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AmBlue

(3,079 posts)
Mon Aug 31, 2020, 10:38 AM Aug 2020

"America is Dying." [View all]

We Don’t Know How to Warn You Any Harder. America is Dying.
We Survivors of Authoritarianism Have a Message America Needs to Hear: This is Exactly How it Happens, and It’s Happening Here.

umair haque
Aug 29

Right about now, something terrible is happening in America. Society is one tiny step away from the final collapse of democracy, at the hands of a true authoritarian, and his fanatics. Meanwhile, America’s silent majority is still slumbering at the depth and gravity of the threat.

I know that strikes many of you as somehow wrong. So let me challenge you for a moment. How much experience do you really have with authoritarianism? Any? If you’re a “real” American, you have precisely none.

Take it from us survivors and scholars of authoritarianism.
This is exactly how it happens. The situation could not — could not — be any worse. The odds are now very much against American democracy surviving.

We survivors of authoritarianism have a terrible, terrible foreboding, because we are experiencing something we should never do: deja vu. Our parents fled from collapsing societies to America. And here, now, in a grim and eerie repeat of history, we see the scenes of our childhoods played out all over again. Only now, in the land that we came to. We see the stories our parents recounted to us happening before our eyes, only this time, in the place they brought us to, to escape from all those horrors, abuses, and depredations.

We survivors are experiencing this terrible feeling of deja vu right now as a group, as a class. We talk about it, how eerie and grim this sense of deja vu is. It’s happening all over again! Do you remember this part of your childhood? When the armed men roamed the streets? When the secret police disappeared opponents? When the fascist masses united — and that was enough to destroy democracy for good? We talk about it, believe me — but you don’t hear it because we have no real voice. America’s pundits are named Chris and Jake and Tucker. They are not named Eduardo and Ravi and Xiao and Umair. But Chris and Jake and Tucker can’t help you now. They don’t know what the hell they’re dealing with. They literally have no idea because they have no experience whatsoever.

The only people who do right now in America are us survivors. Let me remind you, by the way, what happens we speak out: we lose whatever credibility and status we have. The moment I began to warn of this, I lost my column in HBR, my cable news appearances, and so forth. Don’t cry for me. Understand me, my friend, know me. If we had a voice, we survivors, we would be warning you as loudly and strongly as we possibly could.

All of us. We would say:

This is not a joke. This is not a drill.

Much more at the link:
https://eand.co/we-dont-know-how-to-warn-you-any-harder-america-is-dying-26ff80912391

***
PLEASE share far and wide. America needs to SNAP OUT OF IT!!!
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"America is Dying." [View all] AmBlue Aug 2020 OP
K&R for visibility. secondwind Aug 2020 #1
GMTA, lol Celerity Aug 2020 #3
K & R for visibility Celerity Aug 2020 #2
I don't have the experience they have, but I absolutely agree with what they're saying. Jim__ Aug 2020 #4
+1 Most dangerous time since the Civil War as one noted appalachiablue Aug 2020 #13
I wish warnings like this were just "blowin' smoke"... calimary Aug 2020 #5
Indeed. AmBlue Aug 2020 #6
Well... OldBaldy1701E Aug 2020 #8
even on this very forum, majority are blinded by optimism citing polling AlexSFCA Aug 2020 #7
Unfortunately, the WH always hides behind the veil of "SECRECY" ... aggiesal Aug 2020 #9
Forgive me... OldBaldy1701E Aug 2020 #10
So DownriverDem Aug 2020 #16
that's what I'd like to hear from people smarter than I am AlexSFCA Aug 2020 #20
We are failing because.... AmBlue Aug 2020 #21
We have experience... OldBaldy1701E Sep 2020 #24
Okay... OldBaldy1701E Sep 2020 #23
K & R mountain grammy Aug 2020 #11
K & R LiberalLovinLug Aug 2020 #12
Read this. matt819 Aug 2020 #14
YES!!! AND SHARE EVERYWHERE PLEASE AmBlue Aug 2020 #17
Entire piece excellent - MUST READ! cp Aug 2020 #15
finally, this, big time llashram Aug 2020 #18
America is dying in almost every category Roc2020 Aug 2020 #19
we are the end, not the beginning of the end, of our democracy AlexSFCA Aug 2020 #22
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