Authoritarianism, the Alliance, the Resistance, and Turning the Tide
Many of us are aware of powerful forces at work moving us toward authoritarianism. When I look for the patterns, I see the prime mover is big money - a few billionaires, especially the fossil fuel tycoons. They are well aware that climate change is real and yet their public story is that it is a hoax. The reason for this contradiction is that there are trillions of dollars of reserves that they are committed to extracting. Therefore, they must deny climate change, while extracting fossil fuels. And to have an authoritarian government that they control allows them to control the whole society on every policy issue. Most importantly they believe it will allow them to control a volatile society when the full impacts of climate chaos have hit.
Big money realizes, however, that they need allies for political cover. Therefore, they have formed unholy alliances with evangelicals, white supremacists, and the NRA. This allows them to use the energy of religious fervor, bigotry, hatred, and fear to further their purposes. The role the president is playing is one of distraction by focusing attention on himself as he moves ever closer to the desired authoritarianism.
The Republican-led Congress is on board with all of this and are delivering the policies that the alliance desires - tax cuts for the superrich, an anti-climate change agenda, opening up national parks and coastal waters to fossil fuel extraction, appeasing the religious right with Jerusalem and anti-abortion legislation, and holding steady with the NRA to keep the society flooded with weapons, killings, fear, and anger.
Furthermore, the alliance is using the Russians and voter suppression tactics with the intention to disallow voting to thwart their intentions.
The majority of Americans, however, are waking up to this strategy and are being energized to resist and fight back, especially women, and youth.
What we each need to think about is how to enable this push-back to become strategic and powerful in order to turn the tide against these mistaken, dangerous forces of environmental and societal harm.
Think my friends. What do we need to do and be in this moment of crisis?