So wonderfully told and charged with insight as to the diaspora of the unwanted, persecuted, and abandoned. I tell everyone that George W Bush forced my exile to Sweden, that guns, and arrogance, hubris and racial hatred became too great for me to bear, as the hypocrisy America has become in the eyes of the world. Would I return? Yes, only to be shot by patriots. I would export Swedish values everywhere.
On not getting out in time. A Thread/ Bird App. 31 Aug. 2021
@AuntyNationalAH
Here's a family story: By the mid-1930's my Chicago-based Grandfather was pleading with his German *gentile*, bourgeois cousins to come to the US for safety. My Grandfather himself was active in Anti-Nazi resistance in the German-American community 1/n
...So much so that my Mother and Aunt had a security detail going to and from school. In Germany, for their part, the cousins were elderly liberal academics who did what they could to shield Jewish friends and colleagues from Nazi purges in higher ed. 2/n
Aug 31
They were brave. They Absolutely made the right moral choices and they figured "we're not Jewish ourselves, so we'll be OK." They stayed put. They were soon arrested by the nazis, who didn't take the Herr Professor and his wife to the Camps... 3/n
Aug 31
Instead the elderly, urban couple were exiled to their cold-water summer cabin deep in the Black Forest. In 1945, my Grandfather was able to locate this cabin and his cousins. The professor had died of starvation and exposure weighing c97 lbs; 4/n
·
Aug 31
His wife survived him for a few weeks and then succumbed. Their daughter, Herta was a zealous nazi & she had informed on her parents to the gestapo for being enemies of the Reich. 5/n
Aug 31
Having grown up, from a young age on this family lore, I am a committed #Resister--and I always have an eye on the nearest exit. /finish
I had the same dilemma when the current governor in my state was elected (I live in Alaska). After the governor's administration embarked on a program of hacking both the state government and the university to pieces, I debated over whether to just call it quits and move to another state or not. Ultimately, I decided that I would not be run out of the state I was born in and love so much. I became more politically active. I wrote letters, I gave testimony, I went to rallies, I signed petitions. And a strange thing happened. People from across the political spectrum came together and fought back against the cuts and against the governor's right-wing agenda. We weren't successful in forcing a recall election (Covid stayed our hand), but we were able to halt most of the destruction. I learned two things from this experience: 1) the University and the state programs were more popular than I had given them credit for and 2) the people who wanted them hollowed out were a minority--a vocal minority, to be sure, but a minority all the same. Bottom line: We are the majority and we should always stand to fight because our state, our lives, and our democracy are worth fighting for.
Thank you Ruth for posing the question and everyone for honest thoughts. I went to bed last night thinking of this and now up thinking the same. I look around and see all parts of this issue displayed. My wife and I suppose we'll stay but make leaving preparations. Tiawan, my wife's birth place as a potential option.
Before 2015 I was a fringe political person. But with Trump and the rise of authorianism recognition that the reality of our mass shared psychosis is here and treatment resistant. I fear what treatment can be effictive? I'll continue to seek opportunities for change. I believe it will take all of us working together for change. So here's to the work and the faith.
My wife is a refugee from Azerbaijan. After the Soviet state weakened, an Azeri authoritarian regime emerged that stoked ethnic hatred against Armenians, of whom my wife was a member. Fleeing in the dark of night, her family escaped to Armenia, Ukraine, Russia, ultimately many to the U.S. They were the lucky ones with means and insight. They still landed in the U.S. with little but the clothes on their backs and pennies in their pockets.
As we elected Trump and moved forward through his presidency, she and some of her emigre friends expressed grave concerns over the deja vu they were experiencing. "Even here," they sighed, "even here."
We must not let this happen, let us slip into tribal enmities, petty fears, racial definitions of "us" and "them," stoked by cynical power-seekers manipulating our information space. Therein lies true Hell on earth.
We must make our voices heard above the din of culture war battles, that we are all Americans striving to create a more just world for everyone, all cultures, all creeds, all tongues, all faiths, all skin-tones, all genders, all - to truly create that shining City on the hill that is the envy of the world, not because it is the best that can be, but because it continues to, through democracy, introspect, self-reflect, and change to become ever better with each passing generation.
