I will remember those who were silent in Trump era

By Jon Hochschartner 

There’s a psychological phenomenon that I’m very familiar with as an animal activist. Rather than acknowledging a painful, challenging reality, people will go to absurd lengths to remain in denial. In my view, it’s this phenomenon that best explains the comparatively muted reaction amongst the American public to President Donald Trump’s rapid dismantling of our democratic institutions, as flawed as they are.

If what was happening in our country were happening abroad, we would have no trouble recognizing the nation’s dire, authoritarian trajectory. Trump has built a massive secret police force, which kidnaps people off the street and sends them to domestic and foreign concentration camps, without due process. The military is occupying cities governed by opponents of the regime. Comedians are being pulled off the air for criticizing the president.

No one, certainly no one with any power, wants to acknowledge the full scope of the danger America faces. Republicans are all in on this fascist takeover. The few principled conservative defenders of democracy have no right-wing constituency behind them. Meanwhile, names of Democratic opposition leaders will go down in history as synonymous with cowardly appeasement to totalitarianism. They have failed us.

Sadly, I don’t think this failure is limited to elected officials. There are so many activists I know who have disappeared from view or are pretending what’s currently taking place isn’t happening. In many cases, these were some of the loudest voices during President Barack Obama’s presidency, when the winds of change appeared to be at our backs. It’s very hard for me not to resent their silence as a fascist regime consolidates power.

I try not to judge others. After all, there are a million skeletons in my closet. I’ve made so many mistakes and not lived up to my professed ideals in so many ways. I’ve also burned out on politics for prolonged periods. And yet I like to think that — even in my most blinkered and self-interested state — the current crisis of democracy would rouse me into action. I keep waiting and waiting for this to happen for the aforementioned activists.

The anti-fascist coalition has a wide variety of policy goals. As an example, I want to see a massive infusion of state and federal funding into cultivated-meat research. For those who don’t know, the new protein is grown from livestock cells, without slaughter. I view it as the most promising means of reducing animal suffering and premature death. However none of our goals can be achieved under a right-wing dictatorship. 

Of course, there are good reasons why some have retreated from public life. Perhaps they’re immigrants or transgender and face a very significant, immediate threat of government repression. But this isn’t the case for many activists who have thus far kept their head down in Trump’s second term, apparently hoping the authoritarian mood in this country will blow over, without any intervention on their part.

Again, I dislike judging others. It inevitably makes me more judgemental of myself. Still, I will have a hard time forgetting the silence of some activists in the current moment, when everything they nominally stand for is in jeopardy. If these progressives wait much longer to stand up, they won’t  have an opportunity to redeem themselves, because what little is left of American democracy will be gone.

Jon Hochschartner lives in Connecticut. He is the author of a number of books, including The Animals’ Freedom Fighter: A Biography of Ronnie Lee, Founder of the Animal Liberation Front.