The Greatest Peril we Face is the Privilege to Ignore the Authoritarian Threat

Or, the Privileged who Ignore the Threat

In a recent post in Steven Bescheloss’ Substack, America, America, guest columnist Mark Jacob, the former metro editor of the Chicago Tribune, makes the following observation about mainstream journalists wanting to “normalize” the threat of authoritarianism, and then poses the obvious question:

The ongoing rise of fascism in America is quite a story to tell. There’s been an attempted coup. The U.S. Capitol was overrun by a mob. Members of Congress pushed slates of fake electors to try to steal an election. Politicians plotted to call out the military to seize voting machines.

The stakes could not be higher. This is a story that affects the future of every American.

So why do so many journalists want to normalize the fascist threat? Why do they treat it as if it’s just the same old politics? It’s as if they're covering the flood of the century and want to save it for the regularly scheduled weather report.¹

Jacob is not the first to ask this basic question. I am many others have addressed this over and over again.²

Further, it’s not only mainstream journalists and media that continue to normalize this threat. When you really think about it, you realize that it’s pretty much all of the elite strata of our society that refuses to publicly acknowledge what is right in front of their noses.

Why is this?

I would like to propose a relatively simple and straightforward explanation:

It’s the same old, same old.

It’s the result of our comfortably-situated college-educated elites having enough economic and political “means” to be effectively insulated from the “normal” economic and political threats that plague and undermine the lives and livelihoods

of ordinary middle and working-class people.

It’s the same-old, same-old. It’s what got us to this point in the first place.

Elites in America were not just sheltered from the devastating impacts of the last 40+ years of “Trickle-Down Economics,” they/we benefited from these decades of “conservative” policies to the tune of trillions of dollars of income and wealth being transferred away from the middle and working classes and up to the top 5%. The result has been the formation of the MAGA movement out of the growing anger and resentment of this elite indifference to the evisceration of the middle and working class.

Fast forward to the present moment and what we see is America’s elites, effectively untouched by years of the abject cruelty being visited by Trump, other MAGA politicians, Justices, and militants upon tens of millions of ordinary people, including women seeking basic health care, immigrants, LGBTQI+ people, mass-shooting victims, millions of Medicaid-eligible persons, families in need of nutrition and child-care supports, and so many others.

American elites are well insulted from many of the basic vicissitudes of life. They/we have relative economic security as well as ample personal and political agency. America’s elites have not yet felt the pain that virtually everyone else in our society is experiencing.

Just it has almost always been, the brunt of the pain, in this case caused by extremists and authoritarians in our midst, is being “absorbed” by the underclasses.

As long as this continues, I would bet the house — and a lot more — that we elites and elite leadership are simply going to continue, effectively, to let things play out. And I would bet the house all over again that, while at least some of we elites will be willing to contribute money and votes to defeating the MAGA candidates, that, behind this, there is the hope that the right-wing upsurge can be quelled or at least contained without getting too alarmed — and without risking too much of our privilege.

This, of course, represents a massive failure of courage and conviction on the part of those of us who are most privileged and who continue to reap the benefits of living in an at least nominally democratic Republic. For it is we who have the most power and responsibility to effect remedies and positive change.

I want to make one final observation and pose a question of my own:

On January 6th, 2021, thousands of armed Americans assaulted the US Capitol and directly threatened imminent harm to an important segment of our elites. Under the Biden Administration, the reaction has been swift and strong — to a point. The DOJ has been relentless in tracking down and prosecuting many of those who committed crimes on the grounds that day. As to the fate of leaders, planners, funders, and other enablers . . . much remains to be seen.

January 6th is arguably one of only a very few actions taken by MAGA and its leadership that have had the potential to really affect the wellbeing of elites in America. This threat has arguably been “contained” by the DOJ’s efforts and they are demonstrating that mounting another direct mass assault like that would be far more difficult and also extremely costly to at least the “ordinary MAGA Americans” who participate on the ground.

But the threat of authoritarianism and fascism comes not so much from these ordinary MAGA Americans. It comes principally from a corrupt and cruel Republican leadership in many states and in the US Congress, and from the plutocrats who fund their campaigns and activities. These leaders to date, have faced almost no elite opprobrium, let alone agitation or demands for consequences. No alarms have been sounded.

So, my (two-part) question is:

1. What would it take to for our elites to mobilize against the threat of fascism in America?

2. Is it possible that MAGA leaders implicitly or explicitly understand that, as long as they don’t cross that elite triggering threshold, they will be able to continue to pursue their authoritarian actions and policies indefinitely?

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1. Journalists Need to Sound the Alarm

2.