So, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking and writing about the far right in the US. I do so not because I read history (though I do read history). Rather, I think lots of other people use historical analogies that don’t quite work. I think far-right politics in the US look and feel much different than those in, e.g., 1930s Italy and Germany.
At times, this puts me at odds with progressive and even leftist circles. Progressive authors – like Jason Stanley – draw analogies between Trumpism and ‘classic’ fascism. They do so, in part, in order to show the warning signs. We even see things like this in ‘Antifa‘ circles. Those circles focus on small militant groups in their early stages.
I don’t object to any of that, as far as it goes. But progressive work like Stanley’s tends to leave us with a misleading picture in mind of what authoritarianism would look like in the US.
Let’s take up that topic.
Authoritarianism in 2022
If you read Stanley – or Antifa – you get the idea that a US authoritarian state would look like a dystopian novel. Jackbooted thugs roaming the streets beating people. Troops rounding up people and putting them in concentration camps. Show trails and perhaps even mass executions. You know, it would look like Nazi Germany or Fascist Italy.
Could it look like that? Yes, of course. Would it? Probably not. First and foremost, I’d expect an authoritarian US to conduct mass surveillance on an unprecedented scale. Of course, it already does that now. But an authoritarian US would focus it much more heavily on specific groups, especially leftists. Even rank-and-file leftists.
Beyond surveillance, we have to dig a bit deeper.
Russia and China: A Better Model
If anyone wants draw an analogy, they should start with modern day Russia and China, not Nazi Germany. Russia and China closely monitor their citizens and restrict social media use. And Russia engages in targeted assassination on a semi-regular basis.
But both countries aim this stuff at dissidents. For the vast majority of people in both Russia and China, daily life looks very…normal. Especially for ‘middle class’ people. They shop at malls. They go to work, get married, raise kids, buy a car, and so on.
Both Russia and China suffer from widespread political apathy and distrust in the media. Their people often assume the media carries water for the state. But the vast majority of Russian and Chinese people aren’t afraid in their daily lives. They can do almost anything a person in the US can do. Except, of course, be a political dissident.
None of this excuses the authoritarian systems in Russia or China. I find both entirely unacceptable. My point, rather, is that if this is what authoritarianism in the US would look like – and it’s quite likely that it is – then the people working on these issues aren’t giving people the tools to know it when they see it.
Who’s At Risk?
Much of the progressive analysis operates from an identitarian – usually race–identitarian – starting point. They see members of marginalized groups as facing the greatest risk from authoritarian states.
To some extent, this happens in Russia and China. Members of certain groups – notably LGBTQ people – face harassment in Russia. And China goes after specific groups at times, notably the Uyghur. But even in Russia and China, the people who face the greatest daily risk are political dissidents, not members of specific identity groups.
I’d expect that to be even more the case in a place like the US, which has a far stronger tradition of, e.g., LGBTQ rights, than Russia or China. An authoritarian US would put political dissidents in the US at far greater risk than any identity group. I’d be very surprised to see anything in the US as bad as the Chinese persecution of the Uyghur. Rather, I’d expect to see heavy handed moves against dissident leftists: close surveillance, punitive tax audits, harsh prison terms, perhaps even targeted assassination.
Identity and Risk
Progressives say less about all this because many of them are in the grips of a theory about what authoritarianism looks like. And it’s a bad theory. Many use race as their primary lens on a topic even when race is really only a secondary factor.
For a recent example, progressive (and even leftist) analysis of the US response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine often claims that Americans are more worried about Ukraine than, e.g., Palestine, because many of the Ukrainian victims are white. While perhaps that’s a factor, it’s not the main factor. The main reason people in the US are more concerned about Ukraine is because in the Ukraine case, the invader is a US antagonist (Russia) rather than an ally (Israel). Leaving this out leads to myopic analysis.
It’s not that members of certain groups don’t face risks from an authoritarian US. They do. It’s just not the main locus of risk. Black political dissidents would likely face greater risk than white political dissidents. But political dissidents of any race would face greater risk than, e.g., black Americans who live so-called ‘normal’ lives.
The Lesson on an Authoritarian US
For me, here’s the biggest lesson. If we begin from a misleading picture of authoritarian life in 2022, we’re far less likely to know it when we see it – when it arrives in the US.
If life in the US started to look more like life in Russia or China, it wouldn’t feel authoritarian to many Americans. Due to this, they would be slow to oppose it. If they even oppose it at all. They might ‘switch off’ and embrace political apathy. After all, lots of Russian and Chinese people do just that. They move along with their lives and ignore the message from the ‘leader.’
If authoritarianism takes root in the US, there’s a good chance that’s how it will work here, too.
