Authoritarianism Walked in the Front Door
It didn't sneak it's way in.
We keep waiting for the big moment. The grand descent. The tanks in the street. The declaration of martial law. But that’s not how the world ends anymore.
It ends when people stop noticing.
Authoritarianism isn’t coming. It’s here. It’s in the quiet reshuffling of power, the laws no one reads, the protests no one covers, and the deaths that go unacknowledged because the algorithm didn’t think they mattered. And the United States? It's not the bulwark against this trend. It's the blueprint. I have a lot to talk about today so hopefully I don’t drift around too much when it comes to the topic, I truly believe this is all connected.
This Is the New Normal
Around the globe, democracies are turning themselves inside out. India, Israel, Hungary, France, the U.S. — different faces, same mechanics: demonize dissent, centralize power, blur the line between nationalism and identity worship.
They don’t need coups anymore. They use court rulings, policy shifts, billionaires, and content moderation.
Protest is labeled terrorism. Journalism is labeled misinformation. Human rights activists are called extremists. Meanwhile, genocidal governments are rebranded as "strategic allies."
America's Role
While the U.S. media loves to clutch pearls over foreign strongmen, America is supplying the tools, the money, and the moral cover.
Israel’s campaign against Gaza isn’t just tolerated — it’s financed. Over $3.8 billion in annual U.S. military aid helps fund everything from F-35 fighter jets to smart bombs and AI-powered targeting systems currently flattening entire neighborhoods. U.S. defense contractors profit from the same weapons used to kill civilians, while political leaders call it 'defending democracy.' The drones, the targeting algorithms, even the diplomats rewriting war crimes as 'self-defense' — all stamped Made in America. And as you know, missiles have even been signed by proud republicans. For instance, former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. and Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley wrote "Finish Them!" on Israeli artillery shells during a visit to Israel in May 2024.
In addition to the aid cuts, the Trump administration reinstated a controversial travel ban affecting citizens from 12 countries, including Afghanistan, Iran, and Haiti. This ban, justified under the guise of national security, disproportionately targeted nations experiencing conflict or instability — compounding existing crises and fueling global resentment. Human rights groups condemned the move as discriminatory and counterproductive.
Then came Trump’s withdrawal from the World Health Organization. On January 20, 2025, he signed Executive Order 14155, pulling the U.S. out of the WHO — despite the U.S. being its single largest funder. The move gutted international health efforts: hiring freezes, stalled technical missions, slashed disease surveillance in low-income countries. In the middle of global health crises, the U.S. chose isolationism over solidarity.
The attacks didn’t stop at health. They went after survival itself. And under Trump, America’s humanitarian face was stripped away. He signed an executive order halting all foreign development aid for 90 days, effectively dismantling USAID. Over 90% of its programs were terminated, and the agency's staff was gutted from 10,000 to fewer than 300.
According to data compiled by ImpactCounter.com, these aid cuts are estimated to have caused over 307,900 deaths — including more than 208,100 children — by disrupting programs that treated HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, and more. Every hour that this aid is cut, 103 people die.
Programs like PEPFAR, which had saved over 26 million lives since 2003, were paralyzed. Over 20 million people, including half a million children, suddenly lost access to lifesaving care. These aren’t just numbers. They’re lives, sacrificed for politics.
And with America pulling back, authoritarian powers like Russia and China are stepping in to fill the void. It’s not just abandonment. It’s surrendering the global stage to regimes who won’t even pretend to care.
When Speech Is Dangerous, Silence Becomes Strategy
Censorship has gone algorithmic. Your posts don’t need to be deleted; they just never reach anyone. TikTok flags political creators. Meta removes images of civilian victims. Twitter (I’m going to dead name it until he stops doing it to his daughter) is a playground for fascists now.
This is how dissent dies now: not with a bang, but with a lack of engagement.
And people adjust. They start saying less. Or only speaking in coded language. Or just giving up entirely.
You can feel it in your chest — that fatigue that says, "What’s the point?" That’s not burnout. That’s repression doing its job.
Misinformation Is the Tell — and Putin’s Fingerprints Are All Over It
Wherever authoritarianism grows, misinformation floods in first. It softens the ground, confuses the public, and scrambles the truth until no one knows what to believe — or if it’s even worth trying.
This isn’t organic chaos. It’s strategy. Coordinated campaigns, bot farms, troll networks — many of them traced back to Russia — pump out lies that serve one goal: destabilize liberal democracies and make space for strongmen.
Putin doesn’t just want influence. He wants disarray. He wants fractured societies, leaders too busy chasing conspiracy theories to govern, and a public so numbed by disinfo fatigue they stop caring entirely. And right now? It’s working.
Every lie that spreads unchecked, every algorithm that amplifies rage bait, every politician who parrots Kremlin-coded talking points — it’s all a sign that the door has already been cracked open.
In Australia, a pro-Russian influence operation has been targeting the country in the lead-up to the federal election, attempting to "poison" AI chatbots with propaganda. Pravda Australia, a largely automated news website, has increased its output significantly since mid-March, aiming to sway AI chatbots to spread "Russian narratives". Analysts allege it's part of an ongoing plan to retrain Western chatbots such as ChatGPT, Google's Gemini, and Microsoft's Copilot on "the Russian perspective" and increase division amongst Australians in the long term.
In the UK, Russian disinformation campaigns have been identified as attempting to interfere with political debates and suppress political voices. The UK government has information that proxies directed by the Russian state have plans to interfere with elections, including through suppressing political voices and conducting disinformation campaigns to interfere in political debate.
