Authoritanism

Trump Sets Military Against Civilians; Service Members Have Duty To Disobey

June 12, 2025 Marjorie Cohn, Truthout. Resist! Authoritanism, California, Donald Trump, Gavin Newsom, ICE, Los Angeles, National Guard, US military

Four and a half months after his inauguration, Donald Trump is exercising his authoritarian chops, targeting immigrants in the state he most despises — California. Making good on Trump’s nativist pledge to deport millions of undocumented immigrants, agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Department of Homeland Security started conducting widespread raids outside workplaces in Los Angeles. They began on June 6, with no prior notification to the California governor, L.A. mayor or local law enforcement.

DHS Chief Calls For Military Arrests In Los Angeles Protests

June 12, 2025 Julia Conley, Consortium News. Educate! Authoritanism, DHS, DoD, ICE, Kristi Noem, Los Angeles, Police, Wars and Militarism

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem appeared to take a step toward circumventing federal laws that bar the military from taking part in domestic law enforcement in a letter she sent to the Department of Defense Sunday as the National Guard was deployed to Los Angeles amid mass protests over immigration raids. In a letter obtained by The San Francisco Chronicle, Noem wrote to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that the Pentagon should direct military forces “to either detain, just as they would at any federal facility guarded by military, lawbreakers under Title 18 until they can be arrested and processed by federal law enforcement, or arrest them.” The Posse Comitatus Act prohibits the military from taking part in domestic law enforcement without the authorization of Congress.

ICE Now Expanding Into Local Law Enforcement

June 10, 2025 Marc Cooper, The Coop Scoop. Strategize! Authoritanism, Donald Trump, ICE, Police, Repression

Trump’s violent ICE agency is about to escalate its war against any or all “illegals” in a dramatic fashion while engaging local law enforcement in its repression. And this should come as no surprise to us. Every authoritarian regime in recent history has formed its own elite corps of feared special police and/or military units to suppress dissent and act as the spearhead of state repression. The Revolutionary Guard and the Morality Police in Iran. The GRU and the Spetsnaz in Russia. Saddam Hussein’s Republican Guard. The GOPE in Mexico. DINA in Chile. The AAA and the Federal Police during the Argentine dictatorship were inseparable from the horrific death squads. And, of course, the SS in Nazi Germany.

Western Nations Join The United States In Repressing Dissent

April 19, 2025 Margaret Kimberley, Black Agenda Report. Educate! Abrego Garcia, Authoritanism, Censorship, Donald Trump, El Salvador, Journalism, Repression, Trump Administration

It is easy to see that authoritarian governance has accelerated in the United States recently. Donald Trump entered office with a flurry of Executive Orders and dubious agreements with major universities and law firms which in effect put them under his control. On April 10 the Supreme Court of the United States ordered the Trump administration to “facilitate” the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, one of 200 men sent to an El Salvador prison under circumstances of very questionable legality. Abrego Garcia differs from the others in that the Trump administration originally admitted that he was deported in error and that they did not have grounds to send him to his home country, El Salvador.

How Labor Can Fight Trump’s Authoritarianism

December 31, 2024 Alex Caputo-Pearl, Convergence. Strategize! Authoritanism, Donald Trump, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

Given the critical impacts that the victories of Trump and his broader right-populist Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement will have on the social and political terrain of the country, this installment looks at imperatives for labor in the coming years. It integrates lessons from UTLA and the broader educator union movement, which fought necessary defensive battles during Trump’s first term and, critically, also went on offense to make significant breakthroughs in red, blue, and purple states. MAGA’s attacks will be much more vicious in the coming years. Yet we fought and won battles in Trump’s first term — and can do so again.

The People Of Colombia Are Cracking Up The Walls Of War And Authoritarianism

January 22, 2020 Justin Podur, Globetrotter a project of the Independent Media Institute Resist! Authoritanism, Colombia, Latin America

The protests that started with the national strike called by Colombia's central union on November 21 to protest pension reforms and the broken promises of the peace accords have persisted for two months and grown into a protest against the whole establishment. And the protests have continued into the new year and show no signs of stopping. The end of the decade has seemed to bring an unstoppable march of the right wing in Latin America as elsewhere. The 2016 coup in Brazil that ended with fascist Jair Bolsonaro in power, the 2019 coup in Bolivia, the continuously rolling coup in Venezuela...

