Summary: In a shocking display of authoritarianism, the Orange TACO Stain has deployed the California National Guard and US Marines to “liberate” LA, revealing a dangerous disregard for democracy. Amidst troops’ discontent over being used for political purposes, this post explores the implications of their deployment through the lens of political psychology. Drawing on Timothy Snyder’s insights, it discusses how aspiring tyrants test the waters of resistance, the diminishing sense of moral responsibility among those following orders, and the danger of habituation to oppressive realities. We must resist these encroachments to safeguard our democracy and rights.
Key Words: Social Justice Authoritarianism Dystopia Resistance Political Psychology National Guard Marines Democracy Fascism Oppression Timothy Snyder
Comment: What do you make of all of the mishegas coming out of the White House, Trump’s various holes, and the Republican Congress? How should we interpret what they’re doing?
- Testing the Waters
- #ScienceFact: Responsibility Decreases When Carrying Out Orders
- Habituating to New Realities
- Image Attribution
The Orange TACO Stain has deployed the California National Guard and US Marines to LA to, in the words of Kristi Old Yeller Noem, to “liberate” California. One presumes that their intent is to liberate California from their democratically elected governments in LA and the state and perhaps even from its citizens.
Now that the troops have arrived, news reports of misgivings and discontent among them are surfacing. They are unhappy about being used for blatant political purposes. Not only do they question the legitimacy of using the Marines and National Guard for domestic policing, they haven’t even been given proper orders without which they can’t be paid or given benefits.
There is heated debate among the pundits, bloggers, social mediasts, and the rank and file liberal, leftist, anti-Trumpers as to what it all means. Is it meant as a distraction from the Big Bad Billionaire-Enrichment Bill? Musk’s linking of him to the Epstein files? His military-parade birthday-party grift? Which one is the distraction and what are we being distracted from, goes the refrain from all the hot-take artists on the Interwebs, always in a hurry to get it first rather than put any effort into getting it right… or actually understand what is happening.
For many in our media environment, going viral is the point.
However, political psychology offers three insights that probably won’t go viral but will help us understand and cope with this mess. First, Timothy Snyder notes that aspiring tyrants will test the waters to gauge resistance to their authoritarianism. Second, when we’re following orders, our brains — and by our, I mean the National Guard, Marines, ICE stooges, and other nameless, masked fascist enforcers — don’t perceive us as being morally responsible what is happening. And third, we habituate to new realities like when a new rule, law, or situation occurs, we stop resisting it.
Testing the Waters
Some where in the frantic BLM protests of 2020, Ye Olde Blogge featured a series of posts based on Timothy Snyders’ studies of backsliding democracies. Some place in there, I recall him saying that would-be authoritarians liked to test out their fancy new fascist ideas on the public to determine where we’ll fall on the continuum of HELL NO to meh to ACTIVE EMBRACE.
Our loud and frequent protests during the Ol’ Pussy Grabber’s first bite at our Adam’s apple is probably one of the few things that kept the #GOPDystopia from springing fully formed from Trump’s ass like some kinda grotesque goose-stepping Athena.
With his “election” in 2024 — does anyone really believe the Orange TACO Stain ever won anything fair-and-square before? — he feels that the country is somewhere between meh and active loving enthusiastic embrace, so he’s going full fascist on our dumb drooling asses, choking us to death with his smash and grab abductions of anyone and everyone from the streets because without due process, we’re all undocumented gang members, right?
Snyder’s point here is that it doesn’t matter what is meant as a distraction or what they’re trying to get away with. Our response must be the same. We have to make our displeasure and resistance known loudly and clearly because “they” will be watching. It has to be in the streets, on our phones to our MoC, and in the media. We all have a duty to our democracy, liberty, and rights to let them know we’re willing to resist their escalating violent oppression. If not, we are lost.
#ScienceFact: Responsibility Decreases When Carrying Out Orders
Some pointy-headed science types managed to sneak a study in under the defunding radar to help us understand our troops better — those troops the Orange TACO Stain has sent in to “liberate” LA and California from their duly elected officials and their brown citizens.
The study involved civilians and military cadets making moral decisions while lying in an fMRI machine, you know, like you do. Sometimes they were the decision was an order, sometimes they were left up to individuals.
Imagine the Kent State shooting. If the trigger person was ordered to murder the university students, then they didn’t feel as morally responsible for their deaths than if they just decided that the proper thing to do was murder those four poor dumb bastards all on their own.
