Where Patriots Rise

The fight to defeat authoritarianism will take many forms. Last week, I joined the Texas House Democratic Caucus for a virtual call to rally them as they continued to break quorum. They did so in defiance of the unconscionable mid-decade redistricting maps that will strip millions of Texans of the right to choose their representation in Congress. Because Democrats hold a minority of seats after decades of gerrymandering, maps that strategically isolated or packed communities of colors into tighter and tighter confines, the legislators have precious few options for maneuver. The maps will likely pass today, but the decision to refuse consent to the first special session was not a stunt. It was an act of civil disobedience that will need to be replicated by Americans across our nation as authoritarianism takes hold.

In the 10 Steps to Autocracy and Authoritarianism, the final step is to ensure that no new elections can displace the illegitimate powers seized by the autocrat. But we are naive to assume that no new elections means the pageantry won’t take place. Of course, Election Day will occur, and - as has been the case in authoritarian regimes across the globe - some semblance of free choice must remain. Whether it’s Erdogan’s Turkey or Orbán’s Hungary or Putin’s Russia, the illusion of free and fair elections is a xxxxxx of stolen democracy. But in Trump’s America, those elections will not include mail-in ballots, voting machines or fair maps. Voters will be purged, new barriers will rise and voter suppression will have its most blatant outing since the 1960s. In Trump’s America.

I typically refuse to attribute to Donald Trump the full measure of authority strongmen like him try to assume. My basic problem is that it lets Republicans off the hook for their willful participation in destroying America. They have abandoned patriotism in favor of patronage, and they are selling out their fellow citizens for the false promise of future power. Then, there’s the aspiring dictator himself. Giving him absolute credit for the destruction of America’s norms grants him a marquee status that elevates him, which is the allure of tyranny. Weak, petty men like Trump gain their confidence from emblazoning their names on edifices and towering over the smaller men who cower in sycophancy.

This week on our podcast Assembly Required, I spoke with Ezra Klein about a different perspective. Trump isn’t the mastermind or the puppet. He’s the totem - the painfully ordinary object imbued with mythical properties that consume those in search of something to believe in. His followers will not care if the emperor has no clothes because he has the title, and for now, that is enough. A totem might just be a stick, but it can still be a weapon against us all.

So we who believe in freedom must turn our attention to the work of reclamation. Because authoritarianism isn’t coming. It’s here. It’s occupying Washington, D.C. and harassing the homeless, whose only crime is a poverty that has too long been ignored by leaders of both parties. It’s roaming the streets as ICE agents who are being paid annual salaries as bonuses to violate the constitution. It is holding State Rep. Nicole Collier hostage in the Texas House because she refuses to agree to a police shadow. In Georgia, it is purging 478,000 voters from the rolls today, including military personnel who forwarded their mail but still call Georgia home. Authoritarianism gutted the CDC as we approach flu season, summoned National Guard members to D.C. from Mississippi and South Carolina as hurricane season approaches, and it crippled schools as classes start. 

But these are not remote acts of abstraction. Elected leaders are choosing to participate willingly in the slow-motion overthrow of our way of life. Soldiers pulled from across the United States to menace D.C. residents are following orders. ICE agents who hide their faces and kidnap residents are following orders. State police who barricade legislators into buildings are following orders. And, on the other side of this, they will have to answer for their willingness to do so.

In the meantime, we must follow a higher order. One that says we will call out the complicity wherever we find it. We will show up at city council meetings and ask how they intend to defend our streets from occupation. We will attend school board meetings - whether we have children in attendance or not - and demand they protect the young lives in their charge. We will go to state legislatures en masse, tracking how they plan to bankrupt state coffers to accommodate the Republican megabill that will transfer wealth and leave seniors and the vulnerable to fend for themselves. States led by patriots will counter Republicans by nullifying their political brinksmanship on maps or National Guard deployment. We will not hide our faces, turning away from how Republicans at every level of government are abandoning their oaths. Instead, we will call them out and insist on answers from each and every one of them.

Because civil disobedience is an act of patriotism. Questioning our leaders is an act of patriotism. Serving the marginalized is an act of patriotism. Protest is an act of patriotism. Silence is not.