Why Authoritarianism Won’t Work On Most Americans; A Casual Observation
- anthropologylady36
- Jan 31
- 9 min read
Updated: Feb 12
I started thinking about this on and off as things started to get more and more heated, with the current administration using our Constitution as their toilet paper. I started to think about at our core, who we are as Americans. What came to mind is survivors in every way and in every sense of the word.
Physically, emotionally, genetically, people in the U.S. are those individuals as a group that had ancestors that in some way were survivors in their own right. The Native Americans first learned how to live here in the wilderness. Crossed the Aleutian Chain, Migrated. Then, lived through attempted genocide by European settlers and then the U.S. Government. This took its toll, but what stands before us today, is those individuals that lived through it all. They lived through Smallpox infected blankets, being sent to live on reservations with tribes that were traditional enemies and the crimes against humanity are endless for these people and not all tribes made it, not all the traditions, but Native American survivors are still here and still proud of who they are.
We can go all the way back to the 1600s with Europe. We had not only the people that at that time could survive a journey all the way across the Atlantic Ocean and then set up housekeeping from literally nothing here in the Americas. They also had lived through illnesses that many didn’t make it through in Europe, an infant mortality rate where most children were lucky to live to be an adult, diseases with no cure as medicine was still barbaric, and had ancestors that had lived through plagues that decimated 1/3 of the European continent.
In the 1600s we first saw the slave trade as well, and if any African person lived through the trip here, that showed stamina right there. They also lived through the slave trade and life of a slave once they got here.
There were also other things that were crimes against humanity, for the Acadians, also brought to the Americas Via Canada they had to re-settle here and lost tens of thousands of their people. But Acadian DNA (I have some along with some of these others) still runs through a lot of veins here in the U.S. in the Southern States. These people made for a rich tradition in the South, in places like Louisiana and Georgia and became what we knew as the Cajun culture there.
Napoleon decided to send boatloads of Roma men here from France during his reign, he generally didn’t want to have them around. They made the journey and managed to make a life here. Also, there were those individuals that were criminals that were sent here to the New World. It is estimated that 50,000-100,000 people made their way here that were criminals. When they got to the Americas from England, they were sold as slaves and used as slave labor, that is, if they lived through it. They were held below deck in areas made for 400 people and usually stuffed with 1000 people and they were not allowed fire or light or to go above on the ship, there was a lot of disease and a lot of death. Some of the upper classes came to the Americas as well for opportunities. Most of them were individuals from large families where they had no inheritance of land of their own (the older siblings got it), so they came to make their own fortunes. The Dutch started colonizing New York and other parts of New England so they weathered the journey and keeping in mind that all of the individuals that lived to tell the tale from the journeys and didn’t die, still had to live through the hard times here in the untamed Americas as it was colonized and totally wild when they got here.
The 1700s-1800s brought more immigrants from England and different parts of Europe. Notably was the wave of Irish due to the Potato Famine that if they lived through the trip still had to try and make it here and were often treated poorly when they got here (putting it mildly) some even Anglicized their name to pass as English.
Towards the end of this time period, as the West was getting settled, the government had been trying to commit genocide with the Natives in this time period. There also came the Chinese and other immigrants from Asia that were used as a main workforce to build the railroads and of course treated less than human. San Francisco is a hub where a lot of Asian culture still resides today.
There was also an influx of Eastern Europeans from various countries.
Ellis Island opened up in 1892. Boat travel still was not ideal through the 1800s with people dying on the way, being tested when they got to America for illness, and even having to be in quarantine. Italian immigrants, large groups of German immigrants, large groups of Russian immigrants, a lot of Jewish immigrants came prior to WWII. Jewish people had been coming since the colonization, however, more came over time.
Scandinavians came and along with the German and Polish, settled the Upper Midwest, as they were used to the harsher winters.
Each group making the trek here, each group being shunned by those that came before and each group assimilating to who they are now in our communities.
The Mexican communities on the West Coast had been there since before statehood. I always look at this situation, having grown up in Southern Calfornia that the line drawn was imaginary and there were Mexican individuals on the Mexican side of the line in Mexico and Mexican individuals on the American side of the line and they just lived where they lived. There is a very rich, vibrant and colorful Latino/Mexican-American culture that has been in California since before it was a state and it never left. But even they had the invasion of the Spanish on their culture. California is sprinkled with archaic Spanish missions from North to South where that influence was and where members were “converted” to the Catholic faith.