Been thinking about this column all day. I appreciate that some in this country would need to move away for legitimate reasons but is it time for those who dislike what we see to leave? Or better to stay and fight, educate, and do whatever else we can? Genuine question I don't have an answer to right now. Twenty years ago when I lived abroad during W's forever wars and war crimes, I voted from overseas but always felt a bit helpless being away (other than trying to be a good model American expat that didn't reflect the same values as the Bush Admin). Not sure how it would feel to move away now other than to not worry about gun violence.
Along with personality disorders it is necessary to include the privative defenses deployed much like arms (AK 15s, etc.). Especially an authoritarians favorite-Projective Identification. Used daily by Trump now by Republicans at any time. It is now part of their behavior. Something I think they don't understand other than it's a feel good lie.
I think that it's important to remember that America is a heavy weight, nuclear armed military power. An apex predator as countries go. One of the things that I think was/is a real possibility is if America were to go full dictatorship, other countries, allies included, would have to band together to take us down, simply to save themselves. America as a rogue state is too dangerous to be allowed to live. In that kind of scenario, exile or immigation is not an option.
As Steve R. Noted Bandy Lee’s work was early and excellent. As is her “Profile of A Nation:”. I’ll offer a personal and professional perspective. I have a cousin who will never and should never get out of prison for murdering his wife in front of their 3/4 yr old. He has all the empathy of Trump. He was always right while everyone else was wrong. Intolerable for his ego. During my years in mental health practice I observed similar examples. At times these situations devolved family, friends, social groups, organizations, etc. into well cemented factions. “You’re either with us or against us!”. It takes the firmest of boundaries and great resolve to cope and stand up to this mindset. They will wear you/us down. However, together - with time and resolve they will wear down. Truly United we stand. It’ll take us all.
For personal and group health please read and practice Dr. Lee’s “Profile of a Nation” page 138. Be healthy. Be hopeful. Be strong.
We, my East Asian-American wife and this old white guy, have decided to stay and safely engage where we are able while continuing to search for additional opportunities. Safely is focus. AAIP is obvious here in California (within breathing distance of “The Happiest Place on Earth”) as is our own version of the ever expanding divide. So having this Lucid forum is helpful to be engaged with an aware community. It is greatly appreciated. All of you contributors are a breath of hope. Hope to hang on to firmly. Thanks
Contemplating going into exile is an extremely scary proposition. What does one do when there are close ties to family?? Can one coordinate the exile of 3 generations of people spread over 3 family units? How does one contemplate disrupting school and work and secure health care services for the elderly? How did those who left Nazi Germany know that "Now" was the time? We know the difficulty that many of the had in finding a country willing to take them. To have the confidence that things would be better, that things would work out is just amazing to me. Too many people want to make the US a strong "Christian" nation without, sometimes, stopping to think about the implications of what that means.
I have wondered what the political repression of a second Trump or otherwise authoritarian regime would look like. I think they are going to rely a great deal on stochastic violence - constantly pushing their base to violence that is terrorizing but uncoordinated, though the network of contracted detention centers are there for a reason.
As a person of color who is also gay, this hits home for me. I have contemplated leaving the US since Trump was elected in 2016, but I had hope that a Biden win would kind of "solve" many of our issues. Boy was I wrong. I have to do more research, but I still don't understand how an American can just pick up and move to a foreign country without the lengthy process of obtaining a work visa (certainly I don't think anyone here would qualify for asylum!). I also happen to be a caretaker to my mother, who is in poor health and complicates things even more. Guess I'll see you all in the gulags? (Joking! Kind of...).
How ironic that Jakisc had to flee his beloved homeland because of the dangerous meddling of the US into Chile's national affairs. The same malevolent political instinct that created the coup in 1973 in Chile is now working on blowing apart democracy here in the US. The moral rot of US foreign policy has finally returned home, to eat its own insides.
Not sure if this is like the situation where the train is coming and Ruth is suggesting we get off the tracks before it's too late or not? My own view is that the train left the station in 2015 and hasn't stopped coming. Its speed was temporarily slowed in 2020 but it's been fueling up for a big acceleration starting in 22 & 24.
I'm here on this forum as a member of the Lucid community because I respect Ruth Ben-Ghiat's expertise as a scholar of propaganda and authoritarianism. She has a record of making accurate forecasts and predictions that validate the theoretical framework of her five tools of rule strongmen playbook! She knows how to see the game as it were. So if she is suggesting this might not be a bad time to start thinking about getting out of Dodge while you still can, I take her seriously.. particularly as a jew who is in one of the categories of minorities that authoritarians and strongmen typically persecute.
