Ironic as it sounds, America, the land of the free and home of the brave, has always had a problem with authoritarianism. The roots of that problem came from religiously conservative Christianity's influence on our nation. For when our land was first being settled by the British, most of Christianity was conservative. And that religiously conservative Christianity demanded obedience to many authority figures provided that the right people were in authority.
Wives were to submit to husbands, children were to submit to parents, slaves and employees were to submit to owners, everyone was to submit to the government until the government demanded too much in the eyes of enough of the right people, and everyone was to submit to their respective churches even though there were battles between churches.
Because of Christianity's influence, there were many religiously based laws especially regarding sexual practices as well as what was allowed to be done on Sundays.
Because of our authoritarianism, our nation adopted a very punitive approach on those who didn't comply. The approach taken appeared to have regarded punishment as the only cure for crime.
Despite all of that there were many mini rebellions as well as a Civil War. But still authoritarianism reigned, and it does even more so today. We can see its control over us in our nation's inability or unwillingness to change certain traditions. Loyalty to our two-party system where the parties has come to dominate democracy rather than facilitate it. And the two-party system is accepted despite its continual failure to produce candidates that people want to vote for rather than vote against is inexplicable otherwise.
Starting with George H. Bush's Patriot Act, authoritarianism in our nation began to grow. More and more power was being surrendered to our government especially to the executive branch. It was all done in the name of security but it was done. And one dared not speak out against the wars during Bush's first term lest one be publicly labeled a traitor or a terrorist sympathizer. The same treatment was given to Vietnam War protesters during the earlier parts of the war.
Though in a more sophisticated manner, President Obama upped the authoritarian anti with his expansion of the use of drones to assassinate people, his administration's prosecution of whistle blowers, and his attempt to fast-track the TPP.
And now with President Trump, we're beginning to see authoritarianism on steroids. His belittling of critics and political opponents and accusations that they are enemies of the state because they oppose him is foreboding. And his requests for foreign governments to investigate and prosecute domestic political rivals is an ominous sign of the future, perhaps the near future. Then when you add his explicit admiration and sometimes even envy of brutal dictators and his followers justifying everything he does out of tribal loyalty (a.k.a., gang mentality), suspicion becomes certainty that Trump is trying to take more control over our government than any other President in our nation's history.
And what is ironic here is that the self-proclaimed vanguards for small government seem to promote the idea of an all powerful presidency for their man of the hour.
It seems that we are at the very beginning of what could be a very dark time in American history. And it isn't that the Democrats are offering to take us in a different direction. We need to slam on the brakes to slow down our descent into the abyss of authoritarianism before its too late.
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