How *not* to look away
Cruelty is central to the authoritarian playbook
Every day the cruelty feels more intentional. Now the acting ICE director speaks of wanting to build a deportation system “like [Amazon] Prime, but with human beings.” The Social Security Administration is trying to get legal immigrants to “self-deport” by classifying them as if they had died, thereby cutting them off from banking services. Migrants with no criminal records are indefinitely detained in a brutal, third-country prison camp in El Salvador on the U.S. government’s behalf (and dime). All the while, the administration produces reality-TV-esque content glamorizing the crackdowns.
It’s not just in immigration — there’s deliberate, brazen cruelty in the White House’s approach to trans rights and civil service purges and spending freezes and attacks on students and universities and so much else.
For many of us, confronting all this cruelty can feel paralyzing. (At least, I know I sometimes feel paralyzed by it. But I suspect you feel the same.)
But we cannot afford to look away. Yes, the cruelty is the point of Trumpism. But it goes beyond just politics. For the authoritarian faction, in this country as in others, cruelty is both strategic and useful. Authoritarians consolidate power by scapegoating vulnerable groups, stoking fear and hate, and eroding our collective civility and respect for others.
Just as importantly, though, we are not powerless against these tactics. Scapegoating can be confronted head-on. Cruelty can be overcome.
Cruelty and dehumanization are central to autocratic movements everywhere
Modern liberal democracy is built on pluralism: the idea that different groups of people can coexist in civic spaces in spite of ideological, religious, gender, economic, ethnic, cultural, social, and political differences.
It’s why democracy means more than just “what the majority says, goes.” It’s why we have rights in addition to duties and privileges; it’s why the law and the Constitution constrain those in power. Pluralism is simply a recognition that, sooner or later, in one form or another, all of us could end up in the minority. So we are all better off if the rights and dignity of all are protected.
That’s why, in essentially every global context, autocrats seek to destroy pluralism through cruelty. If a leader can convince a majority of the population to accept dehumanizing tactics — seeing the people targeted as less-than-human — they can erase the basic human dignity that justifies the restraints on their power.
In other words, if they can make us all see other human beings as less-than human, we’re all more likely to sacrifice our own human rights and freedoms on the altar of strongman rule.
There’s also, to be frank, an element of cynical political math here. As Jennifer Dresden, Aaron Baird, and I wrote in The Authoritarian Playbook:
[Scapegoating] allows autocrats to claim a broad mandate after coming to power with only plurality support. Authoritarian parties in Hungary and Poland — while ascending to power with only plurality support — have demonized immigrants and used claims of representing “the real Poles” or “the real Hungarians” as ways of establishing a more legitimate popular mandate.
In India, Narendra Modi weaponized anti-Muslim politics to consolidate a Hindu-nationalist movement. China’s scapegoating of the Uyghurs has different origins but similar effects. It’s no accident that the same military leaders who extinguished democracy in Myanmar have simultaneously committed acts of genocide against the minority Rohingya.
How to talk about the cruelty
So how can we confront dehumanizing tactics in our own country in a way that overcomes, not feeds, the division? Four tips.
First, lead with humanity. Look at the three targets of Trump’s dehumanizing immigration tactics whose individual stories broke through the noise. Kilmar Ábrego García, Andry Hernández Romero, and Neri José Alvarado Borges. Ábrego because he’s raising three children with special needs, Hernández because he’s a gay makeup artist with a passion for costume design, Alvarado because he was seemingly detained for an autism awareness tattoo in honor of his younger brother.
Their stories resonated with the American people not just because of the horror and lawlessness of their treatment (although they certainly have been mistreated). Their stories spread because of their humanity — the relatable-ness of their lives, dreams, and struggles.
None of this is to say that humans only deserve dignity when their stories are touching or familiar. Obviously not. But finding touch points of common humanity can help bridge the dehumanization gap that autocrats attempt to widen.
Second, explain why it’s a tactic. Communicate clearly what the autocratic faction is hoping to accomplish with cruelty and scapegoating. When you point out what they’re doing, how they’re clearly trying to manipulate the electorate through fear and division and hate, it helps lessen the effectiveness.
I find it particularly useful to explain all this through parallel examples of authoritarianism around the world. When our gaze ends at our borders, the cruelty is disorienting — but presented in context of obvious global patterns? Well, at least then it feels easier to get our heads around what’s happening.
