Freedom under threat: It Could Happen Here |

“Lincoln dismissed the idea that a foreign power could stamp out American democracy. But there was another danger worth ruminating over: Americans themselves.”

Hate crimes. Antisemitism. Religious freedom. Free speech. Racial justice. Criminal justice reform. Education equity. Women’s equity. Voting rights. LGBTQ rights. Immigrant and refugee rights.

These are the issues that the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) focuses on. I did not realize the alarming extent that hate crimes are increasing … until I read It Could Happen Here: Why America Is Tipping from Hate to the Unthinkable—And How We Can Stop It by Jonathan Greenblatt, director of the ADL.

I must say here how dangerous I think it is that our country is stirring with internal conflict and anger like this. It’s obviously a sign of deeper issues (and hate-inspired acts are also — seeking someone to blame for our problems). Being so self-involved does not help us on a world stage, and in fact, I think it will accelerate our decline in power. We don’t see other countries losing lives and significant resources in Afghanistan and then tiptoeing out backwards so as not to anger the Taliban. We must focus on repairing the discontent within the U.S. if we are going to sustain our democracy. Powers like China and Russia are waiting for our stumbles, and there will be many more of them. Plus, we are better than this! This current devolvement into racism and political vitriol is not who we aspire to be! As someone who is focused on putting good energy into the world, it’s very frustrating to see. That’s my 2-cents for today.

The strongest aspect of Greenblatt’s book, in my opinion, is reflected in its title. The situation in America is much more dangerous than most people realize and we will see more of it if we don’t interrupt intolerance.

First, hate is global: “In Asia, invective directed at religious minorities—Muslims in India, the Rohingya in Myanmar, Shia in Pakistan—has led to despicable acts of violence. In Africa, displaced peoples have crossed borders seeking refuge from climate-spawned disasters or political unrest only to find themselves subject to racial violence. In the Middle East, long-standing religious hostility has exploded into systemic persecution and even armed conflict, with genocidal consequences for demographic and religious populations like the Yezidis in Syria, the Baha’is in Iran, and other minorities in the region.”

Recent genocides (despite “Never Again”): a million Tutsis in Rwanda, destruction of minority populations in the FSU under Stalin, the “ethnic cleansing” of Muslims in Bosnia during the 1990s, the slaughter of the Yezidi minority by ISIS in Syria.

What is causing this? “Social change and instability—political unrest, mass unemployment, the influx of refugees, pandemics, wars, and the like—can awaken and intensify this phenomenon. When humans feel desperate and uncertain and when dominant institutions and systems fail to deliver solutions, we become more vulnerable to insidious scapegoating and the leaders who peddle these theories. Seeking stability and a way to vent our emotions, we look to blame someone or something for our hardships.

“During the years leading up to the Great Recession, big business violated people’s trust, sending jobs overseas and holding down wages. trust in government plummeted to historic lows. Meanwhile, the increasing diversity of the American population heightened anxiety among some whites, raising the specter of a loss of economic and political power. Deepening economic inequality magnifies the tension, as does inadequate health care, excessive levels of personal debt, and stresses caused by once-in-a-century natural disasters that now occur every year.”

Powerful, wake-up moment #1: “Nobody would have thought that in America, the government would tear infants from the arms of their immigrant parents and ship them across the country or lock them up in camps or both. And yet, that’s exactly what happened. Nobody would have guessed that one day people would see brazen and violent attacks on innocent Jews in places like midtown Manhattan and downtown Los Angeles. And yet, that’s also exactly what happened.“

Wake-up moment #2: “Genocide Watch, an organization founded by Gregory Stanton, now a retired professor of Genocide Studies and Prevention at George Mason University, tracks genocide around the world, conceiving a society’s movement toward genocide as a ten-stage process that includes constituent processes such as the classification of certain groups as Others; the naming of these groups and designation of symbols attached to them; the pursuit of discrimination against targeted groups; the dehumanization of others by designating them “aliens,” “criminals,” or “terrorists”; the organization of armed forces that could carry out a genocide and/or takeover of society; the polarization of society; the planning of a coup d’état; the persecution of targeted groups; the extermination of members of these groups; and, throughout the other steps and after them, the denial of wrongdoing.

