The world’s greatest democracy is in danger of ending not with a bang, but with a whimper, warns David Frum, senior editor at The Atlantic. His heart-clenching description of how the Trump administration might slowly and steadily destroy our form of government is sharply detailed in his Atlantic article, “How to Build and Autocracy.” In it, he writes:
“Those citizens who fantasize about defying tyranny from within fortified compounds have never understood how liberty is actually threatened in a modern bureaucratic state: not by diktat and violence, but by the slow, demoralizing process of corruption and deceit. And the way that liberty must be defended is not with amateur firearms, but with an unwearying insistence upon the honesty, integrity, and professionalism of American institutions and those who lead them. We are living through the most dangerous challenge to the free government of the United States that anyone alive has encountered. What happens next is up to you and me. Don’t be afraid. This moment of danger can also be your finest hour as a citizen and an American.”
I would like to call attention to the sort of autocrat Frum describes in his article. This is an absolute dictator and bully who will allow neither dissent nor disagreement. How many of us have worked for companies with a boss who fits this description? That is why people need reassurance that they can become activists for positive change, just as Frum describes and as discussed in my book, From Bully to Bull’s-Eye: Move Your Organization Out of the Line of Fire.
Frum is more than a fine writer who has sharply delineated the direction in which America might go if the people don’t rise up—he’s a political insider whose has allowed his beliefs to evolve and owned up to his own errors in judgment. This is why we are naming him as our Revolutionist of the Week.
Credit: CNN