This commentary is by Bob Stannard of Manchester, an author, musician and former state legislator and lobbyist.
On Jan. 6, 2021, America witnessed one of the most chilling events in its history: the storming of our nation’s Capitol by those who supported the defeated, authoritarian president.
The insurrectionists’ goal was to disrupt our democracy, overthrow the process and install the defeated, corrupt president. Ironically, we heard many of them, including the wife of a Supreme Court justice, say that their unpatriotic revolt was being done in the name of freedom.
Equating authoritarianism with freedom is incorrect to the degree where it might be laughable were it not so Orwellian. Those who think that supporting an authoritarian leader will somehow lead to a more free society either have no understanding of how an authoritarian government operates or are painfully naive.
Over a month ago, the world got to see up close and personal what authoritarian rule looks like. Vladimir Putin, one of the world’s top authoritarian leaders, launched an unprovoked attack on Ukraine, a nation with which he’s been in conflict for over eight years. Acting like every other authoritarian, he quickly relied on lies, misinformation and disinformation to justify his illegal actions.
He said that he had to invade Ukraine to rid the country of Nazis. If that were truly the case (it isn’t), then perhaps he should have invaded our country, as we seem to have seen a rise in neo-Nazis, white nationalists and white supremacists.
Of course, that wasn’t the reason. The real reason for the invasion was that, in Putin’s twisted mind, he feels a compulsion to reconstitute the USSR. He’s never gotten over the fall of Russia and instead of trying to find a way to uplift and improve Russia, his plan is woefully backfiring. He grossly underestimated the Ukrainian people. He grossly underestimated his own military and he severely underestimated President Joe Biden and our friends in the NATO Alliance.
In only a few days, Putin surpassed Kim Jung Un as the world’s No. 1 pariah — and that was a very high bar to jump over.
Americans who believe that they are better off under authoritarian rule had better be careful what they wish for. Those who supported our previous authoritarian president truly believed his lies and disinformation and that our freedom was in jeopardy. The exact opposite is true. We are still free to worship as we please. We’re still free to own guns, go wherever we want.
Some elected leaders want you to believe that wedge issues like Critical Race Theory, abortion, cancel culture or sexual preference somehow are compromising your freedom. They’re not, but that won’t stop the authoritarian from pushing those issues. This week we witnessed Putin making a ridiculous comparison between himself and J.K. Rowling by saying that they are both the subjects of cancel culture.
In our country, we’ve been bludgeoned with lies by our former president, who continues to this day to insist that his election was stolen. Many still believe him when he declares that your freedom is at stake. The only way Americans will ever lose their freedom is if we elect an authoritarian president like the one we thankfully defeated.
America has come to the place where we can all see a situation, but come to two separate conclusions. Some truly believe that the insurrection served to protect our freedom. Most of it saw it for what it was: an illegitimate, illegal attack on our democracy based on lies from our former president who gleefully supports his authoritarian counterpart, Vladimir Putin.
A strong authoritarian leader may appeal to some, but think it through. At some point, the authoritarian leader decides that he should rule for his entire life and thus changes the rules to allow him to do so. Then he becomes paranoid that the people may become disenchanted and he might lose his power. The next step would be to simply toss out the Constitution and impose his own rules, the first of which would be to eliminate the Second Amendment. There would be howls, for sure, but the military would step in.
Now, you may think that you have the inner strength of a Ukrainian, but that might not last too long. You will end up like the Russian people under the thumb of an authoritarian madman. We were almost there. Fortunately, 7 million more people came to their senses.
There’s a difference between a strong leader and an authoritarian. All we need to do is to look back over our history and look at our great presidents. The good ones were consensus builders and worked to build a great, free and open society.
Today we’re seeing the rise of intolerance and racism, which was on full display during the pathetic attacks on Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson by Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee.
That’s what authoritarianism looks like, folks. Is that really what you want America to be, or would you rather live in a tolerant and loving society? Get over your fear and hatred of others and start acting like Americans again.
