The Rise of Authoritarianism

          One great mystery Americans almost universally fail to comprehend is how ordinary Germans could have welcomed a monster like Adolf Hitler with open arms. Looking back through the uncompromising lens of history it seems impossible to mistake the nascent evil in the young Hitler, his eyes frighteningly intense pools of virulent anti-Semitism and even deeper psychosis. That mystery is especially hard to understand when Hitler’s autobiography, Mein Kampf, laid out his plans for transforming German society into one based on “race” by means of genocide. But how, we ask, how could the average German have possibly missed that message and failed to recognize the danger they were in. Let’s take a closer look at exactly how that happened.

          If we examine several of Hitler’s most important actions we can see how he relied on the complacency and indifference of the German public while using fears over national security to consolidate what quickly became an increasingly authoritarian regime. Hitler claimed the power to decide whether a person would receive a trial in German federal court or in a military tribunal. Hitler claimed the extrajudicial right to order the killing of any German citizen considered a terrorist or an abettor of terrorism against the German state. Hitler used legislation approved by the German parliament to order warrantless surveillance, including a capability to force companies and organizations to turn over information on German citizens’ finances, communications, and associations, including a wide range of data from business transactions to library records, even though those citizens were not formally accused of crimes.

          Hitler’s government routinely used secret evidence to detain individuals and employed secret testimony in German federal and military courts, allowing the government to claim secret legal arguments to support secret proceedings using secret evidence in front of secret courts. Hitler’s government also claimed the right to transfer both German citizens and noncitizens to other countries for information-gathering purposes under a system that today is known as extraordinary rendition. When Hitler’s administration was inundated by petitions from other governments to prosecute the German intelligence agency operatives responsible for torturing enemy suspects, Hitler refused to allow those agents to be prosecuted or even investigated for illegal actions. Hitler’s administration used surveillance devices to secretly monitor the movements of targeted German citizens without court order or review or without the citizens being charged with an offense, being suspected was sufficient justification. Hitler also encouraged and signed into law legislation that allowed the indefinite detention of German citizens without trial if they were suspected of involvement in terrorist activities.

          Now, take a brief moment to re-read the above two paragraphs. But, as you do, I want you to substitute the words President Obama and American for Hitler and German because every single point made in those paragraphs is about actions taken by President Barack Obama, his Administration, and Congress.

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          Many people who reflect on the nature of politics realize that democratic governments often contain powerful elements of authoritarianism and may over time become even more authoritarian, blurring the distinction between liberal democracies and procedural democracies — which are countries that lack or limit the more democratic features that characterize liberal democracies, such as the freedoms of speech and press, habeas corpus, the rule of law, and an independent judiciary. When asked to identify authoritarian regimes, most Americans would not hesitate to point to countries like China, Myanmar, Syria, or Iran.

          The reality is that authoritarian nations can be defined not only by their use of repression to control their citizens but also by enacting legal mechanisms that permit the use of those powers. If a president has the legal right to deprive citizens of their freedom or their lives solely on his own authority without the requirement of judicial review, all rights become subject to the will of the executive branch because no greater right exists than that of life itself. And that situation is exactly what we have today in the U.S., though the far greater majority of Americans either do not know the details of their country’s authoritarianism or would likely deny the implications even if they did know. Remember the role complacency, indifference, and fear played in German acceptance of Hitler? Make no mistake, I’m not trying to argue that Barack Obama is anything like Adolf Hitler. I am, however, illustrating how authoritarianism slowly and subtly becomes part of a nation’s legal system in response to external and internal stress that is typically equated to national security issues.

          Of course, authoritarianism in the U.S. is not a new challenge. Several examples are provided to illustrate that reality. First, in 1861, at the beginning of the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus. Although the U.S. Circuit Court in Ex Parte Merryman ruled against Lincoln (the decision was led by Roger B. Taney, Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court), the President ignored the ruling, citing national security as his reason. Second, the infamous Palmer Raids against political radicals were conducted in November 1919 and January 1920 by U.S. Attorney General Alexander Mitchell Palmer and J. Edgar Hoover for national security considerations. Those raids involved more than 10,000 arrests and seizures, a great many without valid search or arrest warrants and often involved illegal entrapment by agent provocateurs and unlawful incommunicado detention. Of the 10,000 people arrested in those raids, only slightly more than 500 foreign nationals were deported by the U.S. government, a success rate of five percent. Third, on February 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, authorizing the forcible relocation and internment more than 110,000 Japanese-American citizens for national security reasons without a single shred of evidence that those citizens were guilty of anything other than having Japanese heritage. And fourth, few Americans are unaware of how Senator Joseph McCarthy and the House Committee on Un-American Activities persecuted individuals for actions protected by the U.S. Constitution because of concerns that the nation’s security was in danger of being breached by American citizens who were political radicals.

