CARTOON: Why The Madness & Depravity? Two Experts On Tyranny Explain It All
Radical acceptance. This is not the time to look away. From the personal to the global, the first step of resolving any problem in life is to accept that it is there and real.
One of the tactics of fascist coups is to move fast issuing decrees, making promises and threats, tearing apart the routine of government, blaming the vulnerable and daily stirring up life with a headspinning — soul sucking — pace. Confusion, suspicion and fear, paranoia and emotional numbing are all part of the putsch plan.
Sound familiar?
From our genocide in Gaza to the war crime of unprovoked bombing of nuclear plants in Iran, to threatening essential anchors in life like Social Security and Medicaid and on to the very real threat of our current World War III ending in nuclear hell, the plan is to keep us off balance, worried and wondering what version of the Trump clusterf*ck we will awaken to tomorrow. Or before lunch.
Exploiting fear and exhausting and numbing us emotionally can lead people to accepting something as obscenely Orwellian as fully armed, combat-ready Marines on our streets.
US Marines on guard in Los Angeles. Photo by Mike Blake, Reuters
Commenting on Trump’s criminal attacks on Iran, journalist Chris Hedges noted the US has opened Pandora’s Box. We will soon find we are living in Pandora’s Box.
As the Democratic Party abandoned and betrayed the working class and tangled itself up in a sticky, self-defeating web of identity politics and pontificating wokeness, the Republican Party has descended into full-on fascist militarism, complete with a brutal Gestapo, genocide and foreign concentration camps.
And through their limp meekness and obsequious dependence on Zionist and corporate money, the Democrats in Congress are fully complicit in the Republican charge to fascism, including supposed radical peaceniks Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
How the hell has this happened?
The interviews below with fascism scholar Ruth Ben-Ghiat and journalist Chris Hedges provide the political and historical context to understand what is happening. As ugly as it has all become — and about to become — this is not the time to look away. From the personal to the global, the first step of resolving any problem in life is to accept that it is there and real.
It is a necessary principle of “radical acceptance” I shared with all my counseling clients.
Ben-Ghiat details the nature and tactics of authoritarians while Hedges lays out the political dynamics of the liberalism that has eviscerated the American left, leading us to where we are now. He also details the unique corporatists vs oligarchy struggle. Both are fascist forces, but with very different power structures and goals that may well determine the path of life for generations.
The two videos combined are just under an hour and I strongly urge you to watch them both. For those without the time, I have included extended quotations from both interviews, lightly edited for readability and labeled by topic.
There is also a short trailer for a PBS documentary on authoritarianism author Hannah Arendt, airing this Friday.
The post concludes with examples happening now of all Ben-Ghiat and Hedges discuss.
Stay awake and focused.
Resist Persist Don’t be complicit!
“Those who lured us into this war know little about the instrument of war and even less about the cultures or peoples they seek to dominate. Blinded by hubris, believing their own hallucinations, they have learned none of the lessons of the last two decades of warfare in the Middle East. A war with Iran will be a self-defeating and costly quagmire, one more nail in the rotting edifice of the empire.”
Authoritarianism Historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat Unpacks Trump’s Betrayal: “A new kind of coup”
Al Jazeera (5/23/25)
US President Trump’s relentless attacks on institutions, the rule of law and the press have left many fearing for the future of American democracy. So is the United States sliding into authoritarianism?
This week on UpFront, Marc Lamont Hill speaks to one of the pre-eminent historians of fascism, Professor of History and Italian Studies at New York University, Ruth Ben-Ghiat.
25-minute video
From Ruth Ben-Ghiat’s interview on a variety of issues:
Trump’s God cult…
“Donald Trump, after the assassination attempt, was able to increase the robustness of his personality cult by pronouncing himself as having been saved by the will of God. And this went into an already existing discourse that he and his evangelical allies had created since his first administration that he was in office by the will of God.
“Authoritarian leaders since Mussolini have had such discourses around them and cultivated such narratives. And in fact, Mussolini survived multiple assassination attempts in his first year as dictator. And the same discourse that he had survived these attempts because he's in office by the will of God was circulating in fascist Italy. Now it's particularly interesting for Trump because so much of his base is comprised of evangelical Christians. So this almost fits into a messianic narrative as well. Is there a historical precedent for that? Yes. Since Mussolini going forward, authoritarian heads of state have had this narrative that they are placed in office by the will of God and they have allied with religious institutions whether it's Catholic or Muslim. It doesn't matter what the faith is. What matters is the discourse that ‘only he can save the nation’ because the personality cult canons have amazingly not changed for a hundred years. The leader has to be the man-of-the-people so he's relatable. But he also has to be the man-above-all-other-men — the man who is unique and that's where the divine mission comes in.