Poland's recent presidential elections have been targeted by Russian disinformation campaigns designed to stoke anti-Ukrainian sentiment and undermine democratic processes. Investigations have revealed coordinated efforts to spread false narratives across social media platforms, aiming to influence voter behavior. And well, we all see how their elections went...
Karol Nawrocki, a right-wing nationalist with little political experience, was elected president of Poland in June 2025. He narrowly defeated pro-European candidate Rafał Trzaskowski and has already signaled a potential rollback of support for Ukraine and democratic reforms. Backed by far-right groups and praised by figures like Donald Trump and Viktor Orbán, Nawrocki’s rise is viewed by many as a Kremlin-friendly win — a calculated wedge driven between Poland and its previous pro-EU trajectory.
These cases underscore a broader strategy: using disinformation to erode trust in democratic institutions and install leaders sympathetic to authoritarian interests.
America's Ticking Time Bomb
America loves to pretend Trump is some one-off freak. He’s not. He’s the culmination of centuries of white American hatred — nurtured, normalized, and then finally given a podium. He’s not a borrowed idea. He’s homegrown. Trump is what happens when white supremacy is allowed to evolve unchecked — when colonizers become presidents, when hate becomes policy, and when the system not only permits cruelty, but rewards it.
There are many men just like him, maybe not as rich, but just as emboldened, just as entitled, and just as protected. Trump is not an aberration. He is the American standard, just stripped of its polite mask. This is what happens when white supremacy meets unchecked privilege — when a grown man raised to believe the world owes him power is suddenly told 'no.' It doesn’t humble him. It radicalizes him. The entitlement curdles into rage, and that rage becomes a threat to everyone who was never meant to survive his rule in the first place.
And don’t be fooled — Trump’s recent fallout with Elon isn’t going to make him weaker. It’s going to make him more dangerous. When rich allies pull back, autocrats double down. He’s already floating martial law, mass deportations, and using the DOJ as his personal revenge squad.
But this isn’t a man abandoned by power — it’s a man born from it. Trump is the embodiment of unchecked white male privilege in America: rich, insulated, never held accountable. He doesn’t fear consequences because he’s never had them. He doesn’t fear backlash because his base sees cruelty as strength. This isn’t just about politics — it’s about a system that rewards a man for his ability to harm the most vulnerable. The cruelty isn’t a side effect. It’s the engine. It’s the point.
And now, with power slipping and allies wavering, he’s scared. Not scared like you and I know fear — scared in the way only the ultra-privileged can be: terrified of irrelevance, of shame, of being seen as weak. And that fear — from a man who has never known empathy — is a threat. Because when men like Trump lose power, they don’t step back. They burn everything down on their way out. He will do everything he can to avoid giving up power. Whether that is harming people, killing people, or taking drastic executive measures against entire groups of people, he will do it to save himself.
The Real Danger? People Are Adjusting.
The most terrifying part of all of this isn’t the violence. It’s the normalization.
You hear people say:
"Well, I just stay out of politics now."
"It’s not worth getting banned again."
"Everything’s corrupt anyway."
That’s the death of resistance. Not rage. Not rebellion. But retreat.
This is how authoritarianism survives in the 21st century. Not with a dictator screaming on a balcony. But with millions of people quietly deciding to look away.
We don’t need to imagine a dystopia. We’re already living in the soft, coded version of it.
The question now isn’t how bad will it get? The question is how long until we stop pretending this is fine?
📚 Sources
USAID Dismantled by Trump (2025 Executive Order 14169)
ImpactCounter.com Death Estimates from Aid Cuts
Trump Ends USAID Global Health Programs (PEPFAR Impact)
Trump Signs Executive Order Withdrawing U.S. from WHO
TikTok Flags Political Content, Moderation Controversies
Meta Removes Images of Civilian Casualties
Russia Poisoning AI Chatbots in Australia
UK Warns of Russian Election Interference via Telegram
Russia Targets Poland with Disinformation Before Election
Karol Nawrocki Wins Polish Presidency (Backed by Trump, Orbán)
U.S. Approves $7.4 Billion in Arms Sales to Israel (2025)
Nikki Haley Signs Israeli Missile with “Finish Them”
Ben-Gvir: U.S. Republicans Support Bombing Gaza Aid Sites
This was great, thank you!
He craves a lasting legacy beyond buildings and reality TV. His "Oval Office card skit" feels scripted, much like Zelensky's acting background suggests. It's strange to have two TV personalities discussing WW3. That was well it was. Puh...
His bizarre, unfiltered rhetoric—like comparing people to Capone or Lecter, or spinning wild tales of electric boats, sharks, and emptying prisons into the US—seems designed for ratings and money, not genuine care.
He loves the spotlight, a "genius in an un-sexy, icky way," constantly demanding attention with "novelty galore."
His outlandish claims, like America being "on its knees," are perplexing, especially when the US's power is undeniable. Yet, he made people doubt their own nation and and won.
His appeal lies in his unconventional, almost "crazy" style; unlike other politicians, his rants are oddly captivating. He's never boring, like a train wreck you can't look away from.
We're easily bored, and perhaps that's the point.
Normal democracy Tv is worse than watching paint dry. As it should be, as it involves carefully considering and implementing lasting solutions—almost as exciting as watching the weather channel.
Peace
Exactly right and super disgusting!