As the felon-in-chief and his murderous henchmen feebly grasp for unfettered authoritarian rule, it’s becoming increasingly evident that enacting a fascist takeover the of United States is as easy as cajoling a clowder of cats to march in lockstep in full military gear.
Here are the factors working against the current administration’s fascist fantasies:
The reigning administration and its most rabid supporters can’t be shamed and can’t be reasoned with. We’ve learned that. Watching clear video evidence of a citizen being murdered for defending a woman who was assaulted, the conservative talking point is “Well, you shouldn’t bring a gun to a protest.” Alex Pretti had a permit for his holstered firearm, and open carry is legal in Minnesota. Pretti was executed, probably because he was defending a woman, reminding the ICE goons what honorable behavior looks like. They were triggered, lost control of their emotions, and murdered him. But MAGA is in too deep to see with their own eyes.
Also, the chaotic evil violence is part of Stephen Miller’s playbook. Murder citizens until they retaliate violently. Then invoke the Insurrection Act, call off the election, and advance the Fourth Reich (Corporate Rule). They’re so unpopular at this point, it’s the only way they can maintain power. They know it and they’re saying it out loud (imagine a link to Curtis Yarvin’s blog here).
I’m all for showing up at No Kings marches, and for liberals exercising 2A. But the most effective way to fight U.S. fascism and the billionaire tech Nazis who support it is much easier. Destroy them the same way we destroyed apartheid in South Africa.
Make them poorer.
The thing is, we don’t even have to bankrupt them. They absolutely cannot tolerate being even a tiny bit poorer. For the obscenely rich, two percent poorer is a really bad day. Five percent poorer is a fucking emergency–they’re calling Trump on his personal mobile to ask him what the fuck he’s going to do about it. Any poorer than that and they’re running for their bunkers and safe rooms, hitting red buttons, activating whatever insane contingency plans they have that probably involve private jets, islands, and underground kale farms. They just can’t handle it.
So how do we do it?
I’m pretty much a non-user of AI. I avoid it when I can, partially out of ethical objections (AI is being rolled out with all the care of a 1950s cigarette campaign, with zero caution or consideration of potential harm), and partially due to unreliability (AI generates responses based on statistical probability without any capacity for fact checking, and regularly makes incorrect statements with complete confidence). But I’m also writing about AI in my current work-in-progress novel, so I try to keep up with the meta.
For that reason, I downloaded Claude and asked it where Gary Gygax went wrong. Claude gave an impressive, in-depth response, summarizing where Gygax might have gone wrong in terms of business decisions, game design, and a resistance to changing values and norms among RPG players (less misogyny and racism). Then Claude asked for clarification–what was I getting at?
Kids these days fantasize about becoming a billionaire instead of becoming a millionaire, because a million bucks doesn’t even buy you a whole house in many California neighborhoods. Not even the fancy neighborhoods, but just the kind-of-nice ones. Inflation and all.
Dr. Evil, pinkie on lower lip, demanding a ransom of one million dollars!
But a billion is still way too much for most people. Not in a moral sense, but in a “you couldn’t spend it on your own needs and wants if you tried” sense. Well maybe you could, if you’re really into luxury yachts or personally owning a spaceship. But most of us don’t even want those things.
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:
The model describes four quadrants of power. In a societal/geopolitical context, the four quadrants could be described as:
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.
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