I am not-sick again, for however long this lasts. I had nearly forgotten how good it feels to not be ill. This isn’t terribly surprising, but before my past several months of back to back sicknesses I had stopped consciously appreciating how good being well felt.

In very similar ways I had failed to appreciate how good it was…

…to live in a country that wasn’t sidling into authoritarianism one executive overreach, abdication of legislative responsibility, or absurd judicial ruling at a time. This sickness feels awful. It fills me with dread.

Even electoral results that push back against this tide don’t soothe my fears. They are merely the beginning of a long recovery. If we mistake them for the end of the journey rather than the first step, we will fail. 

Real harm has been done. Awful precedents have been set. This damage will take time, vision, coordination, and dedication to repair.

We are still ill. Removing Trump and his cohort can slow the damage being done. Removing the Republicans (and the Democrats) who have allowed him to cause such harm to the USA and our system of government may deter future opportunistic vultures. Simply winning a few elections is not enough if we want our government to be healthy and resilient and helpful again.

Why aren’t elections enough?

When a levee breaks and floodwaters tear through, the recovery isn’t finished by rebuilding the levee. Those waters drowned and destroyed and inundated everything in the land beyond. The mud and mold and detritus still linger. No dead are resurrected, nor are any wrongs righted. When the levee breaks, repairs must be made to more than just the levee.

Our levee broke.

We had a government designed against authoritarianism. No government can be immune to authoritarianism, but despite all of its imperfections our government was meant to be more resistant to it. With the damage that is currently being done by the executive—as it takes more power for itself via vague and shifting arguments, claims that its hitherto unacceptable actions are necessary to oppose larger nebulous societal problems, pursues personal and political opponents with tools of the state, and otherwise tries to delegitimize the opposition party or anyone who disagrees with the leader—there’s a lot of work to be done before we can rebuild that levee.

By the way, all those damages I listed above are part of Juan José Linz’s basic definition of authoritarianism in Franco’s Spain. He wasn’t writing about the US at that point. He went on to describe three actions by politicians that are a threat to democracy: a refusal to unambiguously disavow violence, a readiness to curtail civil liberties, and the denial of legitimacy of an elected government—all of which have been done by Trump and his allies.

The Supreme Court won’t help rebuild the levee. Right now, our Supreme Court is largely ignoring the hard work being done by lower courts. That, or they are directly countermanding lower courts’ conclusions and instead expanding executive power… or ruling in ways that better serve the current executive and its political party (the Republicans). These are legal conclusions that would have Republicans shrieking if they were on the receiving end. The current modus operandi is “rules for thee, not for me.”

The Legislature (the Senate, the House of Representatives) is too stuck on stupid shit (like Ohio Senator Moreno’s attempt to end dual-citizenship) instead of helping Americans or standing up to the executive that is taking the Legislature’s power. There are Representatives and Senators who are ready to act on upholding the Constitution and its enshrined separation of powers, legislators who will help to rebuild that levee. But right now they are outnumbered by those too craven to oppose Trump, too blind to see that Trump and his allies are set on dismembering the US government’s ability to resist authoritarianism and corruption, or too eager to sell us out for a few dollars more.

So we have to rebuild the levee. We also have to make all the other repairs. We have to do it as a country, and as a people. We have to win elections that put anti-authoritarians into office, yes, but we also have to make it known that we will oppose authoritarianism in the US, period. The No Kings rallies are a good starting point for this. More is needed.

There has to be a practical focus to anti-authoritarian politics too. As FDR observed in his fireside chat of April 14^th 1938, people don’t back authoritarians and ditch democracy because they think authoritarianism is better overall, they ditch democracy and try anything else because they’re struggling and democracy isn’t delivering what they need. Taking a direct and immediate approach to solving real and pressing problems, and producing results through democratic government, rebuilds trust in democratic government. You can see part of this among the New Yorkers who voted for Trump in 2024 but voted for Mamdani in 2025.

This direct and practical focus was how Bernie Sanders managed to not only be elected as mayor of Burlington, Vermont, but to expand his base and govern effectively in the city. Speaking as someone who grew up in Burlington, Bernie did a pretty good job. What’s more, he continued to do a good job of representing Vermonters’ concerns—and taking care of Vermonters—once he was elected to statewide office and became one of our legislators. He hasn’t stopped speaking his mind and spreading his message, nor has he stopped advocating for real and practical benefits for our state and its people. This is a decent model, but we need more.

We cannot stick to the abstract “GDP goes up” approach to creating prosperity in the US. “GDP goes up” does not answer “living is expensive, wages are stagnant, no one is helping me.” So long as we cling to increasing GDP without spreading prosperity more broadly, we will remain blind to the ways our very profitable companies and very wealthy individuals completely skew our understanding of reality. The growing wealth in the hands of a few might help increase GDP, but it does not create a prosperous or well informed American people. It does not offer people a reason to trust democracy instead of embracing authoritarianism. It just ensures that we can crown a new American nobility, with ever more control over the reins of government.

P.S. Here’s a little more from that same April 14th 1938 fireside chat from FDR that still feels relevant:

“Democracy has disappeared in several other great nations—not because the people of those nations disliked democracy, but because they had grown tired of unemployment and insecurity, of seeing their children hungry while they sat helpless in the face of government confusion and government weakness through lack of leadership in government. Finally, in desperation, they chose to sacrifice liberty in the hope of getting something to eat. We in America know that our own democratic institutions can be preserved and made to work. But in order to preserve them we need to act together, to meet the problems of the Nation boldly, and to prove that the practical operation of democratic government is equal to the task of protecting the security of the people.

Not only our future economic soundness but the very soundness of our democratic institutions depends on the determination of our Government to give employment to idle men. The people of America are in agreement in defending their liberties at any cost, and the first line of that defense lies in the protection of economic security. Your Government, seeking to protect democracy, must prove that Government is stronger than the forces of business depression.

History proves that dictatorships do not grow out of strong and successful governments, but out of weak and helpless ones. If by democratic methods people get a government strong enough to protect them from fear and starvation, their democracy succeeds; but if they do not, they grow impatient. Therefore, the only sure bulwark of continuing liberty is a government strong enough to protect the interests of the people, and a people strong enough and well enough informed to maintain its sovereign control over its government.

We are a rich Nation; we can afford to pay for security and prosperity without having to sacrifice our liberties in the bargain.

In the first century of our republic we were short of capital, short of workers and short of industrial production; but we were rich in free land, free timber and free mineral wealth. The Federal Government rightly assumed the duty of promoting business and relieving depression by giving subsidies of land and other resources.

Thus, from our earliest days we have had a tradition of substantial government help to our system of private enterprise. […] It is following tradition as well as necessity, if Government strives to put idle money and idle men to work, to increase our public wealth and to build up the health and strength of the people—and to help our system of private enterprise to function.”