“As of this writing, Genocide Watch finds evidence for six of the ten stages in the United States, citing specific features such as the dehumanization of immigrants as rapists and robbers, the organization of white-supremacist groups, the polarization of Americans through racist and militarist propaganda, the spread of neo-Nazi conspiracy theories like QAnon, the development of a “leader” cult around Donald Trump, and the violent invasion of the U.S. Capitol to prevent certification of the 2020 election.”

#3: Professor of political science at University of California, San Diego, and an expert on civil wars, Barbara Walter observes that countries become more prone to civil wars when their political systems enter a middle zone between democracy and autocracy, combining elements of the two. Guess where the United States has been heading in recent years? Right into that middle zone, with the weakening of its democratic institutions.

“We potentially could see local white-supremacist militias in various regions of the United States target Jews, Blacks, and other minorities in an attempt to push them out and create mini-white-majority ethno-states. That scenario, although it might seem unlikely, is not implausible when you consider the sharpening rhetoric, the proliferation of firearms, and the precedents of recent terror attacks in the homeland. At the very least, Walter suggests, we can expect in the years ahead to see more support for extremists by an embattled white population.”

I didn’t know:

The “great replacement theory” came from the Balkans and, in particular, the idea of the Muslim population as usurpers of Serbians’ rightful place. Right-wing thinkers across the West explicitly reference the Serbian genocide as a model for them to follow.
White supremacists openly admire Islamic extremists and adopt their tactics, calling it “White Jihad.”

What should we do about this? Interrupt intolerance right away. Arm the general public so that all of us can mobilize to eliminate intolerance throughout society.

It’s truly important to interrupt intolerance at the moment when you see it happen and to do it intentionally and publicly. Asking for clarification can prompt speakers to stop and ponder what they’re saying without you having to point it out directly. Calling out hate in others has far more power when you have the courage to call it out among your own friends.
How do we reduce sectarianism and convince polarized Americans to engage with one another again? It’s simple: We must bring people together outside of their political and social media bubbles so they can rediscover their shared humanity and build trust. – via national service, dialogues, etc. (Greenblatt had a senior role in the Clinton and Obama White Houses overseeing domestic national-service programs.)
Congress should also pass legislation that mandates Holocaust education and genocide awareness in the classroom, trains community-based organizations in hate-crime prevention, implements restorative justice to rehabilitate perpetrators rather than simply punishing them, ensures adequate data collection about hate crimes, and so on.
Government should take steps to end social media’s facilitation of extremism. “These businesses indisputably have both the engineering and financial resources to neutralize the problem of hate and do it now.”
The US needs a drastic overhaul of Section 230. While the protection provided by this provision has yielded rich reservoirs of user-generated content on sites like Wikipedia and YouTube, it has also shielded companies from responsibility. We need a middle ground, upholding free expression while still managing the problem of online hate.
We should legally define cybercrimes like doxing (posting people’s personal information online to enable or encourage others to stalk or otherwise victimize them) and swatting (harassing people by calling authorities and falsely reporting an emergency, prompting police or others to arrive at their homes prepared to use lethal force).
Corporate America needs to get involved. Businesses have great influence on issues related to racism, discrimination, hate, and extremism.

The good news: “I believe the worst scenarios—full-scale genocide, a conflict that rivals the Civil War in its bloodiness, the permanent destruction of American democracy—are highly unlikely.”

My favorite quote from this book: “I don’t believe that the arc of the moral universe inexorably bends toward justice. We need to reach up, grab it with our bare hands, and bend it ourselves to create the change that we want, including movement toward a post-hate society.”

TAKE ACTION: Join thousands and add your name to this petition calling on the Biden Administration to create a task force dedicated to combating anti-Jewish hate in the U.S.

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Post #1: Freedom under threat – introducing the series

Post #2: Hate in the Homeland

Further posts in this series: