Choosing Autocracy: What Do We Lose?

“What’s all this talk of threats to democracy about?  Why should I care?  Elections don’t mean anything.  Elected officials work for the wealthy, not me.  Racism against people like me is everywhere and our so-called democracy does nothing about it.  Irresponsible people ignore God, engage in perverse relationships and dispose of inconvenient unborn children as just so much garbage, undeterred by a government that hypocritically uses ‘In God We Trust’ as a motto.  

I obey the law and work hard.  I want the government to worry less about democracy and more about inflation, the cost of living, the right to life, and America first.  We don’t need ineffective democracy.  Instead, we need a strong leader who fights for us for a change and who has the power to do that.”

Many Americans feel this way.  We have all experienced enduring anxiety from living in a troubled nation since 2001.  The 9/11 attacks, two failed wars, economic upheaval in 2008-2009, climate change, the COVID-19 pandemic, increasingly frequent mass shootings including those in schools, and a nearly successful attempt to overthrow our constitutional republic, to be replaced by a harsh autocracy are just the most significant crises that we have endured for over twenty years.  Further, many of the leaders whom we elect to address these problems appear to be more interested in personal wealth, cable news exposure, and social media “likes”.

It is no wonder that many Americans want to dump democracy and find a strong man to protect us and advance our interests in the world.  This kind of political change, after all, has occurred throughout history.  As far back as the first century, the ancient Romans gave up their constitutional republic, including their right to elect their leaders, for the autocracy of an Emperor.  In the nineteenth century, French revolutionaries gave up their hard-fought freedom and rights for the dictatorship of Napoleon.  In the twentieth century, Italians and Germans did the same thing, opting for fascism and national socialism respectively.

The failure of democracy and the rise of autocracy has also happened closer to home.  In North, Central, and South America; every state (except Canada) adopted on independence a constitution modeled on that of the United States.  Every one of them, except the United States, has experienced at least one failure of democracy and descent into autocracy.  The United States is the exception, not the rule.  For how much longer will the United States remain the exception?  In the current political environment, perhaps not long.

But what are the consequences of democracy’s surrender to autocracy?  The answer is simple.  One has only to look at what has happened to every state that has become an autocracy.  

Let’s look at some examples, many of which are already happening in the United States:

1. The right to vote has been take away or rendered irrelevant.

a. In many states, authoritarian legislatures and governors are seeking to eliminate easy access voting alternatives.  These initiatives include curbing or eliminating the use of absentee and mail-in voting, early voting, and access to drop boxes which make it easier to submit votes.

b. Elimination of these alternatives would make it more difficult for working people and those without any childcare choices to vote.  These groups include not only lower income Caucasian people but also a disproportionate number of African Americans and Hispanics.  These initiatives represent a return to some of the most effective Jim Crow laws, practiced to keep African Americans away from the ballot box.

2. Freedom of speech is lost as people are subjected to government surveillance and persecution for unwanted beliefs and opinions.  Public protest of the government is outlawed.

a. When Richard Nixon was President, dissent was closely monitored by the FBI and other law enforcement agencies using telephone taps and other technologies and techniques available at the time.

b. Today, the government can gain access to private communications and information sharing on social media websites such as Facebook, Instagram, X, and Tik-Tok.  Cellphone communications can also be easily monitored.  Federal and state law enforcement often monitor communications of those suspected of planning terrorist and other violent attacks, normally with the authority of a judicial warrant.  It would be very easy, however, for an authoritarian leader to expand the definition of illegal communications, expand monitoring, disregard judicial oversight and persecute those whose communications the leader doesn’t like.  Nixon did it but he had nothing like the access to private communications that an authoritarian would have today.

