Why is the US sleeping as autocracy approaches?/Jay Inslee [View all]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/apr/29/why-is-america-sleeping-as-autocracy-approaches

Why is the US sleeping as autocracy approaches?
Jay Inslee
(Jay Inslee served as the governor of Washington from 2013-2025)

The country’s future depends on law firms, universities and media companies – as well as everyday Americans – breaking their silence

Tue 29 Apr 2025 08.00 EDT

…

Is this passivity and lack of resistance understandable? Of course it is. That’s why the old saw “first they come for the … then they come for you” was invented.

But we should call upon our college presidents, law firms, leaders of civil society, to get in touch with their responsibility to democracy itself, as well as their own institutions, which surely will end up on the firing line someday if Trump continues to be emboldened by his victims’ servility.

Perhaps it is too strong to refer to these organizations as collaborators. Perhaps. But this wholesale timidity and collapse must be considered rank appeasement at best, modest complicity at worst.

… more …