So wonderfully told and charged with insight as to the diaspora of the unwanted, persecuted, and abandoned. I tell everyone that George W Bush forced my exile to Sweden, that guns, and arrogance, hubris and racial hatred became too great for me to bear, as the hypocrisy America has become in the eyes of the world. Would I return? Yes, only to be shot by patriots. I would export Swedish values everywhere.
On not getting out in time. A Thread/ Bird App. 31 Aug. 2021
@AuntyNationalAH
Here's a family story: By the mid-1930's my Chicago-based Grandfather was pleading with his German *gentile*, bourgeois cousins to come to the US for safety. My Grandfather himself was active in Anti-Nazi resistance in the German-American community 1/n
...So much so that my Mother and Aunt had a security detail going to and from school. In Germany, for their part, the cousins were elderly liberal academics who did what they could to shield Jewish friends and colleagues from Nazi purges in higher ed. 2/n
Aug 31
They were brave. They Absolutely made the right moral choices and they figured "we're not Jewish ourselves, so we'll be OK." They stayed put. They were soon arrested by the nazis, who didn't take the Herr Professor and his wife to the Camps... 3/n
Aug 31
Instead the elderly, urban couple were exiled to their cold-water summer cabin deep in the Black Forest. In 1945, my Grandfather was able to locate this cabin and his cousins. The professor had died of starvation and exposure weighing c97 lbs; 4/n
·
Aug 31
His wife survived him for a few weeks and then succumbed. Their daughter, Herta was a zealous nazi & she had informed on her parents to the gestapo for being enemies of the Reich. 5/n
Aug 31
Having grown up, from a young age on this family lore, I am a committed #Resister--and I always have an eye on the nearest exit. /finish
actions
I had the same dilemma when the current governor in my state was elected (I live in Alaska). After the governor's administration embarked on a program of hacking both the state government and the university to pieces, I debated over whether to just call it quits and move to another state or not. Ultimately, I decided that I would not be run out of the state I was born in and love so much. I became more politically active. I wrote letters, I gave testimony, I went to rallies, I signed petitions. And a strange thing happened. People from across the political spectrum came together and fought back against the cuts and against the governor's right-wing agenda. We weren't successful in forcing a recall election (Covid stayed our hand), but we were able to halt most of the destruction. I learned two things from this experience: 1) the University and the state programs were more popular than I had given them credit for and 2) the people who wanted them hollowed out were a minority--a vocal minority, to be sure, but a minority all the same. Bottom line: We are the majority and we should always stand to fight because our state, our lives, and our democracy are worth fighting for.
Thank you Ruth for posing the question and everyone for honest thoughts. I went to bed last night thinking of this and now up thinking the same. I look around and see all parts of this issue displayed. My wife and I suppose we'll stay but make leaving preparations. Tiawan, my wife's birth place as a potential option.
Before 2015 I was a fringe political person. But with Trump and the rise of authorianism recognition that the reality of our mass shared psychosis is here and treatment resistant. I fear what treatment can be effictive? I'll continue to seek opportunities for change. I believe it will take all of us working together for change. So here's to the work and the faith.
My wife is a refugee from Azerbaijan. After the Soviet state weakened, an Azeri authoritarian regime emerged that stoked ethnic hatred against Armenians, of whom my wife was a member. Fleeing in the dark of night, her family escaped to Armenia, Ukraine, Russia, ultimately many to the U.S. They were the lucky ones with means and insight. They still landed in the U.S. with little but the clothes on their backs and pennies in their pockets.
As we elected Trump and moved forward through his presidency, she and some of her emigre friends expressed grave concerns over the deja vu they were experiencing. "Even here," they sighed, "even here."
We must not let this happen, let us slip into tribal enmities, petty fears, racial definitions of "us" and "them," stoked by cynical power-seekers manipulating our information space. Therein lies true Hell on earth.
We must make our voices heard above the din of culture war battles, that we are all Americans striving to create a more just world for everyone, all cultures, all creeds, all tongues, all faiths, all skin-tones, all genders, all - to truly create that shining City on the hill that is the envy of the world, not because it is the best that can be, but because it continues to, through democracy, introspect, self-reflect, and change to become ever better with each passing generation.
We can do this. We must do this. We will do this.