Third, don’t accept or repeat divisive frames. There’s always a cover story for the cruelty: that the White House’s targets deserve cruel treatment because they are traitors or criminals or deviants or pedophiles or support terrorism or are otherwise a threat. Even just repeating unfounded allegations so as to rebut them helps reinforce the cover story. We’re all used to giving credence to official claims, but let’s be clear: Just because the government alleges a target is a criminal or an antisemite does not make it true. (Trust me: If there were evidence, this government would be happily trumpeting it.)
At times, the cover story for cruelty can be really subtle — that it’s simply a reflection of concerns over fairness or the rule of law, maybe. But even if there’s a good-faith debate that could be had over some related issue, that conversation is totally separate from weaponized cruelty. Don’t accept the cover story.
Finally, don’t give up hope and highlight successful efforts to resist cruelty. In addition to division, dehumanizing tactics and rhetoric also seek to intimidate potential opposition. Trump encourages anticipatory obedience and scares opponents away from pushing back. Dehumanization is a shock-and-awe tactic. It relies on an illusion of strength.
The reality is less daunting. For instance, pressure can still work to bring people home, as Adrian Carrasquillo writes: The secret weakness of Trump’s deportations.
In spite of the deluge of bad news about immigration, I was reminded this week that, as a retired farm laborer once put it to legendary Chicago journalist and radioman Studs Terkel, “hope dies last.” Specifically: No matter how far-reaching and unstoppable President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement crackdown seems, his administration is still vulnerable to pressure campaigns to release sympathetic immigrants.
Consider the case of a family that was recently detained in Sackets Harbor, a village in upstate New York. A mother and her three children were taken off a dairy farm and sent to a detention center 1,875 miles away in Texas. Local teacher Jonna St. Croix told NBC News that the two older children are students in her classes; she described them as polite and enthusiastic, and added that she gives them a snack when they ask for one. The principal of the children’s school, Jamie Cook, said “this is a carpool town,” and she has driven the kids to and from tutoring.
The community knew this family. And they didn’t take the news about them sitting down.
After sustained local protests, the family was released. The effort to scapegoat a vulnerable group, in this instance (like in many others), failed because their community refused to accept it.
Humanity can still win over cruelty.
What else we’re tracking:
Another dangerous red line crossed: Donald Trump ordered the Justice Department to investigate Miles Taylor and Chris Krebs, two former officials from his first term, for their statements and activities he disagreed with. He accused Taylor of “treason.” Profoundly chilling (likely on purpose — I suspect this is just as much intended as a signal to current government officials as it is retaliation against Taylor and Krebs.)
Fighting back works: The GOP-controlled House Education Committee targeted a law clinic at Northwestern University for representing disfavored clients. The clinic sued, and the committee immediately backed off. (Maybe a lesson for law firms, an ever-larger number of which are standing up against attacks.)
This editorial from The Dispatch on American decline and the intellectual and literal corruption of the American right under Trumpism is worth your time: Slouching towards tyranny.
Trump continued his attacks on higher education, this time targeting Cornell and Northwestern for funding freezes. Again, the choices are pretty much either collective action or individual destruction.
Frightening and timely analysis from Paul Rosenzweig: Trump is already undermining the next election.
Speaking of: The House narrowly passed the SAVE Act, which, if also passed by the Senate, would impose immediate, costly, and unworkable commands on voters and on state and local election administrators — all in response to a phantom threat.
This is why dictatorships fail — Anne Applebaum explains why arbitrary, absolute power on things like tariffs is so bad for the economy (and much more).
A new global study of democratic backsliding and resilience offers ways to resist authoritarian attacks, write Jennifer McCoy, Rachel Beatty Riedl, Kenneth Roberts, and Murat Somer in Good Authority.
What you can do to help:
Here’s Anna Dorman’s tip of the week:
If you’ve never written a letter to the editor of your local paper, give it a try. It’s a great way to speak out — especially if making calls or knocking doors isn’t your thing. Highlight issues you care about, show support for vulnerable community members, and shine a light on the local impact of administration abuses. If you’re nervous, co-write with a friend or a local community group! Here’s a good toolkit with everything you need to know. Make sure you also share it with your network (both online and off).
A few days ago I saw a bullet list of conditions in the El Salvador prisons. I want to use it as a rebuttal to someone who claims that prison "isn't anything like the Nazi camps" but i can't find it. Can anyone help?