Authoritarianism in America: A Call for Resistanceby Henry A. GirouxAmericans have now entered into
Authoritarianism in America: A Call for Resistance
by Henry A. Giroux
Americans have now entered into one of the most sickening and dangerous periods of the 21st century. Trump is not only a twisted caricature of every register of economic, political, educational, and social extremism, he is the apogee of a warrior culture committed to rolling back civil rights, women’s reproductive rights, denying the threat of climate change, and mocking, if not threatening, all vestiges of economic justice and democracy. As David Remnick pointed out in The New Yorker, “he is nothing less than a tragedy for the American republic, a tragedy for the Constitution, and a triumph for the forces, at home and abroad, of nativism, authoritarianism, misogyny, and racism.”[1]Actually, it gets worse. Trump is the fascist shadow that has been lurking in the dark since Nixon’s Southern Strategy. A ghostly reminder of the price to be paid when historical consciousness and public values are lost in a culture of immediacy, ignorance, and a flight from social and political responsibility.
Authoritarianism has now become viral in America, spreading its toxic ideology into every facet of American life. The threat of totalitarianism with its legions of alt-right political zombies has now exposed itself, without apology, knowing full well that it no longer has to code or apologize for its hatred of all those who do not fit into its white-supremacist and ultra-nationalist script.