Been thinking about this column all day. I appreciate that some in this country would need to move away for legitimate reasons but is it time for those who dislike what we see to leave? Or better to stay and fight, educate, and do whatever else we can? Genuine question I don't have an answer to right now. Twenty years ago when I lived abroad during W's forever wars and war crimes, I voted from overseas but always felt a bit helpless being away (other than trying to be a good model American expat that didn't reflect the same values as the Bush Admin). Not sure how it would feel to move away now other than to not worry about gun violence.
Along with personality disorders it is necessary to include the privative defenses deployed much like arms (AK 15s, etc.). Especially an authoritarians favorite-Projective Identification. Used daily by Trump now by Republicans at any time. It is now part of their behavior. Something I think they don't understand other than it's a feel good lie.
I think that it's important to remember that America is a heavy weight, nuclear armed military power. An apex predator as countries go. One of the things that I think was/is a real possibility is if America were to go full dictatorship, other countries, allies included, would have to band together to take us down, simply to save themselves. America as a rogue state is too dangerous to be allowed to live. In that kind of scenario, exile or immigation is not an option.
As Steve R. Noted Bandy Lee’s work was early and excellent. As is her “Profile of A Nation:”. I’ll offer a personal and professional perspective. I have a cousin who will never and should never get out of prison for murdering his wife in front of their 3/4 yr old. He has all the empathy of Trump. He was always right while everyone else was wrong. Intolerable for his ego. During my years in mental health practice I observed similar examples. At times these situations devolved family, friends, social groups, organizations, etc. into well cemented factions. “You’re either with us or against us!”. It takes the firmest of boundaries and great resolve to cope and stand up to this mindset. They will wear you/us down. However, together - with time and resolve they will wear down. Truly United we stand. It’ll take us all.
For personal and group health please read and practice Dr. Lee’s “Profile of a Nation” page 138. Be healthy. Be hopeful. Be strong.
We, my East Asian-American wife and this old white guy, have decided to stay and safely engage where we are able while continuing to search for additional opportunities. Safely is focus. AAIP is obvious here in California (within breathing distance of “The Happiest Place on Earth”) as is our own version of the ever expanding divide. So having this Lucid forum is helpful to be engaged with an aware community. It is greatly appreciated. All of you contributors are a breath of hope. Hope to hang on to firmly. Thanks
Contemplating going into exile is an extremely scary proposition. What does one do when there are close ties to family?? Can one coordinate the exile of 3 generations of people spread over 3 family units? How does one contemplate disrupting school and work and secure health care services for the elderly? How did those who left Nazi Germany know that "Now" was the time? We know the difficulty that many of the had in finding a country willing to take them. To have the confidence that things would be better, that things would work out is just amazing to me. Too many people want to make the US a strong "Christian" nation without, sometimes, stopping to think about the implications of what that means.
I have wondered what the political repression of a second Trump or otherwise authoritarian regime would look like. I think they are going to rely a great deal on stochastic violence - constantly pushing their base to violence that is terrorizing but uncoordinated, though the network of contracted detention centers are there for a reason.
As a person of color who is also gay, this hits home for me. I have contemplated leaving the US since Trump was elected in 2016, but I had hope that a Biden win would kind of "solve" many of our issues. Boy was I wrong. I have to do more research, but I still don't understand how an American can just pick up and move to a foreign country without the lengthy process of obtaining a work visa (certainly I don't think anyone here would qualify for asylum!). I also happen to be a caretaker to my mother, who is in poor health and complicates things even more. Guess I'll see you all in the gulags? (Joking! Kind of...).
How ironic that Jakisc had to flee his beloved homeland because of the dangerous meddling of the US into Chile's national affairs. The same malevolent political instinct that created the coup in 1973 in Chile is now working on blowing apart democracy here in the US. The moral rot of US foreign policy has finally returned home, to eat its own insides.
Not sure if this is like the situation where the train is coming and Ruth is suggesting we get off the tracks before it's too late or not? My own view is that the train left the station in 2015 and hasn't stopped coming. Its speed was temporarily slowed in 2020 but it's been fueling up for a big acceleration starting in 22 & 24.
I'm here on this forum as a member of the Lucid community because I respect Ruth Ben-Ghiat's expertise as a scholar of propaganda and authoritarianism. She has a record of making accurate forecasts and predictions that validate the theoretical framework of her five tools of rule strongmen playbook! She knows how to see the game as it were. So if she is suggesting this might not be a bad time to start thinking about getting out of Dodge while you still can, I take her seriously.. particularly as a jew who is in one of the categories of minorities that authoritarians and strongmen typically persecute.