“Muamar Gaddafi, the Libyan dictator, used to pause during his speeches and look up to the heavens to show people that he was getting divine inspiration. So this is a very old authoritarian scam because most of these authoritarians are extremely impious, corrupt people.”
*****
The playbook
“Trump is implementing the authoritarian playbook as it's been used and is being used around the world. And there's a reason that he always cites authoritarian despots from Xi Jinping to Putin to Orban. It doesn't matter if they're right-wing or left-wing. It matters that they have absolute power And so what he is doing now in the United States — attacking the judiciary, threatening judges, trying to rule by executive order as though Congress doesn't matter — that is a classic authoritarian thing that eventually parliament, as in Russia the Duma, becomes like a rubber stamp.”
*****
Electoral autocracy
“There's no question that the US is in the process of becoming an authoritarian state and every place is in a different place on that continuum. It's harder today to know when ‘authoritarianism’ has descended because today we keep elections going. There's something called ‘electoral autocracy’. What they do today is keep elections going, keep opposition parties going but game the elections by domesticating the media which is what Trump's trying to do by taking away judicial independence. And that matters because if there's election fraud concerns, like happened after the 2020 election, 60-plus Trump-appointed judges turned back Trump's bogus election fraud claims. If you've domesticated the judiciary that won't happen anymore.”
*****
Re-engineering government
“And yet, Musk and [his] DOGE have actually taken over many federal agencies. Musk is re-engineering government to protect his companies. So, he's going after agencies that have had lawsuits against his products or his companies. And he's capturing data. He'd like to build a giant surveillance machine. This has never happened before in the history of authoritarianism, that someone shares power in this way because this is the first time that a private individual — the richest man in the world —- has been given the key to come into our payment systems, our data systems and take them over. It’s a new kind of coup.”
“Elon Musk was the biggest donor to Trump's election and if Trump wants absolute power he did not have the means or the technological savvy to be able to take over government at lightning speed. The other thing that's new about this is the speed at which everything is happening. Destroying government agencies from within.”
******
The role of domestic violence
“Whether they're fascists or communists, authoritarians are people who believe that violence is a way you change history. Thus revolutions and coups. And violence is a way you solve differences. I have been following Donald Trump since 2015 on this issue and it's very frightening because he's been using his rallies for ten years now to emotionally and psychologically condition Americans to see violence as positive. And what was January 6? It was the use of violence when all else failed to not only rescue the leader but to change history; to forcibly institute an authoritarian state because that's what he needed to happen. He needed to stay in power.”
*****
Secret police and prisons
“These masked gangs of thugs — who are the state security forces, that's how you would refer to them in other countries — are showing up in unmarked vans using violence, harassing people who try to intervene and bundling people away. We are now disappearing people. One of the innovations is that we're sending people to a foreign gulag in El Salvador instead of just incarcerating them here. But this surprise element, where you're going about your life — you could be a US citizen or have legal status — and a bunch of masked goons who are unmarked and refuse to identify themselves come to you. They come to your workplace They get you in your car. This is exactly how authoritarian states operate This was what the fascists did a hundred years ago. Bands of fascists would show up and eventually they became the fascist militia and they were a state security force. You had Soviet snatch squads who would show up and do this.”
3-minute video
*****
Our moment of reckoning
“This is a moment of reckoning for the United States because many people who were not subject to mass incarceration to institutionalized racism now have to open their eyes and and say "well it could be me" and and hopefully learn about this whole history of racialized policing, mass incarceration, anti-indigenous people's policies and all of this which has made the United States a very illiberal country as well as a democracy.”
*****
But why make people suffer?
“The Donald Trump administration wants to completely paralyze government and create as much hardship as possible and this is going to convince many Americans over time that they made the wrong choice.”
*****
What’s next?
“I don't think we can return to business as usual, ever, with the wreckage of our federal agencies — the authoritarian takeover that we're now living through. Perhaps a more just America can come out of this as people's eyes are opened to how undemocratic in some ways America has been, but that is a long-term project.”
Chris Hedges On The Myth Of ‘American Democracy’
“You can't maintain a democracy if you destroy your middle and working class. You can't. It's impossible and that's what we've done and so now we are facing the specter of this rolling kind of fascism and people vote for it out of rage. Out of anger. Out of desperation.”
Al Jazeera (1/31/25)
As Donald Trump returns to the White House, many are raising concerns about the possible decline of liberal democracy. What then would a second Trump term mean for the next four years for the United States? And what impact will the president's foreign policy have on the Middle East?
36-minute video
From the interview with Chris Hedges:
Is America a democracy?
“I don't think it exists. It's a veneer. It's the end of the Roman Empire. You have the symbols, the iconography and the language of a democracy, but — internally —corporations and oligarchs have seized all the levers of power.”
