I feel like democracy and open society are having a bad moment at the time, in part because their proponents aren't doing a good job communicating their benefits. People like me (and I'm not saying liberals or progressives or lefties, but all people who care about free elections and less state control) can say that the Republicans are driving us toward authoritarianism or fascism - and it's true - but to many/most Republicans, or to so-called independents, it just comes off as left-wing sour grapes.
What's worse is that the average Republican seems to think that authoritarian rule is a good thing, as long as it means smashing the libs. There's a certain tendency toward this on the left, too, by the way, but the difference is that no progressive or Democratic figure is trying to dismantle the administrative state, while large parts of the GOP are. But the upshot is that, whatever side of the aisle you're on, the allure of suspending democratic norms is appealing if it means stopping the other side from "ruining America".
So how does the average, right-thinking person who doesn't want to see authoritarian rule in America communicate this in terms that even the most blinkered, hang-em-all independent can appreciate?
My suggestion for the Democratic Party, and whatever Republicans out there still believe in rule of law: authoritarianism will be like being stuck in a job you hate, and that you can't quit.
What does that mean?
Think about the worst job you've ever had. Maybe it's a retail job where they change shifts on you at short notice, or where they dock your pay if you have to go to the doctor or get your car fixed. Maybe it's an office job where the management keeps an up-to-the-minute accounting of how many minutes late you arrive each morning, or how many minutes early you leave. Or the corporate job where they just expect you to work long hours, even if you get your work done on time every day.
I don't have direct experience of living under authoritarian rule, thankfully, but this is how I imagine it. Not so much jackbooted government thugs breaking down my door in the night to disappear me (although it'll come to that), but a continuous drip-drip-drip of petty and annoying legalism, arbitrary rule changes and exhortations to show team spirit (but you're the one who has to show team spirit, while those in charge are exempt).
Your employer monitors what you look at on the internet. Hell, the government already does it in your non-work life too: that is, after all, what Edward Snowden revealed back in 2013, to not much interest from the American public. But under an authoritarian government, all those things you think are private now - messages, purchases, searches - will be of great interest to someone.
In his book about the Real Madrid-Barcelona rivalry, Fear and Loathing in La Liga, Sid Lowe notes that one of the initiatives of the Franco regime was to specify how eggs should be cooked at breakfast. This seems innocuous, but it speaks to the sort of obsession with sameness that pervades both authoritarian regimes and corporate workplaces; a personal favorite of mine was one of the higher-ups at an old office saying she didn't want employees to have personal items or family photos at their workplaces, which was portrayed as a way to smarten up the office but was really just a way prepare everyone for hot desking.
One reason why shows like the Office and movies like Office Space have maintained their cult followings is because viewers recognize the petty and pointless indignities to which employers subject workers. Now, just imagine that instead of an obnoxious "fun" restaurant demanding that you have more than just 15 pieces of flair on your uniform, it's the government.
Of course, some right-wing folks think that the government is already doing that. They point to mandates like vaccines in schools, or wearing your seatbelt, as government overreach. And in fact, those initiatives are designed to limit your freedoms: your freedom to infect other potentially vulnerable populations to avoidable diseases, or your freedom to guarantee your own death and your family's if you get into a car accident.
These right-wing folks, either genuinely or in bad faith, imagine that eternal GOP (or Tory, or Bolsonaro) rule will end all these infringements of their liberties, by getting rid of the people they've been told are making fun of them. But then when those people are gone, Trump or DeSantis or Bolsonaro or Giorgia Meloni will find someone new who's mocking them, and the cycle will continue.
It might seem farfetched but there's an example of this process. The Tories in the UK aren't quite as far-right as the Republicans, but they are led by a clique with a worrying obsession for "woke culture", which they've used to demonize Labour (and sometimes with Labour's own help, as in the tin-eared response to the antisemitism crisis that swirled around the party before the 2019 election). Since taking power in 2010, the Tories have harnessed this anger against elites and "wokeness" to secede from the European Union, destroy trade with the EU and to an extent the rest of the world, drive down living standards, and oversee a culture of corruption and sleaze and impunity that goes down all the way to police officers who can rape and murder citizens without much in the way of consequences.
And the best/worst part is, the Tories have convinced the voters that all that stuff is somehow Labour's fault!
This is what we can expect when we lose democracy. Life will probably go on as normal for a lot of people, but conditions will worsen, the fires and floods and hurricanes will grow stronger, the infrastructure will crumble... but they'll tell us none of that is important, because we're free.
And we'll be grateful for the crumbs we do have, because if we aren't, well...
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