Authoritarianism not often storms the gates with tanks on Day One. It metastasizes by language. Name dissenters “home terrorists.” Declare a “conflict from inside.” Recast protest as invasion. As soon as that script is established, tyranny follows.
Most People lack residing reminiscence of despotism. That makes us vulnerable to dismissing the warning indicators as hyperbole. I studied the dictator playbook throughout my CNN tenure, and I distinctly recall that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s reign of terror didn’t start with barrel bombs. It started by branding Daraa schoolchildren who scrawled anti-regime graffiti “terrorists.” As soon as protest was redefined as treason, the violence that adopted grew to become, in his narrative, self-defense.
Now, Portland is not merely my residence — a metropolis of roses, meals carts and rain-slicked bike lanes — it’s a pilot program for normalizing home militarization. Helicopters drone above leafy neighborhoods, and armored autos idle close to federal buildings as a small group of protesters collect outdoors an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility. Portland has begun to resemble a home occupation and the entrance line of a conflict the president insists is already underway, even when, for now, solely figuratively.
This week, President Donald Trump instructed a room of 800 generals and admirals that America’s true enemy just isn’t overseas however right here at residence. “No different from a foreign enemy.” What was as soon as unthinkable — that American streets may function coaching grounds for troopers — Trump has now overtly proclaimed.
Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek has sued to dam the federalization of roughly 200 Oregon Nationwide Guard troops ordered to Portland to “defend federal property.” It’s wealthy, in fact, to listen to Trump deride Portland as a “war-ravaged” “Third World nation,” phrases he spits out as insults, although the script he’s following is lifted immediately from the strongmen of these very nations.
The parallels overseas are instructive. Vladimir Putin first got here to energy by an election however would go on to reshape Russia’s structure earlier than finishing up the eradication of his opponents. Recep Tayyip Erdogan was elected as a nominal democrat and a hopeful reformer but then gutted Turkey’s judiciary before unleashing troops on protesters. Each move was justified as temporary or necessary; rationalized until resistance against the state itself became criminal.
Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro was elected in 2018 and spent his time period framing his rivals as a mortal menace to the nation’s survival. It was a marketing campaign that resulted in repeated claims of electoral fraud, which spurred supporters to storm Brasília on Jan. 8, 2023. Sound acquainted? It ought to.
Some will argue America’s establishments are too robust to succumb. However Hungary’s Viktor Orban hollowed out his within a decade, and former Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez made gentle work of abolishing presidential time period limits, and reconstituting the Supreme Courtroom till loyalty, not legislation, ruled.
The swift bowing of tv networks to authorities stress over “Jimmy Kimmel Stay!” is something however benign — it ought to terrify us. I recall overlaying information of Bassem Youssef, referred to as “Egypt’s Jon Stewart,” pressured into exile after his satire crossed the regime. In America, the identical mechanics performed out: intimidation, company capitulation, then muzzling. (Kimmel got here again, not by company will, however by public demand.)
As a journalist, and a CNN “pretend information” alumnus no much less, I don’t deal with threats as abstractions. I maintain my passport inside attain and my pen prepared, as a result of the historical past of authoritarianism exhibits that those that converse and protest seldom obtain protected harbor. Democratic backsliding just isn’t a cliff. It’s a staircase. Every step feels survivable till the ground disappears.
For now, my life right here in Portland nonetheless feels blissfully bizarre. Farmers’ markets bustle, kids journey bikes and volunteers serve the unhoused, however the metropolis’s quotidian allure feels fragile underneath a gathering storm.
As we speak it’s Portland. Tomorrow it might be Seattle or Atlanta. Every federal incursion tearing fissures within the bedrock of democracy. What is definite is that authoritarianism crumbles when met with collective defiance. We should assemble, peacefully, however forcefully, on-line, in courthouses and within the streets, and we should insist that this republic will tolerate no kings.
