So Long as the Blows Fall on “Them”

This piece appeared in the newspapers in October, 2025.

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In a previous piece – “Who Cares About Freedom” – I showed that many people don’t care much about the kinds of freedoms provided by our Constitution with its Bill of Rights. The evidence is that, around the world, dictators have often been popular even as they stripped people’s freedoms away — in Russia, in Hungary, in Germany in the 1930s — so long as people were getting material prosperity.

In America now, our freedoms are being taken away by a regime that, at the same time, is also mismanaging the economy — like recklessly starting a senseless trade war, and threatening the crucial independence of the Federal Reserve.

But even so, many Americans seem unconcerned about these assaults on freedom — whether it’s targeted prosecutions of the Leader’s political enemies, private institutions being forced to support his agenda, or federal power being abused to silence his critics.

All of this has been out there in plain sight. Yet it is rare to hear a MAGA voice express any concern. Protecting these constitutional freedoms is apparently no priority for that roughly 40% of Americans who still approve of this emerging dictatorship.

Evidence shows many of these Americans care more about ‘the price of eggs’ than about assaults on freedom—such as masked thugs under U.S. authority sent into opposition cities to intimidate and coerce.

But there’s another way to look at it besides they don’t care about “freedom.” Maybe they do care about their own freedom – they would not like it at all if they had to hold their tongues, but they feel safe to speak their minds because what they say supports, rather than opposes, the would-be-dictator who is taking away the freedoms of those who oppose him.

In other words, they care about freedom for themselves – they aren’t the kind of domesticated humans that are content so long as there’s plenty of feed and the barns are warm. There’s another contingent ready to support fascism because they are OK with having their enemies treated badly, instead of the democratic commitment to fairness for all.

This image this conjures up isn’t contented livestock in their barns, but the predator who denies others the rights he claims for himself.

That’s the heart of fascism, and that’s the kind of thuggery practiced by Hitler’s brownshirts, Stalin’s secret police (NKVD), and white supremacist groups in the United States.

Freedom is not the issue, with these people. Their issue lies on a still more basic moral level: they’re rejecting the injunction to “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.” Which is what things like equal treatment under the law is about.

But not only is it morally evil, it is likely foolish as well. The fascist supporter assumes the Ruling Power will never treat him as it treats his enemies. He sees the Leader as his friend. But history shows that these Leaders are really all about gratifying themselves, and prove to be no friend of their supporters. (Hitler ended up wanting his nation to be in ruins – not one stone on top of another — to punish them for not giving him his victory.)

It should be clear: Donald Trump won’t care about you—and he’ll betray you at the drop of a hat.

Indeed, he already has—driving farmers to the wall, shifting wealth upward, stripping health coverage. Isn’t that evidence enough that even if you don’t care about his trampling the rights of the people you want to dominate, you should not allow him to assault things like rules that keep the powerful from exploiting or even destroying the weak.

Because you, too, are weak—and this man doesn’t hesitate to betray.

Consider Mike Pence: for four years he sacrificed his dignity in obsequious loyalty; Trump still punished him for refusing to become his accomplice in a crime against the Constitution.

If Trump would do that to his super-loyal VP who’d been servile for four years, what wouldn’t he do to you, if that suited his getting what he wants for himself. If he’d be OK with his mob’s chanting “Hang Mike Pence” because he had no respect for Pence’s insistence that he not betray his oath of office – and become an accomplice in an unconstitutional power grab, one sees clearly that for Trump, you don’t have rights.

Some of history’s darkest moments come when people of that selfish, domineering, vindictive sort gain power. Fascism has an ugly and destructive spirit at its heart, and things tend to end badly for the people who supported the coming to power of authoritarian, dictatorial, fascistic, tyrannical regimes. For the sake of our children and grandchildren, we should not want power in such hands.

If not for the sake of fairness, for self-protection. It would be nice if you cared about the legitimate rights of people on the other side. But even if you are stuck in bad-will toward those people, good judgment says that protecting what you do care about requires that power be kept out of the hands of people so selfish, too eager to dominate, so willing to tell Big Lies, so cruel.

Not a good idea.