          That America has moved to the anti-democratic right in institutionalizing a culture of surveillance and control that has resulted in the loss of individual freedom is undeniable, except by right-wing extremists or those blatantly ignorant of American history. The “war” of terror is almost always the excuse given for today’s excesses. For example, in April 2011, Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) told CBS's Bob Schieffer in an interview on Face the Nation that “Free speech is a great idea, but we’re in a war.” Of course, that’s a “war” without a country as an opponent, which means no entity exists to surrender and end this particular conflict. So, the legal measures enacted to fight the “war” that curtail the rights of American citizens have a better than decent chance of becoming part and parcel of the American system, in this case an increasingly authoritarian system that diminishes our democracy and our individual rights as citizens to be free from an increasingly predatory government. Thanks to a man who is a Constitutional scholar. And, no, I haven’t forgotten that George W. Bush initiated most of the excesses and that the U.S. Congress voted those bills into legislation.

          In reality, the typical citizen of nations that are liberal democracies, like that of the U.S., is more concerned with getting on with her or his life than in protesting what appear to be inconsequential and minor legal changes that are difficult to see as overt abuses of individual freedom. After all, those average citizens aren’t guilty of crimes so why should they oppose terrorists being aggressively identified, caught, and punished by the government? Most people view each individual authoritarian measure enacted in Washington as temporary and necessary. At the most, those repressive measures are regarded as slight inconveniences in which certain minor freedoms are temporarily exchanged for reassuring promises of national security. But, as the “war” progresses and fear and uncertainty continue and even increase, people are encouraged by heightened appeals to national security by their leaders to accept increasing losses of personal freedom without complaint or even notice.

          That’s exactly where we are today, living in a country whose government has intentionally curtailed the rights of citizens while actively limiting the avenues for legal recourse by those citizens. At the same time, the far greater majority of Americans are complaisant about and indifferent to their loss of freedom. They sit back and refuse to even consider the significance of what our government has done. If you look around, all you will see are the same good citizens who were convinced Adolf Hitler was Germany’s salvation.

          If you understand the roles complacency, indifference, and fear of being attacked play with the general public, you will understand how America has become an authoritarian, anti-democratic power. However, the road to modern authoritarianism has been paved not with brown-shirted thugs marching in the streets waving swastika flags and screaming despicable anti-Semitic slogans but with ordinary Americans waving the Stars and Stripes while piously reciting the Pledge of Allegiance with patriotic hands over hearts.

          George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and the Congress have systematically used the “war” on terror to reduce the freedom of every American and thus subvert democracy from within. To our shame, we have gone along with it without more than a whimper of protest. Bush and Obama used their presidential powers to build the increasingly authoritarian regime that is now in place and our gutless Congress went along willingly. Despite its friendly, familiar American face, the result is an authoritarian government grounded in the general public’s fear of being attacked.

          All Americans should be familiar with a chilling statement Reichsmarschall Herman Göring made in 1946 during the Nuremberg War Crimes trials to Gustave Gilbert, the U.S. Military’s Chief Psychologist.

The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.

          What Obama, Bush, and the Congress have done to the U.S., well-intentioned or not, is morally reprehensible and must be reversed. If we want this country to actually be a Land of the Free, it’s time for all Americans to wake up, recognize the dangers we face from within, and work hard to implement substantive change. Being free requires sustained effort, not complacency or indifference.
          In the past decade, dissent against authoritarian acts by the American government has been increasingly coupled by conservatives with a lack of patriotism and even treason. But being free requires sustained effort, not complacency or indifference. Being free requires us to speak out against the actions of our leaders and governments that we think are authoritarian and reduce our Constitutional freedoms. Dissenting is our duty as citizens.