent of immiserated population, is, in structural terms, what always happens in major revolutions.”

Resistance – What Kind of Power Does the Sane Majority Wield?

The MAGA cult has been hoodwinked into believing that an authoritarian approach will somehow rewind the geopolitical clock, returning the United States to a position of post-war, pre-globalization economic dominance and influence. And some within the cult would also like to rewind the the civil rights clock, disenfranchising non-whites and women and “restoring” whiteness as the cultural default.

But the majority of U.S. voters are reasonable people, even if they were deceived into thinking the Trump administration would somehow restore American “greatness”.

The keys to resisting authoritarian fascism in the United States are free speech and protest, applying economic pressure, and voting. If we stay silent and let the authoritarian regime continue to dismantle rights and institutions, it will be harder to change the tide. But right now, the authoritarian alliance is weak and fractured, despite the organization and planning efforts of those behind Project 2025.

Next up: “2033, a Thought Experiment” — what would a populist progressive government takeover look like?