3. Freedom of the press is lost as the government takes control of or shuts down news outlets in order to limit news to government-approved propaganda.

a. In Nazi Germany, no news outlet could operate unless it became a member of the Reich Press Chamber, led by the government minister of propaganda, Dr. Joseph Goebbels.  This gave Goebbels complete control of the press.  Daily, heads of the news outlets would meet in the Propaganda Ministry to receive instructions on what to report on.  Needless to say, robust press oversight of the government was eliminated while the sole source of information was the government.  Listening to foreign news outlets such as the BBC was illegal making those who broke the law liable to arrest and imprisonment.

b. American authoritarians are, today, planning for a similar program if they are given power.  In the United States, the government owns the “airwaves”, making it easy to shutdown broadcast news sources.  Social media websites could easily be shutdown or taken under government control.  Traditional newspapers and news magazines could be driven out of business by making it illegal to read them and, thus, depriving them of income.

c. One has only to look at the impact of biased media to assess the possible impact of restrictions on news dissemination.  Voluntarily, millions of Americans have restricted themselves to news that supports their own biases.  This has left them unwilling, even unable, to consider other points of view.  Authoritarian control of the news media would produce this outcome in a great majority of the population.

4. Freedom of choice stemming from reproductive health and sexual orientation is lost as the government imposes norms based upon arbitrary legal or religious traditions embraced by the ruler and his party.

a. In Ohio, a ballot initiative was recently passed to amend the state’s constitution to guarantee a woman’s right to make her own health and healthcare choices.  Opponents first sought to change the requirement to pass such an amendment to a supermajority of 60% of those voting, up from 50%.  When this failed and the amendment passed by a 13.2% margin, the authoritarian state legislature, with a majority which opposes the amendment is now researching how to pass legislation giving themselves the power to decide when and if the amendment will be enforced.  This would effectively make the will of the voters irrelevant as well as diminish the rights of women to make their own health and healthcare choices.

5. Equality under the law is undermined as the government decides who constitutes the privileged elite and who deserves to be marginalized.  Racism and misogyny become norms.  Police powers are expanded to harass and terrorize the population to coerce them into compliance.

a. Authoritarians are resorting to hate speech and violence to divide people and motivate them to commit acts of violence.   Former President Trump has embraced this rhetoric and inspired his followers to commit acts of violence against the constitutional republic and then, without evidence, blamed anti-racism groups such as ANTIFA.  Like Hitler, he has called his political opponents vermin and advocated their extra-legal incarceration.  He has dehumanized women, judging them by their appearance, diminishing those whom he does not find sexually attractive, and taking pride in the sexual assaults by which he appears to define his manhood.

b. Trump has promised to do even more if reelected.  Like Hitler in his political manifesto Mein Kampf, Trump is telling us exactly what he will do if reelected and what he will do mirrors Nazi racial and gender policies and practices.

6. The economy suffers as it no longer functions as a free enterprise that creates wealth and becomes a servant of the autocrat.  Jobs are lost, collective bargaining is outlawed, and people become poorer.

a. History clearly demonstrates that the states that have had the most stable and enduring healthy economies have been liberal democracies.  The United Kingdom and the United States are the foremost examples.  In the case of the latter, the United States recovered quickly and reduced the adverse economic impact of the global pandemic.  This is because, in part, the United States exercises limited control over free enterprise.

b. Autocracies always exercise greater control, often to enrich leaders or to advance their political agendas.  This is true in China where state agencies, particularly the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), own the means of production and supply and profit directly from them.  China’s current economic uncertainty results from the inflexibility of government-controlled economy to respond to change.  In Russia, it is President Putin and a group of oligarchs who are unquestioningly loyal to Putin, who control the economy, milking profit centers to enrich themselves.

These forms of oppression have been practiced in every autocracy.  We are beginning to see them practiced in the United States.

“But,” you might say, “that’s a good thing.  Much of what the autocrats want is what I want.  They want to bring America back to the great society we once had and what made us great.  Those who love ‘democracy’ just want to destroy this country.”  Autocracies care nothing about political philosophy, however, they only care about power.  For example, one day, the autocratic government will conclude that too many people who oppose it own firearms.  The government, which has already made violation of the Bill of Rights a norm, decides to disregard the Second Amendment, confiscate guns, and limit firearms ownership to those who support the government.  No autocracy would give all its citizens the power to overthrow the government.  And another, dearly held, right bites the dust at the hands of an autocrat who would never think of sharing power with an armed citizenry.

The bottom line is that democracies, imperfect as they are, try to work in the interests of their people while protecting their civil rights.  Autocracies work in their own interests, ignoring the people and depriving them of their rights in a never-ending quest for power.  Which will you choose?