The Mask Has Been Discarded: The U.S. is Free to be Authoritarian

With Trump, America can finally engage in blatant cruelty and exploitation without fear of repercussions

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This week, cronies from the Trump Administration are meeting in Saudi Arabia with representatives from Russia, all of it under the auspices of “peace talks” in Ukraine. That’s the cover story anyway. With Ukraine not even included, neither side is particularly interested in hiding the real nature of discussions, making it clear that Ukraine is a property to be split between the regimes and focusing on reconnecting politically and economically. Never mind that Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, that millions of human beings have died, and untold numbers of war crimes have been committed. There’s money to be made.

Almost exactly three years ago I wrote an article expecting just this very scenario. For all the talk of the United States and its allies proving that globalism and the “liberal world order” was prevailing, it was quite obvious where all this was heading. Yes, sanctions were handed out and would supposedly “ruin” Vladimir Putin and Russia, the thinly-veiled secret at the heart of the matter was that the global capitalist system was so saturated with Russia’s blood money that it was still pulsing through and that, as long as Putin continued his dictatorial rule over Russia, he would eventually be welcomed back into the fold. After all, what we saw was a thin, flimsy veneer. What mattered was the money.

It’s quite appropriate that this meeting took place in Saudi Arabia, America’s “ally” that has made our disease all the more apparent. Despite constant betrayals - including its roll in the 9/11 attacks, growing authoritarian violence, and rampant corruption and double-dealing - we as a nation could not be bothered to ever actually criticize them. For some, the clarifying moment came in 2018 when the Saudis murdered and dismembered American journalist Jamal Khashoggi and Trump made it clear that he didn’t care as long as their money kept flowing.

It’s a horrific thing to see and the soul repels. But what Trump did in this moment was reveal something fundamentally true about the United States. Even if a Democratic politician had been president, there still would not have been much more of a consequence than perhaps some rhetorical reprimanding. The performance would have been different, but the outcome depressingly the same.

I have said it time and again, but to be clear I’ll say it here: Trump is a symptom of a much larger disease.

You do not reach this point of open corruption and brutality without it brewing and gestating for years. Though some would paint him as an aberration, it is much more accurate to say he is the natural evolution of Neoliberal decay. For decades now, American leaders relied on authoritarian regimes around the world to brutalize their people and destroy democracy in order to exploit their resources and labor. This has been the case, in the modern era, since the end of World War II, in which we immediately welcomed Nazis into our fold in order to bolster our efforts against the Soviet Union, our ally, and since we propped up fascists in countries where we worried socialism or communism might grow. Back then, and up until now, we were at least offering a facade that we valued freedom and liberty and benevolence. What Trump offers is an unvarnished glimpse into how the system works and has worked.

Simply put, there’s no need to hide it anymore.

These offensive “peace talks” have been coupled with revelations that we are shaking down Ukraine, who has enjoyed U.S. support since the invasion, to the tune of half of their resources and wealth. It is a mind-bogglingly awful proposal that is geopolitically wrongheaded and with potential consequences the likes of which Trump and the oligarchs controlling him are either too stupid to consider, too lazy to entertain, or just simply uninterested in weighing. But there’s also something else that gets lost in these discussions: the human toll.

America’s role as the “benevolent” hegemon has been a self-destructive spree creating a whole host of consequences ranging from the aforementioned 9/11 attacks to basically every major crisis we’re facing now. And to examine those decisions is often to sort through the calculations of a world power and the geopolitical blowback. But what it has done to living, breathing human beings is left by the wayside out of pure necessity. And that type of mentality, which fuels authoritarianism and gives it room to breathe and grow and seize power, is not limited to the Republican Party, Donald Trump, or the Right. It is the standard operating procedure of the ruling elite.

It’s there in decisions in the workplace, where layoffs and austerity are weapons to pump profits without consideration of what it does to workers, their families, or their communities. It’s in the entire economy, where predatory capital gobbles up assets and milks them dry before destroying them, never considering what happens to the people and cities hidden by the excess profit. It’s there as Elon Musk’s little monsters carry out a coup and chew on the administrative state and cut and demolish without so much as a thought as to what they’re doing exists beyond Washington, D.C. and their own bank accounts.

The difference now is the lack of a need to hide it anymore. The effects of decades of this has left us a broken society in which we, as individuals, exist in an increasingly precarious environment. Our jobs are getting worse. We’re being exploited more. We’re turned against one another and sociopathic behavior is rewarded as the process continues. Meanwhile, we have benefited from the worldwide exploitation. While people around the world toil in slave labor and endure incredible abuses, we’ve been bought off by distance and access to cheap goods and the semblance of superiority. Democratic politicians put a good spin on it, telling us about “American values” and how “growth lifts us all.” We’ve listened and we’ve deluded ourselves into thinking this was true and that the Republican Party and Trump and the wealth class behind them could be defeated and all would fine.

