About half a million people showed up for Women's March in the country's capital on January 21 to challenge the new US president. Xinhua SIPA USA/Press Association.All rights reserved. With the curtains closed on the inauguration of the 45th president of the United States, the threat of domestic tyranny looms large. The new US president has denounced protestors and bullied opponents, mocked civil rights heroes, repeatedly threatened independent media, extolled the virtues of repressive autocrats, and appointed family members to positions of power. His business practices may already violate the Emoluments clause of the US Constitution designed to bar foreign powers from buying influence. The Congress, controlled by the president’s party, has recently revived an obscure 1876 rule that would permit the purging of disloyal civil servants.
Scholars of authoritarianism, and those who have lived through it, have cautioned against normalizing anti-democratic behaviors. In Russia, Turkey, Hungary, and elsewhere, democratically elected leaders went on to gradually but systematically gut free expression and assembly while undermining checks on executive power. Yale historian Timothy Snyder, an expert on Nazism and the holocaust, offered advice to American citizens: “do not obey in advance” (most support to authoritarianism is given freely), “recall professional ethics” (commit to just practices and take action when they have been violated) and “hinder the one-party state” (prevent parties that have taken over the state from monopolizing control by voting in local and state elections). Masha Gessen, an author of several books about Putin and Russia, insisted you should “believe the autocrat”, “don’t be taken in by small signs of normalcy” and “be outraged”. This inside-outside strategy should stand on three pillars.
Resisting authoritarian tendencies and defending an American democratic system grounded in respect for civil liberties and institutional checks and balances requires a sustained inside-outside strategy. This strategy should focus on working within legal and political institutions while organizing sustained pressure on the outside, through collective action and movement building. This inside-outside strategy should stand on three pillars:
