Resignation to Ruin: The Drift Toward Fascism in America
A series of national traumas—from September 11th through successive economic, cultural, and crises—have collectively eroded Americans’ faith in democratic institutions and in one another. The cumulative effect has been a culture of despair in which fascism appears less as an imposition and more as a logical consequence of exhaustion.
The End of Innocence: September 11th and the Birth of Fear
The attacks of September 11th, 2001, shattered a foundational American illusion: that the nation was both morally exceptional and universally admired. The aftermath fostered an atmosphere of fear and enforced unity, blurring the distinction between patriotism and obedience. The creation of the Department of Homeland Security, the expansion of surveillance powers, and the normalization of endless war introduced a new logic of governance—security through submission. This era marked the first major step toward the internalization of authoritarian habits, as citizens learned to accept secrecy, militarization, and xenophobia as necessary features of national survival.
The Death of the Rural Middle Class and the Politics of Despair
While 9/11 produced existential insecurity, the concurrent collapse of the rural middle class generated material despair. Over the ensuing two decades, automation, globalization, and deindustrialization hollowed out America’s small towns, replacing stable work with precarious labor and addiction. The opioid crisis followed swiftly, and it was not merely a public health emergency—it was a collective mourning for lost purpose. As family farms and factories disappeared, so too did the social institutions that sustained civic life. As civic life crumbled, drugged-out men got stuck behind their screens. Out of that vacuum grew nostalgia, resentment, and susceptibility to demagogues who promised to restore a vanished “greatness.”
The Financial Crisis and the Loss of Institutional Legitimacy
The 2008 financial collapse further corroded Americans’ faith in their system. Millions lost their homes and savings, yet the state rescued the architects of the crisis. The spectacle of bankers rewarded for failure and citizens punished for compliance confirmed what many already suspected: democracy had been subordinated to oligarchy. The moral contract between citizen and state—work hard, play fair, and prosper—was broken. Authoritarian populism thrives in this breach, offering emotional retribution where political justice fails. Fascism, in this sense, is not only a political system but a form of catharsis for the humiliated.
The Cultural Whiplash of Moral Triumphalism
The cultural sphere underwent its own upheaval. The ascendance of social movements aimed at racial, gender, and sexual equality—often grouped under the banner of “wokeness”—represented both progress and fracture. While these movements sought to rectify structural injustice, they also introduced a moral absolutism, one that divided the public into the righteous and the deplorables. The resulting backlash was swift and profound. Many who once occupied a silent middle grew resentful of perceived cultural coercion. Fascism exploits precisely such resentments, translating moral discomfort into political hostility. The authoritarian impulse found new allies among those who felt culturally disoriented by the pace of change.
Climate Change and the Politics of Fatalism
Perhaps the most insidious contributor to America’s authoritarian drift is the existential paralysis induced by climate change. As fires, floods, and heatwaves grow more frequent, the public’s response has oscillated between denial and despair. Both serve fascism equally well: denial displaces responsibility, while despair forecloses hope. The recognition that the planet itself may be beyond rescue fosters a sense of futility that undermines democratic engagement. The logic becomes self-reinforcing—if catastrophe is inevitable, why not choose the strongman who promises order amid collapse?
A New Kind of President, COVID-19, and the Normalization of the Absurd
The first presidency turned the politics of grievance into governance by spectacle. His rule revealed how entertainment, outrage, and authoritarianism could coexist—and even reinforce one another. The COVID-19 pandemic then exposed the moral and institutional bankruptcy of this new order. Rather than uniting the country, the crisis deepened tribalism. Public health became a partisan issue; empathy was politicized. The collective trauma of mass death without shared mourning accelerated the disintegration of civic solidarity. The reemergence—his “second coming”—is not shocking precisely because Americans have become habituated to absurdity. The extraordinary has become ordinary, and authoritarianism has become background noise.
The Psychology of Resignation
Authoritarianism does not triumph merely through force; it succeeds when people stop believing that change is possible. The last twenty-five years have conditioned Americans to accept crisis as the natural state of affairs. Economic collapse, cultural division, environmental doom, and political corruption have created learned helplessness. The public no longer expects competence or honesty from leaders, only performance. In such a context, the authoritarian promise of simplicity—one leader, one truth, one solution—becomes psychologically soothing.
From Despair to Defiance
The American drift toward fascism is not driven solely by malevolence but by exhaustion. A society overwhelmed by crisis loses the capacity for outrage; it begins to confuse numbness with stability. If democracy is to survive, it must first restore the emotional foundations that sustain it: faith, solidarity, and the belief that collective action can still matter. Fascism feeds on despair; hope is its only antidote. Yet hope, like democracy itself, must be practiced—not imagined.
Breaking the Cycle: Reclaiming Hope and the American Experiment
To escape the spiral of resignation, Americans must rediscover the habits of democracy not as abstractions but as daily practices. The antidote to despair is not blind optimism but collective participation—the slow, imperfect work of rebuilding community and trust. The past quarter-century has trained Americans to see one another as adversaries and politics as spectacle; reversing this requires a new civic ethic rooted in empathy, shared purpose, and respect for difference.
First, we must reinvigorate the local. The repair of democracy begins not in Washington but in neighborhoods, schools, and small institutions where people still meet face to face. Town halls, mutual aid networks, libraries, museums, and local journalism form the connective tissue of civic life. By creating spaces where disagreement can coexist with mutual respect, Americans can relearn the art of listening—the first step toward restoring solidarity.
Second, education must explore civic mission. For too long, schooling has been reduced to credentialing rather than cultivating democratic character. A new generation must be taught not merely how to make a living but how to live together. Curricula that center historical truth, critical thinking, and intercultural understanding are not luxuries; they are safeguards against manipulation and demagoguery.
Third, economic renewal must be understood as moral renewal. A society that leaves millions without security or dignity breeds resentment—the raw material of authoritarianism. Rebuilding a sustainable and inclusive economy, investing in green industries, cooperatives, and public infrastructure, is as much about restoring faith in fairness as it is about creating jobs. Economic justice is not a side issue; it is the foundation upon which democratic hope rests.
Fourth, we must humanize our media ecology. The algorithmic fragmentation of truth has turned citizens into isolated consumers of outrage. Supporting independent, community-based, and deliberative media can counteract the nihilism produced by constant spectacle. The goal is not unanimity of thought but restoration of a shared factual world—a common ground for argument itself.
Finally, we must recover the moral courage to care. In an era of cynicism, compassion is an act of resistance. To struggle anew for the American experiment is to believe that the nation’s founding promise—imperfect and unfulfilled—still calls us to build a more just and generous common life. This is not naïve faith but deliberate defiance: the refusal to surrender to apathy.
Democracy, as the historian Timothy Snyder reminds us, is not self-sustaining; it survives only when citizens act as if it matters. To rise from despair is to reclaim the belief that it is still possible to bend history toward decency. The American experiment was never meant to be finished—it was meant to be renewed, again and again, by those willing to imagine freedom not as inheritance, but as responsibility.