Orders decrease your sense of agency or responsibility for your actions. We’ve known this since Milgram’s 1963 Obedience Studies, but this study images the brain and shows that the areas responsible for our sense of agency are less active when we’re following orders, whether we’re civilians or officer cadets.
This strongly suggests that if the Marines or California National Guard are ordered to commit atrocities — much like the ICE thugs and hooligans are right now, somewhere in America, land of the free, home of the brave, but not for long, — enough will comply to make it as bad as Kent State was or Kyle Rittenhouse’s rampage of murder and mayhem during Kenosha’s BLM protests.
This unease and disquiet the troops are feeling may not be enough to prevent a massacre should one be ordered, and you know it will. Noem is itching to shoot her some protesters like they was her mangy untrainable dog Cricket — or at least it is easy for me to imagine she is.
Habituating to New Realities
In my life we’ve seen many new rules, laws, and social morays come into effect. Everything from seatbelts to motorcycle and bicycle helmets to smoking bans to civil rights and abortion to marriage equality has changed in the last sixty odd years. I remember the hullabaloo with each change, especially the cantankerous old curmudgeons in my younger years wheezing and complaining about not being able to drink and drive without wearing seatbelts or helmets like god intended them to do and guaranteed in the Declaration of the Ten Commandments right there in the Constitution of these here Unitary States with state’s rights so we can do as we please as long as we’re white and male — unless you’re a dirty hippie commie pinko fag.
When you systematically study how attitudes change after new rules go into effect, most people eventually settle down and follow them as if they’re normal. Just think about how odd it is to see anyone smoking now and how normal it is to see two men kissing on your TV nowadays.
Like some kind of zombified Frankenstein’s monster, what fell down will stand back up if you jolt with enough lies and outrage. This all strongly suggests that the majority of the public will meh-out if the Republicans can hold their grip on forced birth and rising maternal and infant mortality; we’ll eventually accept it as normal. If they can just continue trapping family cars between unmarked ICE vehicles, teargassing the family — including any toddlers who might be passengers — and drag one of the parents kicking and choking from behind the wheel, we’ll all start to shrug and think that’s the way it’s always been and being whisked away by anonymous agents is just one of our rights enumerated in the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
We must vigorously push back against any infringements on our due process rights and other rights as defined by longstanding court precedent. We cannot let ourselves habituate to our new dystopian reality.
Image Attribution
This image was found on FOX34.com page using a DuckDuck Go Creative Commons License search
The Psy of Life 
It would help a lot is some military commanders, rather than wait for the courts to decide, would do what their oaths and traditions demand and refuse orders they know to be illegal. Where the brass leads, the troops will follow. Currently, there is much talk reported from within the Pentagon that Trump intends to demand/order all senior officers (Major and up) to sign an oath of personal loyalty to him. Many, if not most, and possibly all (with a few MAGA exceptions?) are said to be agreed that they cannot do that, and no member of the service can, whatever rank. Interesting, in this regard was the decision by the graduating cadets at West Point that their code of honor which demands uncompromising honesty would not allow them to show approval of a known liar by shaking hands with The Stain at graduation, as has been the custom whenever a President has taken part in the ceremony. He left without hand shakes (which he avoids anyway, germophobe that he is).
Whatever the outcome of all that may turn out to be, the military is caught in something of a Catch-22. They want to avoid being political, but are being used politically, and to refuse that would be a political act.
There is a sentence that needs to be viral and loud: THIS IS NOT NORMAL
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Howdy Bob!
The professionalism and dedication to the Constitution of our military is one of the pillars of our democracy. The emphasis on lawful behavior and operating outside of the borders of the US has helped us keep the military out of domestic politics. Like all of our other norms, Trump aims to change that. How successful he’ll be remains to be seen. Fortunately, we have a long history of these norms and even if they are broken, we are likely to return to them once Trump has passed.
Part of Turchen’s studies of how governments change indicates that when a country makes a radical change in their form of government, either from an authoritarian gov’t to a democracy or democracy to authoritarianism, the likelihood of resuming the old ways is high. Thus, many of the countries that established democracies after the Arab Spring reverted back to authoritarian regimes. The early European democracies backslid to authoritarianism after WWI, but then, with US and UK support, established and maintained democracies after WWII.
We need to be saying very loudly and firmly that we will not accept fascism as normal. Luckily, today, in the face of assassination in Minnesota, millions of Americans are making these statements very emphatically.
Huzzah!
Jack
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