State of the Union On This Juneteenth: Authoritarianism is a Slow Moving Coup and America is in the Middle of It
- I, as a naturalized citizen of brown skin, have contemplated if I would have the mental strength to withstand this tyranny if I were abducted as an “administrative error.”
Years ago, I made a film titled “300 Miles to Freedom.” The film is a biography of a man named John W. Jones and his journey to freedom.
John was a slave on a plantation in Leesburg, Virginia. He one day decided that he had enough of his miserable life of enslavement. He headed north on foot hoping to find freedom in Canada. It was 1844, and leaving the plantation made him an illegal migrant and a vagrant.
He was a black man who wanted to be free. This was a crime at a time when empathy was lacking, and when black people were considered animals.
Now that he was on the run, it was legal to hunt him down. Bounty hunters made a pretty penny chasing down escaped slaves and bringing them back in chains.
It was perfectly legal to come all the way north, in parts where slaves were free and capture them and take them deep south. Even Abraham Lincoln had no problem with this arrangement and was using it as a bargaining tool to avoid going to war to end slavery.
Traveling by night, via the Underground Railroad, John arrived in Elmira, New York. Many white abolitionists hid escaped slaves from the bounty hunters. John fortunately came under the protection of one such abolitionist.
The bounty hunters struck fear deep into the souls of the free slaves. Being caught meant being taken to the deep recesses of the south, to a hell-scape where torture and torment were so extreme, they were meant to kill all aspirations for freedom.
As I see masked and militarized ICE officers pick up Hispanic people on the streets in America, in the year 2025, I am reminded of the bounty hunters of that bygone era of human bondage and suffering.
The modern bounty hunters hiding behind badges are not independent contractors, but are the arm of a regime that believes in a mindset rooted in that same dark past.
State Terrorism
While they arrest pregnant women, rip apart families, and descend with no warning on unassuming people going about their lives, one cannot mistake it for anything but an out of control state terrorism.
Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde, when speaking at the Washington National Cathedral soon after the inauguration, became an embodiment of empathy and made a direct appeal to the regime and its enablers. “I ask you to have mercy, Mr. President,” she said, adding: “We were all once strangers in this land.”
In the guise of ridding the nation of criminals, the current administration has unleashed a version of white supremacy not seen since the 1800s and Jim Crow. When the head of the agency overseeing this climate of terror poses for photos in a death prison against the backdrop of disappeared people in El Salvador, and appears on television everyday threatening people to self-deport, one needs to ask what sadistic pleasure does she derive from such an exercise of naked power?
Brown people across this nation are living in fear of being abducted and disappeared to prisons in faraway places without any recourse or due process. The abductions of Mahmoud Khalil and Kilmar Armando Ábrego García, are not isolated cases. These are just the ones that have gotten the attention they deserve and yet the regime chooses to make them an example, to drive home their diabolical intent of ignoring the courts.
I, as a naturalized citizen of brown skin, have contemplated if I would have the mental strength to withstand this tyranny if I were abducted as an “administrative error.” Who would come to my rescue? Should I have a lawyer on call? Can my use of words to criticize the regime I detest to my bone, land me in trouble? What if someone snitched on me?
These are thoughts that cross the minds of those who live in a society with no empathy but only fear. The fact that such thoughts cross my mind is a testimony of how far this nation has fallen in a matter of months, from its promise of being a beacon for the dispossessed since the time the first illegal immigrants arrived, escaping famine and tyranny on the Mayflower.
My friends and relatives have cautioned me to be careful. They say I should be judicious and guarded with my words. It is too late for that. I might already be on the radar of the internet spiders, spawned by the diabolical software companies that masquerade as agents of the government while lying that they are there to keep us safe.
What this regime is enacting on the streets of America and with its assault on our institutions, was spoken about loudly and clearly by the man leading the charge. His lack of empathy was on full garish display. His revenge tour was central to his campaign. Yet millions checked their own empathy at the door and voted this cabal into power.
Many Latinos voted for this regime as they were scared their compatriots coming up from the south would take their jobs.
Price of Seat at the Table
Affluent educated South Asians got behind candidates like Vivek Ramaswamy and Tulsi Gabbard, who had bent the knee for the demagogue, for a seat at the table. Being affluent they wanted a tax cut and were willing to keep their heads down, and are still stuck in that position.
Dictators love military parades, are preoccupied with enriching themselves, and they disappear people lowest on the totem pole of power. They handcuff opponents, take political prisoners (Mahmoud Khalil), control the media, attack educational institutions, ignore judges and their rulings.