*****
The core issue blocking peace & justice
“At the end, you know there will be no civil rights until they have economic rights and [Martin Luther King] is killed marching with the garbage workers in Memphis. And the liberals all walked away from him. I mean, it's fine if you want to integrate Georgia because nobody can afford to eat where we eat in Manhattan, so we don't care. But as soon as you talk about economic justice they went for the door and King was a very lonely figure at the end. And a very courageous, amazing figure, but very lonely because that economic component is key. It's key to overcoming everything you and I care about and that's building a system of justice. But if you extract that drive for economic justice then it becomes a kind of boutique activism.”
*****
Christian fascism and Magic Jesus
“I dug deep inside this Leviathan called the Christian Right — that I call American Fascists — and Christian nationalist right. The're complete nationalists. They are essentially equivalent of the so-called German Christian Church, established under the fascists in Germany where on one side you had the Christian cross and the other the Nazi flag.
“And let's be clear, this church is bankrolled by the billionaire class because with Magic Jesus you don't need labor unions. With Magic Jesus you don't need health care. Because Magic Jesus is going to give you a Cadillac and make all your dreams come true. That is the shift from a reality-based world into the world of magical thinking, and once people shift into that world of magical thinking you can't reach them through rational argument. That is going to come through the Trump Administration 2.0 even more. These are the people who won. They won the first time too but Trump was totally unprepared, unfocused.
“Now he's got the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025. Now they're organized. Trump is a very limited intellect; very limited figure. He's a carnival barker and his first administration was dogged by one crisis and resignation [after another]. It was just chaos. That's different this time.”
*****
Our only path to freedom and justice
“Demands a more radical response because we have to destroy the system. We have to destroy the ruling class, and the only mechanism we have to destroy the ruling class is by disrupting economic, social and political life. That comes through mass mobilization, primarily through labor and especially through the strike. We have to rebuild militant labor movements that shut the country down. That's the only way out of this, and the oligarchs have understood this for a long time. It's why they have made war against organized labor for a long time. Only 11% of the US workforce is unionized, but we have to regain that militancy.
“We have to understand who our enemy is and that if we don't break the back of that enemy things are going to get worse and worse and worse. We have to understand the only power we have is collective and it will require sacrifice. We had the bloodiest labor wars of any industrialized country. Hundreds of American workers were killed. Thousands —probably tens of thousands — were blacklisted. We’ve got to look back because the capitalist class are going to use every vicious mechanism they have.”
Trailer For PBS Documentary — ‘Hannah Arendt: Facing Tyranny’
PBS (6/12/25)
American Masters – Hannah Arendt: Facing Tyranny premieres nationwide this Friday, June 27 at 9 p.m. ET on PBS. Discover the life and work of Hannah Arendt, one of the most influential political writers of the 20th century.
She transformed her time as a political prisoner and refugee during World War II into daring insights about the human condition, the refugee crisis and totalitarianism. Her warnings about a crisis in American democracy during McCarthyism and Watergate continue to resonate today.
As GOP Push Even More Handouts For Billionaires, 72% Of Americans Correctly Say The Rich 'Have Too Much'
A newly released survey underscores that "Americans have a solid grasp of the highly unequal concentration of wealth in the United States—and they think it's rotten."
By Jake Johnson Common Dreams (6/20/25)
Nearly three-quarters of Americans believe that the rich in the United States "have too much" and two-thirds feel the ultra-wealthy are not paying enough in taxes, according to survey results released Thursday by The New Republic.
The survey, conducted in April with a representative sample of more than 950 registered voters nationwide, shows "broad frustration with how wealth is distributed in America, specifically the extreme concentration of wealth among the superrich," the magazine reported in its write-up of the results, which came just ahead of the latest swing of Sen. Bernie Sanders' (I-Vt.) popular "Fighting Oligarchy" tour.
"If the poll can be summarized in one sentence, it's this: Americans have a solid grasp of the highly unequal concentration of wealth in the United States—and they think it's rotten," wrote The New Republic's Ryan Kearney.
Asked "which of the following statements comes closest to your view on how wealth is distributed in America today," 72% of survey respondents—including 45% of those who voted for President Donald Trump in 2024—chose "the rich have too much," while just 6% said "the poor have too much" and 22% said "things are about fair the way they are."
Few respondents, across party lines, said they believe the richest 0.1% and 1% are paying their fair share of taxes, according to the survey, and 66% said they think the wealthiest Americans are paying "too little" in taxes.
Meanwhile, another round of tax cuts for billionaires
The findings were published as Trump and GOP lawmakers in Congress worked to pass another round of tax breaks that would disproportionately benefit the wealthiest Americans.
The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy has estimated that the House-passed GOP budget reconciliation package would deliver $124 billion in net tax cuts to the richest 1% of Americans in 2026.