The G20 Parade Of Monsters

July 7, 2017 Giuseppe Caccia and Lorenzo Marsili, www.politicalcritique.org Educate! Authoritanism, G20, Protests

By Giuseppe Caccia and Lorenzo Marsili for Political Critique - The turn of the century marked the zenith of globalisation and the golden era of G7-G8 summits. One model seemed fit for all: neoliberal economics and democratic politics. One obvious hegemon was in the room: the United States of America. And one clear ambition charted the course ahead: defining a “new world order” supported by the optimistic claim of a prosperity for all. That picture has blown up. Ten years after the outbreak of the global financial crisis, the snapshot that emerges from the Hamburg G20 summit is one of a global disorder where no clear model, no clear hegemon, and no clear ambition prevails. The failure of the neoliberal model should be evident to all: financial and extractive capitalism has led to increasing inequalities and secular stagnation, decline of the Western middle classes and concentration of wealth on a scale not seen since the belle époque. In the meantime American hegemony is waning and challenged – from Eastern Europe to the South China Sea; the election of Donald Trump to the White House has led even traditional European allies to question the trans-Atlantic special relationship.

Authoritarianism Is Making A Comeback

June 25, 2017 Maria J. Stephan and Timothy Snyder, www.theguardian.com Strategize! Authoritanism, Democracy, Nonviolence

By Maria J. Stephan and Timothy Snyder for The Guardian. It is time for those who support democracy to remember what activists from around the world have paid a price to learn: how to win. Modern authoritarians rely on repression, intimidation, corruption and co-optation to consolidate their power. The dictator’s handbook mastered by Orban in Hungary, Erdogan in Turkey, Maduro in Venezuela, Zuma in South Africa, Duterte in the Philippines and Trump here provides the traditional tactics: attack journalists, blame dissent on foreigners and “paid protestors,” scapegoat minorities and vulnerable groups, weaken checks on power, reward loyalists, use paramilitaries, and generally try to reduce politics to a question of friends and enemies, us and them.

The Antidote To Authoritarianism

May 10, 2017 Malkia A. Cyril, www.theatlantic.com Resist! Authoritanism, Mass Surveillance

By Malkia A. Cyril for The Atlantic - My first known ancestor in the Americas was an Ashanti woman called “the African.” We don’t know her name, but through records kept by slaveholders, we know she existed. We know she was transported to Jamaica, where my known lineage began. These records of property bought and sold were a form of surveillance at the time. Early technologies, and the policies and practices that undergird them, were forged to separate the citizen from the slave. The slave passes, branding, and lantern laws of then have become the cellphone trackers, facial recognition software, and body-worn police cameras of now. Their mission, however, hasn’t changed much—to catch and control black dissidence—only now they’re doing so in a digital age. These technologies have been incorporated into the law enforcement process at every level, from predictive algorithms for assessing pre-trial risk and criminal activity to widely adopted police technologies that face little to no oversight. These technologies—including cell-site simulators and surveillance cameras—are trained on communities of color, especially blacks, immigrants, Arabs, and Muslims.

History Of Anti-Authoritarian Struggle Is A History Worth Repeating

January 25, 2017 Sarah Freeman-Woolpert, www.wagingnonviolence.org Strategize! Authoritanism, History

By Sarah Freeman-Woolpert for Waging Nonviolence - Throughout his campaign, critics have drawn comparisons between Donald Trump and authoritarian leaders from the past. From his proposed plans to create a Muslim registry, to threats against journalists and other opponents, these critics urge us to learn from history about the dangers of a leader like him rising to power. Now that Trump is president, however, we must learn from history in a different way. Nonviolent social movements of the past can teach us lessons about how to resist injustice in the years to come. If we look to the past for examples of how to organize against injustice, we see how ordinary citizens...

6 Lessons Learned Fighting Oppressive Regimes While Trying to Protect People And Planet

December 29, 2016 Terry Odendahl, www.ecowatch.com Strategize! Authoritanism, Class Struggle, History

By Terry Odendahl for Eco Watch - The U.S. may now find itself in a similar position as countries like the China, Guatemala, Honduras, India, Philippines, Russia, Venezuela and many others where authoritarians have been swept into power over the last decade. As a public citizen who wants to take action, should you join a national environmental organization or should you join a local group fighting a dam or fracking? As a donor, should you give to a big environmental group lobbying in DC or to a local minority-action group trying to force their city council to clean up their drinking water? We will definitely need mass national mobilizations and we'll also need numerous local actions.

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