Living In The Truth
Truth As Power
Vaclav Havel (1936-2011) was a playwright, political dissident and statesman. Living under communist rule in Czechoslovakia he became a leading critic of the regime. Because of his activism and prolific writing, he was surveilled, ruthlessly interrogated and imprisoned. During the totalitarian rule in Czechoslovakia, he founded a human rights movement, and wrote about the perils of living in the lie, the propensity of citizens to pretend to believe or at least comply with the propaganda of the regime in order to stay safe or protect their self-interests.
Havel insisted that totalitarianism depends on compliance, normalization of the abnormal and for the people to be willing to accept the lie, either because they believe it or just go along with it for varied reasons. He argued that a defense against such a system is to ‘live in the truth’, which means to reject the lie and act according to one’s own convictions. He taught that truth is dissent and that truth threatens the entire structure of a regime. He believed that living in truth is a form of power for the seemingly powerless and it creates a community who supports one another in resisting a lie-based system.
Did You Know:
Since our country’s founding, we have been living in an imperfect republic with fascism’s fangs consistently threatening our freedoms. Slavery was a fascist enterprise that nearly ripped asunder our young nation, an enterprise upheld not only by slave owners but sanctioned by the political, religious and business leaders throughout the South. They ‘lived in the lie’ that only some people deserve to be free, that black people were less than human, that God smiled on their brutality and the rights of the individual states trumped the rights a federal government. “Don’t tread on me” has deep, insidious roots in our history. The oppressor of their time was not a single leader but a a social order ruled by religious fundamentalism, a rigid caste system, moral bankruptcy and greed.
Some scholars believe we are living in a ‘Neo-Confederacy’ in part because the original Confederacy never accepted the outcome of the Civil War. When reconstruction began as a way to mend the divisions, the southern states fought against it. The Ku Klux Klan was an early iteration of what has devolved into the Department of Homeland Security. The ‘homeland’ in DHS is not the United States of America, the homeland is the Neo-Confederacy of the red states.
These red states have been laboratories for authoritarianism for at least two decades. Partisan gerrymandering and voter suppression have given legislative control over these states and they are fueling the dismantling of our democracy. Indiana has been a leader of voter suppression, environmental degradation, privatization of government functions, undermining public instruction, stripping worker’s rights and women’s reproductive freedoms, and gun safety deregulation since the early 2000’s. In 2009, Project Redmap supercharged their power.
Blue states and their leaders are now considered the ‘enemy from within’. Within that context we can better understand Kristi Noem’s declaration that DHS was in Los Angeles to liberate it. The Department of Homeland Security has become the militarized force of a neo-Confederate regime. Within their constructed worldview, MAGA followers and their leaders insist that everything they are doing is justified and virtuous.
Why It Matters:
The MAGA regime is being aided and abetted by others willing to live in the lie. Those who have decided that truth is too dangerous or inconvenient are a mixed sort, but the aggregate is a toxic mix and an existential threat to our freedoms. A few of those who are either willingly or passively living in the lie include:
The billionaires who control Big Tech, digital platforms and the entertainment industry including Apple, Meta, Microsoft and Oracle, CBS and Paramount.
College and university presidents who have obeyed in advance or complied with threats and intimidation in fear of retribution thus relinquishing intellectual freedom and causing great harm to their students, faculty and staff, as well as decimating invaluable research. These academic institutions include but are not limited to Harvard, Brown, Columbia, Northwestern, Indiana and Purdue Universities.
Legacy media who have abdicated their role as the 4th estate in holding power accountable and informing the public including The Washington Post, New York Times and Wall Street Journal.
Corporate leaders such as Target, Home Depot, Lowes, Amazon and Uber.
Everyday people who are apathetic, disengaged or insist that they stay away from politics because both sides are equally bad.
Everyday people who chose to stay uninformed and unaware or refuse to believe that ‘Trump will really do those crazy things he says’.
Everyday people who use social media as their form of activism and political engagement.
Everyday people who just pretend everything is normal and refuse to face what’s really happening around them.
Politicians and elected leaders who go along to get along and continue to act as if we are not in the existential threat of our lifetime including most (not all) members of the DNC and Indiana Democratic Party. The Republican party has been seized by MAGA and the white Christian nationalist movement.
What We Can Do
Hannah Arendt(1906-1975) was a German-born American, considered to be one of the 20th century’s most influential thinkers on democracy, power and totalitarianism. She fled Nazi Germany as a Jewish refugee. She stressed ‘thoughtlessness’ was a danger to democracy and that active citizenship was vital to maintain a free society. We can trust the wisdom of those who have lived through authoritarian regimes. They speak from experience and are our muses for this moment.
To be thoughtful people of the truth, we must be informed of what is true. It is our moral duty as a free people to seek out dependable sources of news and information. At best, legacy media sane washes the insane and normalizes the outrageous. At worst it devolves into a propaganda outlet for spreading disinformation. Many of their journalists have moved to Substack, BlueSky and YouTube. These platforms are the emergent platforms for trusted news and information.
We must believe our own eyes, bear witness to the harm, build community, think critically and be willing to speak to the truth. We can do these things in our way, in our own style and always with others. This is not the time to sit on the sidelines and let others do the hard work. This is not the time to fall into denial, despair, disbelief or disillusionment as an excuse for non action. However, we can channel our inner Moira and retreat to a closet or wish for a good coma every now and then. She has lived through some dark times and can be our survival guide.
Connect with local and national groups who are fighting against this regime of terror. Boycott Target, Amazon, Whole Foods, Home Depot, Spotify, Lowes and any other organizations you know that have abandoned DEI values, who are allowing surveillance in their parking lots, who are bankrolling MAGA operatives. Insist that your faith leaders speak up as a moral voice against the terror and brutality of this regime. Banish the phrase “we must be careful of our tax-exempt non-partisan status” from your vocabulary. Be calculating not careful.
It’s going to get worse before it gets better. More people will be murdered, tortured, go hungry, become unhoused and uninsured. More journalists, activists and celebrities will be jailed. This is not a drill.
If we stand together, are strong and collectively resist in our own unique ways, we will prevail. Then we can begin to build a better, stronger and more perfect union.
Positively bedeviled with living the truth,
Debbie & H4D Team
Three cheers for Hoosiers for Democracy! Please know that your work has inspired me from Day One onward, and please keep getting into good trouble! Voices like yours that come from a state which has long been dominated by right-wing politics are an important reminder of the diversity found across American political life—and your voice in particular has always been clear, grounded, compelling and hopeful. Thank you, and keep on keepin' on!
Brave post. I had not heard the idea of neo Confederacy but it fits what I have understood as the red state split. It gives some new language to explain the larger systems at play.