"Wages aren't keeping up with the rising cost of living, and the shrinking availability of living-wage jobs is compounding the strain. The consequences for working families are becoming increasingly severe."
In an effort to rally opposition to the Republican bill—which also includes unprecedented cuts to Medicaid, federal nutrition assistance, and green energy programs—Sanders will be holding a series of events in the U.S. South in the coming days, starting with a "Fighting Oligarchy" rally in McAllen, Texas on Friday night.
"Sanders will target deep red districts currently held by Republicans, including the hometown of Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.)," the senator's team said in its announcement of the swing last week. "The tour serves as a pressure campaign, aiming to force vulnerable congresspeople to vote against any cuts to Medicaid, housing, nutrition, education, and other basic needs to pay for more tax breaks for the richest people in this country."
Sanders' "Fighting Oligarchy" rallies across the U.S. have tapped into widespread discontent with the lopsided distribution of wealth in the United States and outsize political influence of a handful of powerful billionaires as workers struggle to afford basic necessities.
Last year, according to a UBS report published earlier this week, the U.S. added more than 1,000 millionaires per day on average, continuing a long-running trend of unequal wealth accumulation at the top.
Shocking true rate of unemployment
Meanwhile, a new analysis from the Ludwig Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity (LISEP) estimates that what the group describes as the "true rate of unemployment"—which counts "the jobless plus those seeking, but unable to find, full-time employment and those in poverty-wage jobs"—rose to 24.3% last month, just one indicator of workers' growing struggles in the U.S.
"Over the past four months, we've seen a stagnation in job opportunities that pay above poverty wages, particularly for low- and middle-income workers," said LISEP chair Gene Ludwig. "As economic uncertainty grows, more Americans are losing ground. Wages aren't keeping up with the rising cost of living, and the shrinking availability of living-wage jobs is compounding the strain. The consequences for working families are becoming increasingly severe."
“Meanwhile, a new analysis from the Ludwig Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity (LISEP) estimates that what the group describes as the "true rate of unemployment"—which counts "the jobless plus those seeking, but unable to find, full-time employment and those in poverty-wage jobs"—rose to 24.3% last month, just one indicator of workers' growing struggles in the U.S.”
Hungry For Progressive Economics, Poll Finds Nearly Two-Thirds Of Democrats Want New Party Leadership — Voters described universal healthcare, affordable childcare, and higher taxes on the rich as top priorities in a new Reuters/Ipsos poll. But they were less likely to believe that party leaders shared those priorities. … Link to story
AMERICAN ‘JUST-US’ — Supreme Court Lets Big Tobacco Pick The Judges Hearing Their Cases
The decision will make it easier for tobacco companies to easily find friendly judges to hear their cases.
By Paul Blumenthal HuffPost (5/20/25)
The Supreme Court made it easier for Big Tobacco companies to pick which judges hear their challenges to federal tobacco regulations on Friday in a 7-2 decision that will allow other companies affected by regulations to bring suit.
The case emerged from a lawsuit by R.J. Reynolds Vapor Company challenging Food & Drug Administration regulations for e-cigarettes. In 2009, Congress empowered the FDA to regulate tobacco products, and in 2016, the FDA extended that regulatory power to cover e-cigarettes and liquids.
The North Carolina-based RJR Vapor Company filed an application to sell menthol vapes that was denied by the FDA. The company challenged the denial in the Fourth Circuit, which covers North Carolina, under a provision of the 2009 law that allows “any person adversely affected” by FDA regulations to file suit in either the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals or “the circuit in which such person resides,” but lost.
After losing in the Fourth Circuit, where the company is located, RJR Vapor Company again challenged the denial in the New Orleans-based Fifth Circuit, which covers Southern states including Texas and Mississippi. They did so by adding a Texas-based store that sells vape products and a Mississippi gas station trade association. The Fifth Circuit, the most conservative and corporate-friendly circuit in the federal court system, sided with RJR Vapor Company and reversed the FDA’s denial.
“The war will pour gasoline on the already raging social and political crises in the United States, across Europe and around the world. It is the action of a regime ruled by and for the financial oligarchy. As it bombs and murders abroad, the Trump administration is dismantling democratic rights at home and erecting a political dictatorship. The Democratic Party, the so-called opposition, is paralyzed and complicit—paralyzed by its fear of the working class and complicit in the aims of imperialism.”
“Fascism may be defined as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victim-hood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.”
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Why do people keep using the term oligarchy (rule of a few), when the correct term is plutocracy (rule of the rich)?
Thanks for that clear explanation Mark, certainly looks like many proto-fascist boxes have been ticked already 😳
So why can’t the main stream join those dots? You don’t mean to say the media is in on this too?