Whoever voted for this, telling themselves whatever it takes to sleep at night, knew very well where it would lead us. January 6th and the felony convictions had given a clear picture of the entity we were dealing with. Empathy was clearly not a human quality millions cared about.
Many who brought this abhorrent regime to power, are happy with the way things are playing out. They think the nation is being cleansed of people who are mooching off the system. Meanwhile the people in power are in a feeding frenzy. From Mime-Coins to Million dollar tickets to galas, everything and everyone is for sale.
By dismantling institutions like USAID that show America’s empathy to the world, by firing many who have worked tirelessly to keep this nation safe all their lives, by attacking institutions of learning, science and knowledge itself, the depletion of American capital that was accrued over decades, is rapidly underway.
The charade called DOGE claims to be making the government lean and efficient, meanwhile managing to find millions for a military parade and the deployment of soldiers against its own citizens. In the meantime, institutions like NEH, NEA, PBS and NPR that embody empathy in their charter are demolished with a sledge hammer.
The senators lack empathy to come to the defense of one of their own for being handcuffed and humiliated. They would much rather bend the knee and keep their seats warm. Even when politicians are targeted and killed, the lack of empathy displayed by the MAGA maniacs is jaw dropping.
Lack of empathy is also on display in the response of university and political leadership to the students expressing how they feel about war crimes, mass murder and injustice in the world. When a piece of cloth (Keffiyeh) is snatched from students during commencement, and others are reprimanded for speaking truth to power by righteous right wing trolls, one does wonder if empathy means anything in this upside down world.
Even death is politicized in a world that is devoid of empathy. Value is attributed to a life based on one’s religious and political beliefs and not one’s humanity.
Empathy is an antidote to authoritarianism. There are some in today’s America who seem to believe that empathy gets in the way of clarity and purpose. They have lined up behind this regime ostensibly to help it become a strong, more powerful nation. But this admiration for strength is not accompanied by humanity or empathy.
Elon Musk tweeted “the problem with western civilization is empathy.” Many of his ilk who have supported this administration with their wealth and obedience, believe in this to their core.
Marching with 150,000 people in Manhattan, all feeling the urgency of the moment, did renew my faith in humanity’s capacity for love and empathy, at least for the four hours I was there… I hope it is contagious.
People like Peter Thiel and Alex Karp (co-founders of Palantir, a software company helping the regime surveil every citizen and coming up with innovative ways to pick out people for deportation by “mining data”), believe this in their core. They believe the west should dominate the world with military might and Technology power. They also believe that strong borders are necessary to build an all powerful nation. They have a delusional vision of an America in decline and do not possess even an iota of empathy that is necessary to heal our planet that is in free fall.
The real anarchists are those in power today. They are the ones who want to burn down the ideals and the structure that have guided this nation for all these years. Self proclaimed ultra right wing gurus like Curtis Yarvin, espouse such ideas which people like JD Vance admire and hope to implement with a ferocity never seen before. The “Tech-Bros” and the armies of young software engineers leading the charge are the “Hitler Youth” of our times.
Dictators love military parades, are preoccupied with enriching themselves, and they disappear people lowest on the totem pole of power. They handcuff opponents, take political prisoners (Mahmoud Khalil), control the media, attack educational institutions, ignore judges and their rulings. Tyrants appoint to office those who they can curry favor from, suspend elections and hold sham ones. They deploy the military against their own people and gut institutions so they can stay in power forever. Six months in, it looks like America is heading down this tired, tried and tested trajectory. Regimes in Brazil, Argentina, Russia, China and elsewhere have all gone down this road. What is appalling is that members of Congress are applauding this downfall from the sidelines. Authoritarianism is a slow moving coup and it seems that America is in the middle of it.
Thomas Jefferson famously said when the people are afraid of the government tyranny takes hold. But when the government is afraid of the people, liberty reigns. He was clearly aware of where this nation could potentially end up one day if the guardrails of democracy withered away.
John W. Jones survived and stayed a free man until his death. He went on to help hundreds of slaves to freedom. All the hatred and bigotry of his times could not prevent him from doing what was right. He showed to the world that empathy can cut through and conquer the harshest of times.
While following John W. Jones’s footsteps, we filmed at a Church in Elmira. The priest overseeing her parish ended her sermon that day with these words that are seared into my being. She said, “Humanity’s capacity for hate is bigger than God’s love for humankind, if you let it be”.
Marching with 150,000 people in Manhattan, all feeling the urgency of the moment, did renew my faith in humanity’s capacity for love and empathy, at least for the four hours I was there… I hope it is contagious.
Anand Kamalakar is a Brooklyn based documentary film director, producer and editor. His film OSBORNE will premiere on PBS nationwide next year.