Also, the other thing about Natives in any part of the country, is that they lived through European diseases that shocked and decimated their communities, just by their neighbors existing next to them. Usually taking out their elders so that a lot of culture was lost.
What is written on the placard on the Statue Of Liberty
The New Colossus
By Emma Lazarus
"Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
This is just the first part of our country and who makes up the people here and I have not covered all of the individuals, just parts of the history, because as time pressed on, one of the things that the U.S. was proudest of was the fact we were a melting pot. We were also known as rebels, those people that fought for what we believed in. Not all countries fought England and became unattached, I will say, that part is a little complicated. Australia didn’t, Canada didn’t, other countries colonized by the English didn’t. BUT the U.S. did, as it turned out, we didn’t like to take a lot of people’s shit. We also didn’t like to have to pay taxes for things that didn’t benefit us.
We fought on what we considered to be the right side of wars against others we considered to be “evil”. We were there for our allies and fought side by side with them, when it looked like evil was going to take over the world on two occasions. We have always been fighters, and survivors. We are not perfect, but we have always been survivors, we have always fought and fought and fought, and we have always been the stronger for it, in our genes, in our attitude, we are bad asses!
The thing is that with DNA like this and this attitude we have always had that we aren’t going to take anyone’s shit, whether it is the people that wouldn’t accept our ancestors when they first got here and they fought that to co-exist after almost dying on the trip over here, or having nothing and building businesses and fortune from absolute scratch, or being a bunch of Englishman that decided to sit down and tell the English to go to hell in writing, well that has been us. We don’t put up with people’s shit. We fight until our dying breath, and we will continue to do so.
Why Authoritarians won’t take us down is just this reason. Project 2025 didn’t account for our DNA or the fact we are some stubborn and fighting sons-of-bitches when we put our mind to it. We have that going for us. Adolf Hitler did not have people like us to deal with. They had been poor, they were starving and their money meant nothing when he took over. BUT that is the other thing, it wasn’t like that when this administration took over. We had plenty, a lot of people were doing okay, it wasn't perfect but it wasn't the Weimar Republic, that is for sure. So, on a few levels here, that is why “Hitler-like-tactics” won’t work on us. We are just too damn ornery in the United States, true patriots are. We have been sold the idea before we could ever even walk and talk, that we are supposed to be happy and that we have inalienable rights to be that way. Also, where there is fighting the most in the country right now is where the Vikings, the fiercest warriors in history settled! That and a huge Native American presence and every other strong genetic and strong temperament-like person is! These people don’t like their immigrant neighbors being fucked with. This is why this is all failing in a few words, people underestimated us. First, we have seen this before with history and none of it is new. Second, even then it didn’t work long-term. Third, They didn’t try and do this to Americans (authoritarian regimes).
There are some people and that is less and less that have hung on to this, hook, line and sinker and believe the bullshit. For whatever reason they hang on to their hate and this twisted sense of what is human decency (which I just don’t get and don’t see, and I am still shaking my head). They are the ones a little slow to the race…
But what I am seeing now that gives me hope is the young people. Where I live in Utah, and keep in mind I lived here in the 1970s through 80s as a young teen/teen and I never would have seen this in my day, kids are walking out of their high schools and even middle schools, with signs and they are fighting the occupation of the presidents new “Gestapo”. This reminds me so much of the 1960s and 70s when we had the Civil Rights Movement. I got tears in my eyes when I saw it, you know that “emotional overflow” thing that I keep talking about, but I was so proud of them. There is one clip with this middle school kid, standing on the cement stoop where the flag poll is set, standing above his peers shouting them on, rallying the troops. Some child that is not even fourteen yet, rallying his peers and they are all standing and cheering with signs. This was in Utah! A red state, where I saw high schools from the conservative parts of town have mass walkouts from high school. You go young people you go!!! And I thought to myself, “There is hope.” For the first time I felt like that, after days of depression. That kid rallying his friends, I knew that maybe where our generation has failed, that the new generations will fight. After all, we are Americans and no one has been able to reign us in yet and we have our ancestors to prove it. They were survivors, they were bad ass, they were fighters and that is what we are all made of. Good luck trying to control us. We have had our rights and our point of view for too damn long.
I AM SO GODDAMNED PROUD TO BE A TRUE AMERICAN, WE ARE TOO STRONG TO ALLOW THIS TO HAPPEN!!!