Living in that Neoliberal environment twisted everything over time, to the point that we heard politicians and media members and then our own families and coworkers coming around to some of the most batshit and awful things you could ever imagine. Suddenly, Trump discussing taking over Canada or building concentration camps for immigrants and people on SSRIs was something “normal.”

This article by Peter Baker in The New York Times is a fine example. You’ve all consumed punditry like this, likely when you turned on Meet the Press or cable news. Those doses of “Beltway Talk” made it clear, and probably disgusted you, that those in proximity to power were prone to viewing politics as a game to win regardless of whether the winning actually helped anyone besides the wealthy. Here, Baker muses that subjugating a country of 40 million people, a country that has existed since 1867, would be a “political win” for the Democratic Party.

If you squint, just a little, it might sound familiar to how our media and politicians treated the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003, a crime that cost, by conservative estimates, over two hundred thousand people their lives. This, of course, was just part of the so-called “Global War on Terror,” a historical act of aggression that killed over 4 million human beings, drove over 38 million people from their homes, and created political conditions that caused untold and unfathomable harm and suffering. And why? Because it served the wealth class and global capitalism’s interests.

What Trump offers is permission. Permission to not feel bad about it anymore. To let go of the niggling guilt and shame associated with living in the United States of America. He has dispelled any notions of greater purpose or rhetoric tied to benevolence. All that is left now is pure, unadulterated greed and brutality. His rise was an invitation to a bender at the end of the party. Moving from Joe Biden back to Trump was rejecting the notion that liberals had to tie themselves into knots to make the guilt regarding atrocities like the genocide in Gaza and embrace, without reservations, open and unabashed ethnic cleansing so that some luxury hotels could be built and some beaks could get wet.

Is it stupid? Sure.

Is it grotesque? Absolutely.

But the continued American imperial project required moving away from the dressings of decency and the embrace of fascistic reality. This has been the case with all authoritarian descents, the discarding of any pretense of decency and replacing it with authoritarian shitheads who started saying the quiet part loud. It’s freeing for many as they loose the restraints and are unburdened by guilty consciences and motivated by the prospect of wealth and power at any cost.

This battle is far from over, but to win it and have something resembling a decent future we are going to have to wrestle with these realities. We are facing an oligarchical coup. A growing class war. And we can’t rely on the institutions or politicians that created this mess and fostered it to save us. Collective action is the only way forward. And that collective action is going to have to be built on a rejection of this zero-sum political game.

Resources

• What the Hell is Going On: Here is an explainer regarding our present circumstances for anyone who has had a feeling that the traditional Democrat / Republican / Red / Blue narrative was hiding something. Here, we go through the problems in the United States and how the wealth class has effectively put itself in a position to totally takeover our government.

• The Oligarchical Order: A primer on how to give up conventional and failed political understandings in favor of seeing how capitalism directs the course of events and where it is leading and what to expect.

• Authoritarianism and the Crisis of Meaning: Here we get into how consumerism represents an addictive drug that has hollowed out our sense of purpose, leaving us to take this as a moment of self-reflection, recognize that we have effectively been made to hate and doubt ourselves, thereby keeping us from realizing we deserve better.

• A Thoroughly Confused Country: Americans have little in the way of class consciousness, which was an intentional state desired by the wealth class. This primer gets into the class makeup of the United States, including contradictions and motivations, that will be crucial in understanding as we do our work.

• Authoritarianism as Clarity: As authoritarians take power, the world becomes a lot clearer. We can see who we can trust and who we shouldn’t. This episode gets into the history of Vichy France and the lessons we can learn on how to operate as individuals within an authoritarian environment.

• Fostering Hope in Hard Times: Some thoughts on how to maintain hope as authoritarianism sweeps in.

• Understanding the Enemy: A guide through the evolution of capitalism from free markets to its current evolving form - oligarchical authoritarianism, as well as insights into how our politics has made this change happen and moments in which the evolution has been curbed.

• Get Ready: Preparing for the incoming ICE / federal immigration raids with resources for immigrants and allies.

• They're Trying to Crush You: I discuss the emotional toll of the beginning onslaught of the Trump Administration and how it is a strategy for demoralizing us before we can begin resisting.

• A Coup in Plain Sight: An explainer detailing what is happening with Musk, DOGE, and the takeover of the government.