David Chico Pham writes on technology, culture, democracy and power.

It's a Saturday night. Hearts are going to shine her eyes. She can make it. She's got it. She can't lose.

Zack Beauchamp, coming back from months of looking how autocrats lose, writes a really fascinating piece in stopping fascism before it usurps democracy. Places like Brazil, South Korea, and Poland identified threats to their self-governance and democracy. They all defeated would be autocrats. But how? Autocrats deeply care about democratic facade and work very hard to appear to be democratic, including popular support.

This argument for strategic moderation raises a question: Why do would-be dictators care so much about having a pretext? If Chávez wanted to seize power, why didn’t he just do it?

Because when they do, Gamboa notes, the backlash is overwhelming. She cites, as one example, Peruvian President Pedro Castillo’s 2022 declaration of a state of emergency. The move was so obviously authoritarian that it galvanized Peruvians, and the international community, to act — leading to Castillo’s impeachment and arrest on the very same day as his attempted power grab.

Smart authoritarians, Gamboa notes, “have learned that they can avoid this kind of backlash and maintain a democratic facade by undermining democracy gradually instead.”

But if enough people see through the facade, the fact the regime is fascistic or authoritarian, making legible to mainstream, creates a weakness that an opposition party can go after.

Virtually every expert on backsliding has observed that would-be authoritarians value a democratic facade. But too few appreciate the implication: that autocrats have good reason to believe their project will fail if too many people see it as authoritarian, creating a point of vulnerability their opponents can exploit.

Beauchamp goes on to say that our modern day tyrants burn a lot calories and spend a lot time actively trying to convince their supporters that they are playing by the rules. This has important implications. If keeping up a facade is so important, that would mean that people really care about living under a democracy.

But I think the government’s success at building and maintaining a democratic facade is one of the most important factors, simply because many people genuinely care about preserving democracy.
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But the legibility of the threat matters much more than most people give it credit for, and it has played a decisive role in some of the biggest cases of democratic resilience in recent memory.

This is a must read piece and we have a chance to cancel the fascist takeover of this 250 year old republic.

They are main vehicle to which people can achieve a middle class life. From the 1950's till the 1980's America saw the biggest expansion in the middle class. Nearly half of the population was in it. It had a lot to do with unions, the power unions brought to the workplace, and earning a fair wage.

Erik Hane describes her now normal routine in monitoring ICE's movements and frustrating them whenever they are making a stop. She remarks the extraordinary courage and collective solidarity of everyday people that has happened in the last few weeks as ICE reigns it's terror onto the public:

Here is something simple and beautiful: the vast majority of the residents of this city agree. In the days since ICE murdered Renee Good, something new has happened. Everyone is activated. Ordinary people—as in, people who don’t normally think that much about politics or where they fit on an ideological spectrum—have looked up and said, “No, what ICE is doing in my city is unacceptable, and I am going to be part of the opposition.” Networks for supplies, groceries, shelter, rides, medical care, and neighborhood patrols have burst forth on the sheer strength of everyone participating.

She ends her beautiful essay with this insight: there is no other choice but to stand up to these thugs:

ICE is feverishly looking for some top-down reason this is happening. They are trying to infiltrate, but you cannot infiltrate a city’s collective character. They want to find the “orchestrators,” the “paid activists,” the political professionals scheming up the city’s response to their crimes. They won’t find any, because there are none. It’s parents worried about the safety of their daycare and schools. It’s neighbors worried about the family down the street. It’s anyone with a conscience—which is to say, it is everyone. And we are going to win.